Adriaen van Ostade
Dutch, 1610 - 1685
Painter, draughtsman and etcher. According to Houbraken’s rather unreliable biography, he was a pupil concurrently with Adriaen Brouwer of Frans Hals in Haarlem. Hals influenced him very little, whereas Brouwer, who was described as ‘known far and wide’ as early as 1627, had a decisive influence on the evolution of Adriaen van Ostade’s always idiosyncratic portrayal of peasant life. The first documentary mention of Adriaen van Ostade as a painter is in 1632 (Schnackenburg, 1970). Most of his paintings are signed and dated, the earliest firmly dated example being the Peasants Playing Cards (1633; St Petersburg, Hermitage). He was a member of the Haarlem Guild of St Luke by 1634 at the latest.
Adriaen van Ostade’s pupils included his brother Isack and, probably at the same time, Thomas Wijck (Schnackenburg, 1981, pp. 65–6; close parallels between these two artists’ drawings suggest that they were trained side by side). They were followed by Cornelis Bega, Jan Steen (probably), Michiel van Musscher, Jan de Groot (1650–1726) and finally Cornelis Dusart, who inherited a large part of the contents of Adriaen van Ostade’s studio in 1685.
1. Paintings.
The model of Adriaen Brouwer was the point of departure for Adriaen van Ostade’s early animated fight scenes (e.g. the Brawl with Knives out, before 1633, Prague, N.G., Šternberk Pal., and the Quarrel over Cards, c. 1635, Antwerp, Kon. Mus. S. Kst., 959) and his parties of smoking, drinking, gambling, dancing and amorous peasants in colourful rags and in settings of chaotic squalor (e.g. Country People in an Inn, before 1633, Budapest, Mus. F.A., hdg 626; the Dancing Couple, c. 1635, Amsterdam, Rijksmus., hdg 16; and Smell, from a series of the Five Senses, 1635, St Petersburg, Hermitage). However, they lack Brouwer’s individual characterization and acute observation of feeling. As subjects, the scenes still clearly stand within the tradition of peasant satire, aimed at the vices of mankind.
From the outset, Adriaen van Ostade also painted scenes of tranquil domestic comfort (e.g. Peasant Interior, before 1633, ex-P. de Boer priv. col., Amsterdam, see Schnackenburg, 1981, i, fig. ; and Village Alehouse with Four Figures, 1635, Salzburg, Residenzgal., hdg 584). In these, the action is less important than the depiction of a psychological state, and the setting gains in significance. The figures and the space blend in an atmospheric treatment of light. Similar concerns are found c. 1630 in the work of Frans Hals’s brother Dirck, but Adriaen van Ostade employed stronger chiaroscuro light contrasts and stressed the element of spatial recession through the diagonal placing of his rafters.
From the early 1630s onwards he also painted single-figure compositions, both half-length and head-and-shoulders (e.g. Old Man Reading by Candlelight, 163 [?2 or 3], hdg 84, see Gerson, 1969, p. 335, fig.). In the Old Woman with a Candle (1636; see K. Bauch: Der frühe Rembrandt und seine Zeit, Berlin, 1960, fig.), Adriaen van Ostade used a concealed, artificial light source, a device favoured by the Utrecht Caravaggisti. A number of figure paintings by Adriaen from c. 1640 (e.g. Laughing Peasant, 1642; Rotterdam, Mus. Boymans–van Beuningen, 1635) display a broad, sketchy handling that has a certain affinity to that of Frans Hals. The Merry Peasant with a Jug (Amsterdam, Rijksmus., hdg 138) is a free variation on Hals’s Pickled Herring (c. 1628–30; Kassel, Schloss Wilhelmshöhe).
From 1636, alongside compositions in which figures predominated, Adriaen began to paint spacious barn interiors, littered with straw, with diminutive figures of peasants at work (e.g. Peasant Interior, 1636, see Klessmann, 1960, fig. ; and The Washerwoman, 1637, Hamburg, Ksthalle, hdg 456). In these works the tonality shifts from blue-grey to a warmer green-brown. The artist continued to paint barn interiors of this type well into the 1640s (e.g. Peasant Family in a Large Hut, 1642, Paris, Louvre, hdg 468; and Peasants in a Barn, 1647, Vienna, Ksthist. Mus., hdg 474). From 1637 onwards, he also started to paint open-air scenes, in an initially rudimentary landscape setting (e.g. Slaughtering Pigs by Lanternlight, 1637, Frankfurt am Main, Städel. Kstinst. & Städt. Gal., hdg 408). It was not until c. 1640—and probably under the influence of his younger brother Isack—that Adriaen began to concentrate more intensively on landscape. The Landscape with Drovers (ex-Wetzlar priv. col., see Haak, 1964, fig.) is dated 1639, and the large Peasant Dance Outside an Inn (1640, ex-Wesendonck priv. col., hdg 794, see W. Drost: Barockmalerei in den germanischen Ländern (Wildpark-Potsdam, 1926), pl. xi) is the first work in which the painter combined a village landscape with genre figures. In the latter painting there is a conspicuous pair of onlookers, dressed as townsfolk, who may well be the painter himself and his first wife, Machtelgen Pietersen, of Haarlem, who died childless in 1642. The Landscape with an Old Oak (Amsterdam, Rijksmus.), a stylistically related work, also probably painted in 1640, is Adriaen van Ostade’s only pure landscape painting.
