Jacob Jordaens

Early years Jacques Jordaens was born in Antwerp on 19 May 1593, the first of eleven children of the wealthy linen merchant Jacob Jordaens and Barbara van Wolschaten. Little is known about Jordaens' early education. It is likely that he received the advantages of the education usually enjoyed by children of his social class as is demonstrated by his clear handwriting, competence in French and thorough knowledge of mythology. His familiarity with biblical subjects is further evidenced in his many religious paintings. His personal interest in the Bible was illustrated by his later conversion from Catholicism to Protestantism. During his training,felis Jordaens lived in van Noort's house in the Everdijstraat where he became very close to the family. In 1615, after eight years of training with van Noort, he was accepted in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke as a master "waterscilder" ('water painter'). No examples of his earliest tempera works are extant. It is not clear whether Jordaens actually painted such works as his master van Noort was not known to create such works. On 15 May 1616, he married his master's eldest daughter, Catharina van Noort. The couple had three children, Elisabeth, Jacob, who became a painter, and Anna Catharina. The couple originally lived with or near Jordaens' father in law. In 1618, they bought two adjoining houses in the Hoogstraat, the street where Jordaens was born, but which were situated behind the house of the merchant Backx. His father in law later moved in with them. Jordaens became in 1616 a member of the 'Gilde van de Armenbus' (Guild of the Poor Box). Career Even before he was admitted as a master in the Guild he had started working for the free market. According to the legend of the martyrdom of St. Apollonia, the 3rd-century saint jumped into a fire rather than denounce her faith. Jordaens' treatment of the subject is crowded and dramatic. It was likely Rubens who had been able to secure this commission. That Jordaens was also invited to contribute to this project shows the high regard in which he was already held at that early period of his career. Jordaens was one of the artists invited to work on the decorations for the Joyous Entry into Antwerp in 1635 of the new governor of the Habsburg Netherlands Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand. Rubens was in overall charge of the design of this project. Jordaens'contribution consisted of a few decorative paintings made after designs by Rubens. The work has not been preserved as it was solely intended as a temporary decoration for the Joyous Entryof the new governor. Jordaens also played a part in this collaborative effort. Two works in the series attributed to Jordaens are Apollo and Pan (1637), made after a sketch by Rubens, and Vertummus and Pomona (1638). Van Dyck's Cupid and Psyche may also be related to this commission. While the works were to be displayed in the Queen's House at Greenwich upon completion, the patron and final location were unknown to Jordaens at the time he received the commission. When Jordaens submitted his initial designs to his intermediaries between himself and the English court, Gerbier was still attempting to convince the King that Rubens was a better choice for a project requiring a thorough skill in foreshortening. His efforts failed when Rubens died on 30 May 1640. With Rubens' death, Jordaens was given the sole responsibility for the entire commission. He lived and worked there until his death in 1678. In 1652 he painted for his 'showroom' (pronkkamer) in the south wing of his home nine ceiling pieces depicting the erotic history of the god of love Cupid and the royal daughter Psyche. According to the inventory left by Jordaens' grandchildren, these paintings were part of the sale of the house in 1708. The walls and doors of the room were also covered with paintings. This was the room where Jordaens received his guests and clients. The decoration of the room was intended to impress his visitors by his mastery through the depiction of the mythological tale of earthly and heavenly love, betrayal and fidelity. As the paintings from the Story of Cupid and Psyche were mounted on the ceiling, Jordaens used a lot of foreshortening in the pictures to create the illusion of depth. The perspective system was borrowed verbatim from Rubens' ceiling pieces in the Jesuit church in Antwerp. The paintings are viewed through an octagonal 'aperture' frame. The canvas entitled Psyche receives the cup of immortality on the Olympus is the centrepiece of the series. Other paintings in the series are ''Psyche's Father Questions the Oracle in the Temple of Apollo, the Love of Cupid and Psyche, the Oracle of Apollo, the Curiosity of Psyche, Cupid's Flight, Psyche Received by the Gods'' and two putti pieces. The original ceiling and door paintings have survived and are now in the collection of The Phoebus Foundation in Antwerp. The paintings on the walls are lost but some of the designs for them have been preserved. Religion In Antwerp, which was ruled by Catholic Spanish monarchs, the Protestant religion was forbidden although it should have been tolerated under the terms of the 1648 Peace of Münster which officially recognised the Dutch Republic. Towards the end of his life, Jordaens converted to Calvinism. He, his wife and daughter Elisabeth were members of the Calvinist congregation that had been established in Antwerp after the Peace of Münster despite the continued repression of Protestantism in the Habsburg Netherlands. His daughter Anna Catharina was likely also a member as she married a Jansenist. The schout of Antwerp fined Jordaens between 1651 and 1658 an amount of 200 pounds and 15 shillings for his 'scandalous' (i.e. heretical) writings. His workshop practices occasionally caused him trouble. In 1648 one of his patrons, Martinus van Langenhoven, accused him of having sold him inauthentic paintings. Jordaens defended himself against the accusation with the argument that he had personally put the finishing touches on works executed by assistants in his workshop. ==Work==

