Jacob Jordaens
Leading Flemish Baroque painter of genre scenes
Jacob (Jacques) Jordaens was a Flemish painter, draughtsman and tapestry designer known for his history paintings, genre scenes and portraits. After Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, he was the leading Flemish Baroque painter of his day. Unlike those contemporaries he never travelled abroad to study Italian painting, and his career is marked by an indifference to their intellectual and courtly aspirations. In fact, except for a few short trips to locations in the Low Countries, he remained in Antwerp his entire life. As well as being a successful painter, he was a prominent designer of tapestries. Like Rubens, Jordaens painted altarpieces, mythological, and allegorical scenes, and after 1640—the year Rubens died—he was the most important painter in Antwerp for large-scale commissions and the status of his patrons increased in general. However, he is best known today for his numerous large genre scenes based on proverbs in the manner of his contemporary Jan Brueghel the Elder, depicting The King Drinks and As the Old Sing, So Pipe the Young. Jordaens’ main artistic influences, besides Rubens and the Brueghel family, were northern Italian painters such as Jacopo Bassano, Paolo Veronese, and Caravaggio.
Relationship Network
Master student
- Hendrick Berckman Student
- Jan Boeckhorst Student
- Johann Ulrich Mayr Student
Influenced by
- Peter Paul Rubens Source
- Jan Brueghel the Elder Source
- Jacopo Bassano Source
- Paolo Veronese Source
- Caravaggio Source
Influenced
Artworks by this artist (130 total)
- An academy of a male nude seated
- The Conversion of Saul with Christ and the Cross c. 1645-47
- The Holy Family by Candlelight between circa 1621 and circa 1622
- Susanna And The Elders
- Alter Mann von vorne, in die Höhe blickend
- Die Heilige Familie mit Elisabeth und dem Johannesknaben ca 1640
- Democritus and Heraclitus
- ‘It is good candles which light the way’ 1640s
- The Adoration of the Shepherds c. 1617
- The Apotheosis of Aeneas 1615 - 1619
- Christ Healing the Paralytic ca. 1616-20
- The Flight Of Lot And His Family From Sodom
- Human Law Founded on the Divine Justice 1665
- Study of a Young Girl Drinking from a Glass ca. 1640-45
- Old Satyr Holding a Flute
- Allegory of Fertility 16th century
- Susannah Crouching c. 1640-1645
- The Holy Family with Saint Anne and the Young Baptist and His Parents early 1620s and 1650s
- Christus en de overspelige vrouw circa 1670
- Moses Striking Water from the Rock 1645-1650