Jan Jacobz Molenear
(1610 - 1668) |
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Genre Subjects, Social Narratives Art Work
| Name: |
Jan Jacobz Molenear |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Haarlem |
| Nationality: |
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| Birth: |
1610 |
| Death: |
1668 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Genre Subjects, Social Narratives |
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| Style: |
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| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painting
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Biography
| One of the more important genre painters grouped around Frans and Dirck Hals in Haarlem, Jan Molenaer has, along with genre painters in general, undergone a re-evaluation. Cited as one of the better "little masters," whose finest work appeared during a relatively short span early in his career (the 1630s, when Molenaer was still in his twenties), Molenaer is today considered a significant forerunner of Jan Steen, for the energy and humor as well as the vivacious action depicted in his early genre subjects. His later works after 1640 declined in power and originality, falling under the sway of Adriaen van Ostade. Few documents describe Molenaer's early life. His date of birth is suggested by a document of 1637 that states the artist was twenty-seven in that year. Jan has been called a pupil of Frans Hals, but there is no certainty of that, and from early on Jan responded to a wide range of sources. Dated works are not known before 1629, while a Merry Company at a Meal (dated 1629, Worms, Kunsthaus Heylshof) shows his debt to Hals's laughing figures. However, that same year he also produced a series of full-length figures in interiors, such as Two Boys and a Girl Making Music (signed and dated 1629, London, National Gallery), which are closer to the paintings of Hals's brother Dirck. A document records Molenaer's marriage in Heemstede to the painter Judith Leyster* in 1636, when Jan was recorded as a resident of Haarlem. They moved to Amsterdam the following year. It is thought they shared a studio, and some scholars speculate that they sometimes painted on each other's works. Leyster has certainly been regarded as an important influence on Jan, though Jan was always more descriptive and painted more thickly. Molenaer and Leyster lived in Amsterdam for over ten years, until 1648. In 1644 Jan Lievens lived with them for a short time. In October 1948 the couple moved back to Heemstede and bought a house. The two continued to live in Heemstede and Haarlem, though records show that they also bought a house in Amsterdam in 1655 and lived there briefly in 1656. After Judith's death in 1660, Molenaer moved back to Haarlem. There he made his will in September 1668 and died a few days later. An inventory was drawn up in October following his death, from which we know that Molenaer collected sixteenth-century paintings. At his best, Molenaer is a gifted describer who can incorporate amazing detail within his somewhat crowded images without making them seem overwhelming. His characters are well defined and sometimes confront us with self-assurance. The potency of Molenaer's characters and their often smiling deportment is related to the art of Frans Hals, while the even lighting and the succinct and crisply delineated forms and details relate not only to Dirck Hals but to Wiilem Buytewech and Pieter Codde. Among Molenaer's best works in this vein are Woman at Her Toilet, Allegory of Vanity (signed and dated 1633, Ohio, Toledo Museum of Art) and the Allegory of Marital Fidelity (signed and dated 1633, Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts). Relatively large and ambitious, these works are also resplendent with numerous figures and handle complex subject matter, settings, objects, and actions with happy virtuosity. The range of Molenaer's subject matter in the 1630s was remarkable. In addition to group portraits overlaid with allegory, as in the image of Marital Fidelity and allegories on vanity and the senses (Woman at Her Toilet), there are humorous observations on levels of reality and the life of the artist {Artist in His Studio, signed and dated 1631, Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Gemaidegalerie) and religious subject matter (Peter's Denial of Christ, signed and dated 1636, Budapest, Sze"pmuveszeti Muzeum, which adapts a Valentin-like use of peasant characters to set the scene). That Molenaer's sources were many and his sense of humor (sometimes quite coarse, yet still affecting) was strong is evidenced in his series of five allegories depicting the Senses (signed and dated 1637, The Hague, Mauritshuis). Here Molenaer took his inspiration from Brouwer, yet his interpretation is his own. In the 1640s, the adaptation of peasant genre based on Brouwer and van Ostade increasingly occupied the artist. However, Molenaer did not entirely neglect his earlier subject matter, as demonstrated by Couple beside a Hearth (signed and dated 1652, Houston, Museum of Fine Arts). This work, with its complex spatial construction, has been called a forerunner to the later developments of painters such as Pieter de Hooch. Though his later work is generally considered to fall short of his earlier accomplishments, Molenaer's Peasants Carousing (signed and dated 1662, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts), done some six years before his death, shows the artist's ambitious attempt to describe a wild crowd scene in vivid and humorous detail. Aside from some portraits, a landscape or two, theater scenes, and religious subject matter, Molenaer's work is made up entirely of genre subjects. Many of these are overtly humorous, either through the actions of the main characters or the addition of some incidental, anecdotal details. Most of his paintings have direct or indirect associations with various senses besides that of sight, and they often have implicit or explicit allegorical meanings as well. His late works are sometimes confused with those of his follower Egbert van Heemskerk (1634-1704). |
Samples of Work
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