General Jordaens was a very prolific painter, draftsman and designer of tapestries and prints who left a large oeuvre. He worked primarily, though not exclusively, for the rich Antwerp bourgeoisie. He received also a few commissions from aristocratic patrons. The many commissions, also from church patrons, he received after becoming the leading Flemish painter following Rubens' death resulted in a decline in the quality of his output due to an increased reliance on workshop assistance. Jordaens' paintings are populated with many figures, even though he lacked compositional talent. He combined high art with folk culture related elements. The popular tone of his genre painting sometimes borders on the caricature as he depicts his personages acting in a very effusive manner. His art has often been regarded as less idealized than that of Rubens and van Dyck. An example of this combination of high art and populist tendencies is shown in his multiple versions of the fable of The Satyr and the Peasant. Based on the fable of the Satyr and the Peasant from Aesop's Fables, Jordaens used the fable to combine two of the painting genres in which he excelled: mythological painting and the peasant genre. His various interpretations of the subject and the many repetitions of these works by his workshop and followers popularized the theme which was then taken up by Flemish and Dutch painters such as Jan Cossiers and Jan Steen. Influence of Rubens in Vienna Jordaens was greatly influenced by Rubens who occasionally employed him to reproduce his designs in a larger format. After the death of Rubens, Jordaens advanced to the position of one of the most prominent painters in Antwerp. Like Rubens, Jordaens relied on a warm palette, naturalism, and a mastery of chiaroscuro and tenebrism. Jordaens excelled in representations of the base character of humanity. His classically inspired peasant themes and large-scale moralistic genre scenes influenced Jan Steen. Although Jacques Jordaens did not specialize, he often repeated a theme based on a proverb that depicted a wide range of characters of a variety of ages, crowded in a festive scene around a banquet table. These humorous pieces have a sense of coarseness. As a devout Christian he also painted various versions of the Adoration of the Shepherds of which he painted at least 7 versions. In the latter subject he usually grouped half-length figures closely together and cropped the scene so that the viewer would focus all attention on the figures. This compositional approach sought to intensify the narrative and accentuate the characters' expression. As the Old Sing, So the Young Pipe As the Old Sang, So the Young Pipe (c.1638–1640) is considered a companion to The King Drinks (also called The Feast of the Bean King) (Louvre, Paris). Both paintings are of a moralizing nature, have near identical measurements, and related styles. As the Old Sang, So the Young Pipe shows three generations of wealthy Antwerp burghers sitting around a table making music. Being a popular theme among Jordaens and his clients, several versions of this painting were created. In the version shown, Jordaens' father-in-law Adam van Noort is depicted as the old man. In this popular painting genre, elderly and middle-aged figures are always portrayed singing and creating music, as children "pipe" along. Prometheus was punished for his audacity by Zeus for having given fire to man, not just in its physical form, but also in the fire of reason, which can be related to man's creativity in arts and sciences. In contrast with Rubens' version, Jordaens' inclusion in the work of the god Hermes arguable holds out the hope of release from the punishment as in certain versions of the mythological story, Hermes helps Prometheus gain freedom. Still, in the Prometheus Bound attributed to Aeschylus, Hermes treats Prometheus badly, which would undermine this optimistic interpretation. The depiction of the sacks of bones (used in another part of the myth to deceive Zeus) and a clay statue (which represents his creation of man) are also not part of Rubens' composition. Another notable difference is the look of pure agony in Jordaens' Prometheus while Rubens relies on the contortions of the body to convey the same feeling. Jordaens' Prometheus is a facial study, a prevalent subject found in the paintings of Jordaens and other artists of the period. ==Tapestry designs==