The handling of the vegetation in the Hermit Reading (Vaduz, Samml. Liechtenstein, hdg 3), its tonality ranging from reddish-brown to yellow and the passages of vigorous, sketchy brushwork suggest that it was also painted in or soon after 1640, some years later than commonly supposed (see Im Lichte Hollands, exh. cat., Basle, Kstmus., 1987, no. 67). This painting is the only work by Adriaen van Ostade that shows any affinity, in form or in content, to the work of Rembrandt (at least since 1982, when the Annunciation to the Shepherds (Brunswick, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Mus., hdg 1) was reattributed to Benjamin Gerritsz. Cuyp; see Die holländischen Gemälde (Brunswick, 1982, p. 51)). This makes it necessary to make a much more cautious assessment of the supposed early influence of Rembrandt, on which the older authorities on Adriaen van Ostade laid such stress.
In the course of the 1640s, Adriaen van Ostade’s characteristic form of interior changed: the rooms became larger and more imposing, flat-ceilinged and better furnished (as in Peasant Revellers at the Alehouse, 1642, St Petersburg, Hermitage, hdg 578; and Peasants Dancing at the Inn, 1645, hdg 553, s, i, fig.). The figures and their costumes, as well as the furnishings and utensils attendant on peasant life, are shown in more detail. This pictorial type found its definitive form c. 1647, for example in the Merry Peasant Party (Munich, Alte Pin., hdg 544) and the Three Peasants at an Inn, 1647 (London, Dulwich Pict. Gal., hdg 327). There is a greater sense of depth and atmosphere created by means of clearly marked orthogonals and subtle gradations of chiaroscuro, and the figures are more individualized.
By the 1650s scenes of excessive drinking and gambling (e.g. Peasants Brawling, 1656; Munich, Alte Pin., hdg 609) became the exception rather than the rule. Adriaen van Ostade’s peasants, and the petty burghers from whom they are almost indistinguishable, are mostly shown relishing the small pleasures permitted by their modest existence. This shift is accompanied by a change in the implicit meaning of the pictures, as recorded in the legends of related engravings. In place of, or alongside, the traditional satire on human frailty, the simplicity of peasant life is held up as a model (Vivitur parvo bene: ‘One may live well on little’) or even idealized, in the manner of bucolic poetry.
The peasant interiors of the 1650s show an increasing emphasis on detail. The strong local colouring of the figures stands out powerfully from the tonal twilight of the interior setting (e.g. in Peasants with Skates by the Fireside, 1650, Amsterdam, Rijksmus., hdg 621; and Peasant Interior with a Hurdy-Gurdy Player, 1653; London, N.G.). In the representation of landscape, too, Adriaen van Ostade shifted c. 1650 from broad, soft, tonal painting to a more detailed style with a stronger emphasis on local colour, as in the Merry Countryfolk (1648; Kassel, Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, hdg 425).
At the end of the decade the paint becomes smoother and more delicate, as in Peasant Dance at an Inn (1659; St Louis, MO, A. Mus., hdg 549), and the works of the early 1660s show a fully fledged ‘Fine’ painting technique as practised by Leiden artists. The colouring is marked by rich but subdued hues accompanied by a finely attuned cool tonality, as can be seen in The Alchemist (1661; London, N.G., hdg 397), the Fireside Conversation (1661: Amsterdam, Rijksmus., hdg 620) and the Peasants at an Alehouse (1662; The Hague, Mauritshuis, hdg 636). In 1667 Adriaen painted his only known biblical subject, the Adoration of the Shepherds (Russborough, Co. Wicklow, hdg 2).
