Adriaen van Ostade
(1610 - 1685) |
|
Genre Narratives, Portraiture Art Work
| Name: |
Adriaen van Ostade |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Haarlem |
| Nationality: |
Dutch |
| Birth: |
1610 |
| Death: |
1685 |
| Website: |
|
| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
|
|
Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Genre Narratives, Portraiture |
| Medium: |
|
| Method: |
|
| Style: |
|
| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painter
Engraver
|
|
|
Biography
| Ostade was the leading developer of the "low-life" scenes for which Haarlem became the center in the 1620s. A master of frank and often humorous depictions of tavern scenes featuring gambling and drinking, as well as humble domestic scenes of peasants in their homes, Ostade left us with a broad record of Dutch life in his 800 or so surviving paintings, fifty etchings, and numerous drawings and watercolors. Everything from itinerant musicians and other travelers to teachers, alchemists, and artists were described by this observant and sympathetic painter. Active for nearly fifty years, Ostade changed his style to follow the general trends in Dutch art, but he never lost his ability to convey vividly the ordinary life around him. Baptized in Haarlem in December 1610, Adriaen must have been apprenticed by around 1625 or so - though his training is not documented. Houbraken states that Ostade studied with Frans Hals, along with Adriaen Brouwer, around 1626 or 1627, a possibility confirmed by the influence of Hals, but particularly the Fleming Brouwer, on Ostade's work. By 1632 Ostade was already known outside Haarlem - we know he completed a painting for a client in Utrecht that year. He was certainly a member of the Haarlem St. Luke's Guild by 1634, and in 1636 he belonged to the militia. In 1638 he married and two years later was sued by Salomon van Ruysdael* for default in payment of tuition and board. His first wife died childless in 1642, and he remarried a Catholic in 1657 and perhaps converted. The couple had a daughter. Adriaen's second wife died in 1666, leaving him a substantial inheritance. Ostade lived in a wealthy Haarlem community and was a leader in his guild (serving as dean in 1662). He seems to have had numerous customers for his work and was extraordinarily prolific. His brother Isack was among his most important pupils, who also include Cornells Bega, Comelis Dusart, Michiel van Musscher, and Jan Steen. Ostade's style underwent a number of changes during his career. His early works adopted Brouwer's manner of depicting boisterous drinkers, brawlers, and gamblers - a style that relies on vigorous body gestures to convey meanings and tonal colors punctuated by occasional touches of pale red or blue. Later in the 1630s, strong contrasting areas of light and shade unify the composition (a technique probably learned from Rembrandt*), as in his Peasants Carousing (signed and dated 1635, Darmstadt, Hessisches Landesmuseum). The main characters are placed in a glare of light, while the rest of the setting is obscured by darkness. By the 1640s van Ostade's compositions change into calmer, more balanced structures, and his subject matter begins to diversify. An occasional biblical subject appears, such as the Angel Appearing to the Shepherds (signed, Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, based on a Rembrandt print), as does landscape done in the prevalent tonal mode (see Landscape with Old Oak, signed, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum). In the 1640s Rembrandt's lighting effects are more clearly noticeable in Ostade's work, and the artist emphasized the space and atmosphere of his interiors. By 1650 a more peaceful mood had crept into his images. His favorite devices, however, still prevail: a littered room, humble people, rough interiors, light shining through a leaded window, spreading about and describing the hewn ceiling, roughly plastered walls, and crude furniture. But the people become more amicable, reflective, and more tempered in their amusements. A masterpiece from this period is Interior of an Alehouse (signed and dated 1650, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum). These more decorous interpretations do not criticize their subjects; instead, they view them with sympathy, in part inspired by Rembrandt's essays on the human condition. In Ostade's depictions of people earning their livelihoods, he gradually moved from depictions of musicians and peddlers in the 1630s to tradespeople in the 1650s, and shopkeepers (fishmongers, painters, cobblers) in the 1660s and 1670s. Fusions of immediacy and timelessness, placed within a well-balanced composition, these paintings rely on the internal psychological energy of his subjects as opposed to the gestural energy supplied by the characters in his earlier works. Ostade is considered a pioneer in the development of domestic scenes that reveal the intimate and emotionally rich family life which Pieter de Hooch* and Jan Steen portrayed so vividly. Ostade's genius seems to have best expressed itself in cluttered interiors. Numerous outstanding examples survive to demonstrate his skill at lighting, describing, characterizing, and setting mood. His Men and Women in a Tavern (dated 1660, Dresden, Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister) shows the light becoming ever more prominent, while Painter in His Studio (signed and dated 1663, Dresden, Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister) is a masterpiece of warm, palpable light by which a painter works at his easel. The basic formulation for many of these interiors must owe a debt to prints by Albrecht Diirer of the previous century, of which 5/. Jerome in His Studio comes to mind. During the 1670s Ostade lightened his palette again, increasing the sense of light in his room. His quality did not drop, as can be seen in Peasants in a Tavern (signed and dated either 1679 or 1674, Dresden, Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister) and in his marvelously characterized Fishseller (dated 1672, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum). The bright, local color he had reintroduced in his later style can be well appreciated in The Golden Wedding (dated 1674, Art Institute of Chicago). He also introduced dooryard scenes showing the humble backyard domestic existence of lower classes. His late work retains his insightful humor and human understanding, as well as his ability to tell a story with many anecdotal details. Ostade also produced a number of watercolor drawings made as independent works, which are sometimes criticized for lacking the power of his paintings. Ostade was popular with collectors in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries until the onset of Impressionism changed prevailing tastes. Though Ostade was clearly an important figure, his work has received serious attention only in recent years. On the 350th anniversary of his birth in 1960, the Soviet Union mounted the first comprehensive exhibition of his work. |
Samples of Work
|
|
