Jordaens, Jacob (yä`kôp yôr`däns), 1593–1678, Flemish baroque painter, b. Antwerp. After the deaths of Rubens and Van Dyck, by whom he was influenced, he became the leading Flemish painter of his day and worked in Antwerp nearly all his life. Like Rubens, Jordaens produced portraits and religious and allegorical paintings, often expressing a joy of life. In early works (c.1612–25), such as The Artist's Family (Hermitage, St. Petersburg) and Allegory of Fertility (Brussels), he reveals the influence of Caravaggio in his firm modeling and realistically treated surface. Works executed c.1625–35 show increased grandeur and richness (Triumph of Bacchus; Kassel), and in the next years Rubens and Van Dyck influences are especially clear. In the last 25 years of his life, Jordaens stressed increasingly the classicist elements in baroque art, moving from the energetic Triumph of Prince Frederik Hendrik of Orange (The Hague) to the more rigidly composed Christ and the Doctors (Mainz). Examples of his work may be seen in many of the major museums of Europe and the United States.

Jordaens, Jacob

The King Drinks, oil painting by Jacob Jordaens, 1638; in the Royal …

(credit: Courtesy of the Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels; photograph, Photo SASKIA, North Amherst, Mass.)

(born May 19, 1593, Antwerp, Spanish Netherlands—died Oct. 18, 1678, Antwerp) Flemish painter active in Antwerp. He was admitted to the painters' guild in 1615 and by the 1620s had a flourishing studio with many students. After the death of Peter Paul Rubens, to whose Baroque style he was indebted, he became the leading painter in Flanders. His paintings, crowded with robust figures, are noted for strong contrasts of light and shade and an air of sensual vitality bordering on coarseness. He also produced religious paintings and portraits. His most important commissions were two enormous murals for the royal residence called the Huis ten Bosch, near The Hague. His later works tend to be mediocre and were frequently executed by assistants.