In 1657, successful and prosperous, the painter took a second wife, Anna Ingels (d 1666), from a respected Amsterdam Catholic family. His previous contacts with the same milieu are documented by the group portrait of the De Goyer Family (after 1650, The Hague, Mus. Bredius, hdg 878), which incorporates a self-portrait; this is also the period of such single portraits as that of a lady (1651; hdg 896) and a boy (hdg 881; both St Petersburg, Hermitage) and of another group portrait (1654; Paris, Louvre, hdg 879). In 1662 Adriaen van Ostade became dean of the Haarlem Guild of St Luke, after holding the post of its hoofdman or leader in 1647 and 1661. Anna Ingels died after bearing her husband one daughter, Johanna Maria.
After 1670 Adriaen’s paintings become brighter and more intense in their colouring. The local colour values are now tied together by a warm, mostly greenish tonality. There are relatively fewer interiors (exceptions being two works from 1674: the Nine Peasants at an Inn, Ascott, Bucks, NT, hdg 691; and the Men and Women at a Peasant Inn, Dresden, Gemäldegal. Alte Meister, hdg 629); instead there are many more open-air compositions (e.g. Travellers Resting in an Inn Garden, 1671, hdg 778, and The Fishwife, 1672, hdg 130, both Amsterdam, Rijksmus.; and Peasants in a Summer Arbour, 1676, Kassel, Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, hdg 277). In the last years of his life the artist confined himself to modest single-figure compositions, such as three small paintings from a series of the Five Senses (all 1681: St Petersburg, Hermitage, hdg 14–16).
Besides his own painted compositions, Adriaen van Ostade contributed staffage figures to paintings by Pieter Saenredam, Jacob van Ruisdael, Cornelis Decker ( fl 1643–76), Jacob van Mosscher ( fl 1635–55) and others.
2. Drawings.
Alongside his brother Isack, Adriaen was the most important and the most prolific draughtsman in the whole field of Dutch genre. Schnackenburg’s catalogue raisonné of 1981 lists 404 drawings by him. The earliest influence here may well have been that of Adriaen Brouwer; the style of the few sketches ascribed to Brouwer finds its clearest reflection in the drawings done by Adriaen van Ostade c. 1637. Until the mid-1640s Adriaen concentrated on multi-figured compositions, drawn in pen and brown ink, with brown wash and sometimes watercolour ; then he began to produce preparatory figure studies, both for paintings and etchings, in black and white chalk on tinted paper. These show the artist adopting the type of study ‘from life’ (naer het leven) that was pioneered by Roelandt Savery. There are a number of highly detailed studies of heads and shoulders, or heads alone, in red and black chalk.
Adriaen van Ostade: Reading the News at the Weavers’ Cottage,…About half of Adriaen van Ostade’s drawings date from after 1670, by which time the dominant form was the finished watercolour (see fig.), signed and usually dated, frequently sharing its composition with an oil painting or an etching, for instance the Nine Peasants at an Inn (1674; New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib.), which relates to the painting of the same year (Ascott, Bucks, NT). In these high-priced and sought-after collector’s pieces, Adriaen van Ostade set out to duplicate the effect of his oil paintings through a combination of pen, brush and transparent as well as opaque watercolours. In a number of these watercolours the preliminary underdrawing is in black and red chalk rather than pen, and the support is sometimes parchment. These miniature paintings, like the etchings, are mostly based on composition sketches traced through with a stylus. Alongside the multi-figured compositions, Adriaen produced numerous small single-figure drawings.
3. Etchings.
After Rembrandt, Adriaen van Ostade was the major Dutch etcher of his day. Of the 50 known etchings, 11 bear dates between 1647 and 1679, and the remainder can be dated on stylistic grounds (Schnackenburg, 1981, pp. 45–7). The six earliest etchings (1647–52), with their fine gradations of chiaroscuro, have something of a painterly character. The contours are soft and tend to dissolve in the light. The graphic repertory consists of loose, sketchy, curving strokes, hooks and dots. The works of 1653–4, by contrast, show a graphic system of hatchings and crosshatchings, which becomes simpler and more rigid in the late etchings of 1671 and 1679. The artist worked towards the desired effect through a succession of states. Many of the etched compositions also exist in painted form (Trautscholdt, 1929).
In 1710 Adriaen van Ostade’s copper-plates came into the hands of Bernard Picart, who reprinted them. The popularity of these works is further confirmed by two re-editions in the late 18th century (Basan, 1780); many of the plates had by this time been extensively reworked, and the impressions are consequently of little value.
Bernhard Schnackenburg. "Ostade, van." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T064115pg1 (accessed May 8, 2012).
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