Jacob Jordaens Portrait of Magdalena de Cuyper, mother of Rogier Le Witer ca. 1635-36 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
Jacob Jordaens Portrait of Rogier Le Witer, Grand Almoner of Antwerp 1635 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
Jacob Jordaens Portrait of Catharine Behaghel, wife of Rogier Le Witer 1635 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
Jacob Jordaens Miracle of the obol in the mouth of the fish ca. 1630-45 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
"Every picture consisting of many figures must needs have some historical part in it, seeing it is but a dull and unprofitable thing when many schemes are heaped up together without either sense or learning: it is ever requisite that the very figures which are represented in the worke should teach us by a speechlesse discourse what connexion there is in them; but because in every historicall relation the things that are a doing are ever most remarkable, so is it that an understanding and warie Artificer doth ever assigne the principall place unto the principall figures which have the chiefest hand in the represented action. "We are ever to beginne with what is chiefe," sayth Quintilian, "neither doth any man, that is to make a picture or statue, take his beginning at the feet." As for the other circumstances, he fitteth them afterwards unto severall places, representing them a farre off in smaller figures, and sometimes also involving them and shutting them up as it were in a certaine kinde of mist: "The Painter hath shed a mist about the other things," sayth Philostratus, "that they might rather resemble things alreadie done, than things that are a doing."
– from Book Three (chapter five) of The Painting of the Ancients by Franciscus Junius, first published in English in 1638 – edited by Keith Aldrich, Philipp Fehl and Raina Fel for University of California Press, 1991
Jacob Jordaens Marsyas ill-treated by the Muses ca. 1630-40 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
Jacob Jordaens Meeting of Odysseus and Nausicaa ca. 1630-40 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
Jacob Jordaens Carrying the Cross 1657 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum. Amstserdam |
Jacob Jordaens Entombment ca. 1660-69 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
Jacob Jordaens Justice seated between Faith and Love ca. 1643-47 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
Jacob Jordaens Infant Jupiter suckled by the Goat Amalthea ca. 1640 wash drawing Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
Jacob Jordaens Equestrian statue under arch before 1678 drawing Rijksmuseum, Saint Petersburg |
Jacob Jordaens Armorial design for the Van der Linden family ca. 1630-35 wash drawing Rijksmuseum |
Jacob Jordaens Fable of the Satyr and the Peasant (as engraved by Jacob Neefs) 1680 engraving Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
Johann Liss Fable of the Satyr and the Peasant ca. 1623-26 oil on canvas National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
"The unusual subject of this painting comes from one of Aesop's fables. In his Man and the Satyr, he related how a demigod helped a peasant who was lost on a wintry day. When the mortal put his chilled fingers to his mouth to breathe warmth onto them, the immortal satyr was astonished. Later, in thanks for the satyr's guidance, the peasant invited him to eat. The soup being hot, the man blew on his spoon to cool it. Johann Liss portrayed the tale's climax when the satyr jumps up in disgust, proclaiming, 'From this moment I renounce your friendship, for I will have nothing to do with one who blows hot and cold with the same breath' – the moral being that all humans are hypocrites because they inconsistently blow hot and cold."
"Johann Liss was among the initiators of the dynamic baoque style of the 1600s. The sonorous color scheme shows his knowledge of past Venetian masters such as Titian and Veronese, while the dramatic conflict of light and shadow reveals an acquaintance with the spotlighting which Caravaggio concurrently employed in Rome. But the main influences here are the energized movement and robust figure types derived from the contemporary Antwerp geniuses, Jacob Jordaens and Peter Paul Rubens."