Brouwer and Life
When
Raw
in the
a painter of Rubens' stature takes a lead from foreign
art,
he can do so without
detriment to his native vision and he transforms his "borrowings" out of recognition. In early 17th-century Flanders, however, foreign influences were clearly visible
work
For example, there were Flemish Caravaggeschi, painting in the mariner of Manfredi, Honthorst or Valentin, who specialized in night pieces with people playing cards or backgammon, soldiers and prostitutes, tipplers, guitar players and so forth.
in the
of several artists.
grouped around a table, and much use is made of artificial, violently contrasting light effects. Such were the works of Gerard Seghers (1591-1651) and Theodore Rombouts (1597-1637), both of them pupils of Abraham Janssens (1575-1632), who combined gesticulation and the cool, iridescent hues of the Antwerp mannerists with
The
figures are presented half length,
reminiscences of antique statuary. Seghers,
who had
spent some years in Italy and probably
between 161 1 and 1620, fell completely under the spell of Rubens soon after his return to Antwerp. Before that, however, he had produced some more original works and (as A. von Schneider has pointed out) followed a line of evolution running parallel to that of the Spanish painter Ribalta. Two other artists somewhat resembled Rombouts: Adam de
in Spain as well
Coster of Malines (1586-1643), whose Judith (Prado) has analogies with Saraceni's picture on
who painted smokers and
the same subject, and Jan Cossiers (1600-1671),
But alongside these
beggars in a somber,
from abroad, the influence of Bruegel's sons persisted. Pieter II specialized in scenes of peasant life and exploited their burlesque possibilities, while in his landscapes Jan Bruegel the Younger stressed the poetic aspects of nature, sometimes making them the leading theme of his pictures. In the works of the artists named above we have all the ingredients of the "genre" painting which achieved its flowering in Flanders in the art of Adriaen Brouwer and David
opaque tonality (Antwerp and
Cassel).
art forms deriving
Teniers the Younger, as in Holland with Adriaen van Ostade. That very great artist Adriaen
Brouwer had a personality
so rich
and independent that
belongs to the Flemish or to the Dutch School.
We
it is
do
connecting link between the two, and in fact he spent
However, since the Flemish vein predominates
hard to say whether he properly
him
best, perhaps, to regard
much
as a
of his short life in Holland.
in the best of his work,
we
are justified in
regarding him as one of the brilliant generation of artists shaped in Antwerp.
Brouwer was born
in Flanders in 1605 or 1606, at
of tapestry cartoons for the local factories. Adriaen, is
Audenarde, his father being a designer who ran away from home at sixteen,
thought to have received his early training in Antwerp and his
tally
and composed
of
more or
less disjointed
obviously Bruegelian in inspiration. In 1625
where he worked
in the studio of
first
works, treated anecdo-
fragments with a wealth of vivid colors, are
we
find
Frans Hals, whose
him
alert,
Amsterdam, then
in
Haarlem
spontaneous touch he
skillfully
in
assimilated. After qualifying as a free master in 1631-1632 he led an erratic
life
in
Antwerp,
often in conditions of extreme poverty, but meanwhile turned out a quite amazing quantity
Brouwer's career was one long struggle against adversity, he was always in debt and
of work. in 1633
was incarcerated
for
some months
in the citadel. Nevertheless
he went on working
while in confinement and even found time to give painting lessons to the prison baker
Joos van Craesbeeck, disciples.
On
who subsequently made
kindness but thought highly of
a
name
for himself as the best of
Brouwer's
was befriended by Rubens, who not only showed him much him as an artist and bought a number of his works.
several occasions he