Jan Steen (c1626-1679) was born in Leiden. He was a genre painter of everyday life. His painting is often lively and mocking, with humour and ironic. He study in University of Leiden in 1646 and 1648. He was also founded the Leiden painters’ Guild of St Luke, with Gabriel Metsu, one of the well-known Dutch painter of the Dutch Golden age. His came from a family who ran brewery and tavern keeper. He was also a tavern keeper himself.
He was a good and skilful painter, a master at capturing subtleties of facial expressions. He was skill in handling colour and technically. In his paintings there were stories to tell and moral messages embedding in the scene. But today many of these messages are lost before the Dutch society has changed and many tropical issues are forgetter now. However, there critics who said that his paintings are ‘unreal’ and do not reflect of daily life. He tended to exaggerate with too much scenes and happenings. I am sure that Jan Steen would say, in that way I can sell more paintings.
1. Jan Steen
The Dutch Painting of Mocking
First created Jun 2005. Version 1.0 - 7 Jul 2018. Daperro. London.
Twelfth Night. 1668.
Jan Steen. Detail.
2. Jan Havickszoon Steen
Born : c1626. Leiden Holland.
Died : 1679. Leiden Holland age 53.
Education : Nicolases Knupfer.
University of Leiden 1646 & 1648.
Jan Steen was a Dutch Golden
Age painter, known for his
psychological insight, sense of
humour and abundance of colour.
He is a well loved artist, who
relates to us. He painted with a
liberal dose of mockery, situation
we recognize immediately.
Jan Steen - Self Portrait
3. Steen and his art Jan Steen distinguish himself by mocking genre style
and his psychological insights. Occasionally he painted
historical, biblical and even landscape. He belongs to a
group of comic, humourous and sometimes satirical
band of painters like Pieter Bruegel the Elder,
Hieronymus Bosch and the 20C Normal Rockwell.
Jan Steen like his predecessor Pieter Bruegel painted
peasants in their merry-making. Like the Netherlandish
Proverbs painted by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Jan
Steen’s paintings were also comments on the society of
his days.
In the 20C, the American painter Normal Rockwell also
followed this witty artistic traditions.
Hieronymus Bosch
Pieter Bruegel Pieter Bruegel Norman Rockwell
4. Women Scouring Metalware
This is an early painting by Steen. There
are good reasons to believe that the
painting has a hidden message, but it is
now lost.
In 1632, Jacob Cats published a print
(engraving) called ‘Mirror of the Old and
New Age’, in which two maids were
scouring the outside of pots and pans,
with a caption ‘When slatternly people
become clean, they scour the bottom of
the pans’. He went on to say that the
maids sometimes put their utmost efforts
into outward show without much
changing inwardly.
In light of this, Steen painted the maid
polishing the bottom of a tankard. The
gleaming lantern in the foreground can
easily be explained in the same terms : the
lantern has been polished but the actual
light has to come from inside.
(ref: Jan Steen by Wouter Klock. Waanders Publishers,
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam p36.)
6. This is an early painting by Steen. The Chamber of
Rhetoric was a type of dramatic and literary society
popular in Holland at the time. These groups
performed plays and poetry reading. Steen was an
educated man. He studied at the University of
Leiden in 1646 and 1648. He also founded the
Leiden painters’ guild with Metsu. According to
Sturla Gudlaugsson a major influence on Steen
was the Guild of the Rhetoricians.
The Rhetoric Society
7. The Neighbourhood Baker
A friendly neighbourhood baker with his
wife. In this period he painted
neighbour groups and trades around
Leiden, where he was born.
8. An unusual and ambitious painting. Jan
Steen painted large number to exotic
poultry. Steen had never use this format
in his subsequent format.
Exotic poultry
10. Prince’s Day details
An early painting of a large group of people
in a festive atmosphere. The setting of the
painting was the tavern (drinking house) or
an inn. Steen’s family ran a tavern business
and many of his paintings are set in
drinking places.
Like most of his painting, Prince’s Day has a
very great deal of details and it tells a story
as well. He painted himself as the man
replying to a toast, with an upraising glass.
The painting contains a political message,
on the struggle of power between the
Dutch royal family (House of Orange) and
the republican party (State Party). We are
not sure about the message as the date of
the painting is uncertain.
The symbols and hints of the message are
clearly there - the orange & white feather
on the hat, the inscription on the paper by
the bench, the portrait of Prince William III
hanging on the top of the painting, the
inscription on the bell above the table with
a branch of an orange tree etc.
The full painting on last slide.
12. The Feast of St Nicholas
Description at the Rijksmuseum
13. Self Image as a mocker
It appears that Jan Steen portrayed himself
in a great many paintings. Often he
painted himself as the jester or a buffoon
mocking the world. Often he cast himself in
a comic role. At times he even enlisted his
family as models for a painting.
Jan Steen again? In The Doctor’s Visit (next
slide).
14. Another mocking self image
Steen sometimes cast himself in
comic roles. In this case in a
politically incorrect role. However,
Steen did not create an oeuvre in
which his own personality had
become an element of the work.
15. The Doctor’s Visit
Steen did several paintings on the same
theme. On all these paintings show a
older doctor visiting a young woman.
Steen often repeated the same theme,
possibly because there were demands
for the kind of paintings.
There seems to be a lot going on apart
from the doctor’s visit. A woman
opened the door and a man (probably
the lover) stood there. A woman was
playing a virginal by the door. Steen
was holding a fish in his hand.
This little pot, with a ribbon smouldering
was a quack technique for testing
pregnancy.
16. The Sick Woman Another more well-known painting by Steen
on the theme of A Doctor Visit.
Description at the Rijksmuseum
17. The Sick Woman Details
Note there is a blood sucking leech just beside her scarf. The use of leech therapy was widespread in 17C Europe.
