Jacob Jordaens (redirected from Jacopo di Giordano)

Jordaens, Jacob 

Born May 19, 1593, in Antwerp; died there Oct. 18, 1678. Flemish painter.

Jordaens, the son of a cloth merchant, began his artistic training under A. van Noort in 1607. He organized a large studio, where his many commissioned works were executed. Jordaens’ work, which is noted for its keen sensory perception of life, its powerful brushwork, and its inexhaustible optimism, strongly reflects folk elements and the realist tendencies characteristic of the Flemish school of art. Early Dutch traditions and elements of Carravagism are also evident. In his early paintings, such as Family Portrait (c. 1615, Hermitage, Leningrad) and The Adorationof the Shepherds (1618, National Museum, Stockholm), Jordaens uses many of Carravagio’s devices. These devices include the crowded arrangement of common people in the foreground of the picture, the emphasis on the materiality of objects, and the contrasts of light and shade.

Among Jordaens’ best works, which were painted in the 1620’s and 1630’s, are The Education of Jupiter (1620, Picture Gallery, Kassel), Family Portrait (c. 1622–25, Prado, Madrid), The Allegory of Fertility (c. 1625–28, Museum of Ancient Art, Brussels), and Boonenfeest (1638, Hermitage). These paintings reflect the distinctive characteristics of Jordaens’ realism—a predilection for sanguine peasant and burgher types, strong heavy figures, and lavish details; a preference for genre scenes and secular treatment of religious and mythological themes; and the use of warm colors and a strong, energetic, impasto painting technique.

Beginning in the 1640’s, Jordaens painted overly crowded ceremonial compositions, which were characterized by a sense of pompousness and false enthusiasm (for example, the panel The Triumph of Prince Frederik Hendrik of Orange, 1652, Huis ten Bosch, The Hague).

REFERENCES

[Smol’skaia, N.] Iakob Iordans. Moscow, 1959. [Album.]
Puyvelde, L. van. Jordaens. Paris-Brussels, 1953.