Jacques Jordaens' most significant body of work were the numerous designs he did for tapestries. As the most lucrative of the arts, tapestries were considered precious throughout the Renaissance and Baroque periods. These large wall hangings had begun to appear on the walls of wealthy European nobility in the fourteenth century. Following the success of the Brussels tapestries woven after the Raphael Cartoons, 16th and 17th-century patrons employed artists as tapestry designs; Jacques Jordaens, Peter Paul Rubens and Pietro Cortona flattered patrons allegorically in a manner that would identify them with famous historical or mythological figures, as a form of aristocratic self-promotion. Jordaens' tapestries were made for the aristocracy who placed such high value on them they would carry them with them while they travelled or went on military campaigns as a symbol of their status. Jordaens' scope of artistic representation was diverse, ranging from mythology, country life, to the history of Charlemagne. It has been noted that Jordaens' tapestry design incorporated densely organized crowds of figures, packed into a flat two-dimensional picture plane emphasizing surface patterns which resulted in a "woven picture". Just as he liked to crowd his genre paintings he carried forward to his tapestries. ==Drawings==

Maintaining trends in Flemish painting, Jordaens was a proponent of extending Rubens' and Van Dyck's "painterly" style of art to his exceptionally prolific body of preparatory drawings. Today, approximately 450 drawings are attributed to Jordaens. There is continuing scholarly debate on the accuracy of attributions of Flemish drawings to either Jordaens or Rubens, due to their similar style and oeuvre. Jordaens and his contemporaries were proponents of the Flemish trend towards making, expanding, and modifying preparatory drafts for larger paintings or to add to their visual vocabulary the classical artistic ideals. As a painter-draftsman, Jordaens often employed gouache and washes to his preparatory drawings. Jordaens was very thrifty with his paper and often reused pieces of paper. He often enlarged a drawing at once or later by transferring it to a larger sheet or adding strips of paper. ==Prints==

Jordaens was also engaged in the print publishing business as an organiser and designer of prints. Like Rubens and van Dyck before him, he realised the important role the print medium could play in distributing his work and raising his international fame. This was particularly the case as he was working in Antwerp, one of the most important printing centres of Europe at the time. About 34 prints made or designed by Jordaens are currently known. The first print published after a design by Jordaens may have been The Satyr and the Peasant engraved by Lucas Vorsterman the Elder, a prominent printmaker who had been Rubens' dedicated engraver. The print was made after Jordaens' painting of the same name which is dated to about 1621 and is now in the Goteborg Museum. Although Vorsterman likely took the initiative to make the print, Jordaens is believed to have assisted in its production. An important portion of prints made after Jordaens' designs were produced on his own initiative between c. 1635 and c. 1645. No painting or drawing connected with any of the 14 engravings in this group can be securely dated after 1645. They were engraved by a number of engravers active in Antwerp including Marinus Robyn van der Goes, Schelte a Bolswert, Paulus Pontius, Jacob Neefs, Pieter de Jode II and Nicolaes Lauwers. Almost all of the prints carry in the lower margin below the image, the name of Jordaens as inventor to the left and the name of the engraver to the right, the Latin words 'cum privilegio' in the centre, and a short explanation of the image in Latin verse. An additional group of six prints was published with publishers other than Jordaens. Jordaens designed a few of these prints at the request of the publisher Martinus van den Enden. This is the case with the Christ before Caiaphas engraved by Marinus Robyn van der Goes and the Christ before Pilate by Jacob Neefs. Pieter de Jode II's The Fool, the Woman and the Owl and Alexander Voet the Elder's Old Fool with a Cat were likely published without personal interference by Jordaens. Another print by Pieter de Jode II, a reproduction of a self-portrait by Jordaens was engraved for Joannes Meyssens' Images des diverses hommes, a publication with engraved portraits of many famous men published in 1649. Hendrick Snyers reproduced Jordaens' portrait of his father in law Adam van Noort for the same publication. Some art historians have conjectured that seven etchings made after paintings by Jordaens had been etched by Jordaens himself as the early impressions of these prints only carry the inscription ‘Iac. Iordaens inventor 1652’ without a reference to the engraver. It has recently been suggested that these prints are more likely to be the work of the Antwerp printmaker Remoldus Eynhoudt who had trained under the same master as Jordaens. The grounds for the revised attribution is that the said prints do not show the typical features of Jordaens' style as displayed in his paintings and drawings but rather exhibit the characteristics and weaknesses of Eynhoudt's known oeuvre. They were undoubtedly produced in 1652, as the inscriptions state. A majority of them are related to painted or drawn compositions of Jordaens dating to the late 1640s or around 1650 such as the print Mercury and Argus It is likely that Jordaens took the initiative to have these etchings made after his works. Jordaens had a particularly close collaboration with the printmaker Marinus Robyn van der Goes who as a result created many prints after his works such as the Heracles and Cacus. Jordaens regularly prepared the prints after his own designs by creating drawings on paper, which are referred to as ‘modelletti’. They were executed in pen, ink and wash, heightened with body colour, often over a preparatory sketch in black chalk. In a few cases, the drawings were laid down on canvas to be sold as cabinet paintings. ==References==