18. Children Teaching a Cat to Dance
The painting shows a group of
mischievous children teaching a cat
to dance to the music, but the cat is
screaming in protest, joined by a
barking dog. An angry old man
rebukes the children from a window
above, maybe they should be doing
some learning themselves.
20. Steen’s Landscape
On the Skittle Players Outside an
Inn, the contrast of light and
shade, the foliage of tall trees
were handled sensitively set
against the atmosphere of a
leisurely sunny afternoon.
Steen started as a landscape
painter. Around 1650, he painted
a landscapes in the style of Isaack
van Ostade and biblical scenes, as
well as a few comic scenes after
the manner of Pieter Bruegel.
21. Religious Theme
Steen was a Catholic. In the
painting, he depicted Christ
vanishing slowly, like a ghost, after
he had broken the bread.
Christ vanishing.
23. Steen’s late Historical
One of Steen’s late
paintings. It is a story
about little Moses trampled
on the pharaoh’s crown,
whilst playing. As a result
the pharaoh’s advisors
wanted him dead. But
Moses is given a last
chance to prove his
innocence. In the test he
chose a burning coal over
a dish of gold and burned
himself in his mouth. (This
story is not in the Bible).
24. Historical painting – Anthony and Cleopatra
The composition resembled the setting of a theatrical performance. An actor looked straight into the
audience delivering his dialogue (seated on the right).
30. The way we hear it is the way we sing
The is similar to the previous
painting with most of the family
around the table. It shares the
same message as the Merry
Family, that our children will behave
like us. The interior was altered. A
curtain suggested that 'The world is
a stage’.
31. Twelfth Night
Jan Steen had a repertoire of images at this disposal. This little dog was repeated in many of his paintings. These
images were like props, including furniture and poses. All following three paintings were painted for the occasion.
Twelfth Night is a festival in Holland after
Christmas. It celebrates the arrival of the
Three Kings to seek out the baby Jesus.
However, Twelfth Night was also a
secular festival, reuniting the family. A
‘King’ was chosen for the family
occasion, who led a procession from the
house, including children to local tavern
dressed in grotesque costumes and back
to the family house for the celebration.
37. The Dancing Couple
Self-portrait of Jan Steen,
as one of the merrymaker.
Occasion was a fair in the village
Objects to suggest the transience
nature of sensual pleasures.
Steen used the
same dance pose
in his painting
‘Merrymaking in a
Tavern with a
Couple Dancing’.
c1670.
See next slide
41. Wine is the Mocker
What we do know is that Jan Steen often embedded his
painting with messages but often we do not know what
the message mean. The title of the painting is a proverbs
inscribed above the door.
It can be assumed the red stockings indicate the woman
is of loose morals, with her beast half showing. The
kicked-off shoes had an erotic connotation. Her skirt was
full of mud.(dirt?). But she had an expensive fur lined
cloth, an indication that she may original from a privileged
background, a comment perhaps that it can happen to the
rich or poor.
It appeared that her was wheeled here, to a nearby well.
Bucket, pot and bottle of water are readied to pour over
her to sober her up.
43. A School for Boys and Girls
Jan Steen was an educated man and he was well
read. On the right, a boy offers a pair of spectacles to
an ‘owl’ alluding to the Dutch proverb ‘What use are
glasses or light if the owl does not want to see?’. The
teachers or the adults were oblivious to the unruly
behaviour of their pupils. What is indeed the point if
the adults did not care and pupils did not want to
learn.
Others see this painting as Steen’s joke on Raphael's
fresco of The School of Athens.
A portrait of Erasmus, a Dutch
Humanist scholar on the floor.
A boy offers a pair of
spectacles to an owl, with
a light (lantern) and a set
of keys.
He was not interested
in teaching..
She was teaching a kid..
48. Marriage at Cana. Details. One of the pleasure of looking at Steen’s large scale
paintings is identifying roles that he had assigned to
each of his figures. In such painting, it is composed
of many separated scenes, integrated together to tell
a story without being confused or pointless, like this
boy rolling a barrel of wine in his “Wedding in Cana”
or in his “School for boys and Girls”.
It is this quality that we often described Steen as a
‘storyteller’. He was also a bold daredevil and packed
his painting with humour. Like a film director, he
littered the floor with ewers, plates, pots and pans,
often accompanied by dogs waiting food, just like the
kind of confusion in a modern studio
Steen met Peter Paul Rubens
and it was recorded that the
two men exchanged jokes and
pranks. While Rubens painted
for royalty and the famous,
Steen painted for the wealthy
growth merchant class.
Self-portrait of Peter Paul
Rubens.
51. Landscape with Skittle Players. 1650-60. Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna..
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The
End
Music – If Tomorrow Never Comes by Francis Goya.
Jan Steen (c1626-1679) was born in Leiden. He was a genre painter of everyday life. His painting is often lively and mocking, with humour and ironic. He study in University of Leiden in 1646 and 1648. He was also founded the Leiden painters’ Guild of St Luke, with Gabriel Metsu, one of the well-known Dutch painter of the Dutch Golden age. His came from a family who ran brewery and tavern keeper. He was also a tavern keeper himself.
He was a good and skilful painter, a master at capturing subtleties of facial expressions. He was skill in handling colour and technically. In his paintings there were stories to tell and moral messages embedding in the scene. But today many of these messages are lost before the Dutch society has changed and many tropical issues are forgetter now. However, there critics who said that his paintings are ‘unreal’ and do not reflect of daily life. He tended to exaggerate with too much scenes and happenings. I am sure that Jan Steen would say, in that way I can sell more paintings.
History of Major Releases
i.0 Initial version with 51 slides.