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Beer In Art #167: Jos Van Riswick’s Beer Still Life

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Today’s work of art is by a contemporary Dutch artist, Jos Van Riswick, who for most of his life worked at a university as a physicist before giving it all up to pursue an artist’s life in Nijmegen, Holland. After some experimentation, he found that traditional oils suited him best, and has been specializing in still lifes, such as this commission, done for someone in Chevy Chase, Maryland. The painting, Beer Still Life, was completed in August of 2010.

Van-Riswick-still_life_beer

In his biography, van Riswick cites Rembrandt, along with Vermeer and Caravaggio, as influences and I have to agree that his work looks more timeless and older than many of his contemporaries. You wouldn’t look at this painting and immediately place it as having been done less than two years ago.

To learn more about Van Riswick, he has a short biography on his website. You can see many more of his paintings at Postcard From Holland, his blog Jos van Riswick — Painter, his Drawing Book and his eponymous website JosVanRiswick.com.

Beer In Art #165 Adriaen van Ostade’s The Violin Player

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Today’s work of art is by the Dutch artist Adriaen van Ostade, a Golden Age painter of genre scenes. This is the second painting of his I’ve featured, the first being Ale House Interior. Like that one, van Ostade did a watercolor first, and it, too, is in the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. But eventually, in 1673, it was completed as an oil painting on a wood panel. It usually called The Violin Player, though some call it A Violinist at a Farmhouse Door.

Adriaen_van_Ostade-violinist

The painting today hangs in the Mauritshuis at The Hague in the Netherlands. The museum describes The Violinist:

A group of people are gathered in front of a simple house that seems to be a country inn. The atmosphere is one of gaiety, for an itinerant violinist has come to the door to play a tune, accompanied by the boy in the red jacket who plays the hurdy-gurdy. The music is enjoyed by young and old alike. In the middle of the picture, a man sits on a bench, his legs wide apart, holding a tankard of beer. In the doorway, a woman leans on the lower half of the door and two men look out, trying to catch a glimpse of the musicians. Some children hang about outside, enjoying the excitement. A tousled girl steadies a child wearing only one shoe, and a little boy makes contact with a dog.

I’m no expert on Dutch architecture, but the building doesn’t look like a farmhouse to me, as the Morgan Library insists. To me, at least, it looks more like a tavern door, and that better explains the man with the big tankard of beer.

To learn more about Adriaen van Ostade, Wikipedia and the J. Paul Getty Museum each have a biography of him, and you can also see links to his works online at ArtCyclopedia. The Web Gallery of Art and the Wikimedia Commons also feature a number of his paintings.

Beer In Art #163: Joseph De Bray’s In Praise of Herring

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Today’s work of art is by the Dutch artist Joseph de Bray, who’s more famous as the son of Salomon de Bray, also a painter, and for essentially just one work of art, his In Praise of Herring, which is also known as Eulogy to a Herring and Still-Life in Praise of the Pickled Herring. It was completed in 1656.

Joseph_de_Bray_-_Still-Life

The painting also includes a poem, also titled In Praise of Herring by Jacob Westerbaen, who was de Bray’s brother-in-law. Unfortunately, I was also unable to find the full text of the poem, either. Say what you will about pickled herring — and I’m certainly not a fan — but if you’re going to pair it with a beverage, you can bet it’s going to be beer.

The Web Gallery of Art has this to say about the artist and his painting:

Fish still-lifes developed as a category during the seventeenth century — not an astonishing phenomenon when we recall that fishing, particularly for herring and cod, was a mainstay of the Dutch economy. A notable exponent of the type is Abraham van Beyeren. As the Dutch love for flowers, their love for seafood is proverbial. The Haarlemer Joseph de Bray, son of Salomon and brother of Jan, celebrated this taste in his picture, dated 1656, dedicated to the apotheosis of the pickled herring.

Resting behind the large, succulent herring and other objects in the painting’s foreground, there is an elaborate tablet, draped with a festoon of herrings and requisite onions, inscribed with a poem by the Remonstrant preacher and poet Jacob Westerbaen: ‘In praise of the Pickled Herring’ published in 1633. After telling of the herring’s delight to the eye, palette, and its other qualities, Westerbaen adds that consumption of it ‘Will make you apt to piss/And you will not fail/(With pardon) to shit/And ceaselessly fart…’ – proof, if it is needed, that plain profane messages are as likely embodied in Dutch paintings as spiritual ones. The painting was evidently a success. In the following year he painted another, somewhat larger still-life, now in Aachen, dedicated to the same subject. It includes the text of Westerbaen’s verse dedicated to the pickled herring, and a brief passage from his poem ‘Cupido’ on the page of an open folio accompanied by an ample display of herrings and onions.

And another source said the following:

Joseph de Bray came from a family of Haarlem painters which included the highly respected Salomon de Bray (his father) and Jan de Bray (his brother). Joseph is known for this curious still life in which the different elements — the jug, the glass of beer, the fish, the bread, the butter and the onions — are organized in a U-shape. In the centre of the composition is a manuscript where one can read a poem by Doctor Jakob Westerbaen, singing the praises of a salted and smoked herring!

To learn more about Joseph de Bray, sadly, there’s not much. There isn’t even a Wikipedia page in English for him, it instead forwards to his father’s page where Joseph is mentioned. There is, however, a short German page for him, and that translates as follows:

Son of the painter Salomon de Bray and brother of Dirck, Jacob and Jan de Bray. He was certainly younger than his brother, Jan, and older than his brother Dirck. Probably trained by his father, he specialized mainly on still life. In 1664, he died of the plague.

The earliest known evidence of his artistry is a small drawing of an Arcadian landscape dated 14th February 1650, classified because of the uncertain lines as an early work. There are only a handful of works that can be ascribed with certainty. The most famous depiction is “Still Life with a poem on the pickled herring” that has survived in several handwritten copies. Recently appeared on the international art market is another picture which is tentatively attributed to him. Besides the few oil paintings, there are some drawings, which are also brought in touch with him.

There’s not much else, beyond this article, Painting Family: The De Brays, about his family.

Beer In Art #156: Adriaen Van Ostade’s Ale House Interior

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Today’s work of art is by the Dutch artist Adriaen van Ostade, a Golden Age painter of genre scenes. The painting is usually known simply as Ale House Interior though its full title is actually Ale House Interior with Nine Peasants Smoking, Drinking, and Playing Cards or Tric-trac. Completed in 1673, it’s “pen and brown ink, brown wash, watercolor in varying tints of gray, green, yellow, purple, and pink, with some bodycolor, over traces of graphite, on paper; [with a] framing line in brown ink.” Today, the original is in the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City.

ostade-ale-house-interior-1673

Here’s how one source describes the painting:

This magnificent drawing was executed using a very elaborate technique, signed and dated by Van Ostade. In a highly detailed manner, it depicts the interior of a tavern and the different activities going on: a card game, beer drinking, a relaxing smoke by the fireplace. The dress, furniture, accessories and decor are all accurately rendered in this scene of daily life in Holland during the seventeenth century.

To learn more about Adriaen van Ostade, Wikipedia and the J. Paul Getty Museum each have a biography of him, and you can also see links to his works online at ArtCyclopedia. The Web Gallery of Art and the Wikimedia Commons also feature a number of his paintings.

Beer In Art #151: Pieter van Anraadt’s Still Life With Earthenware Jug

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This week’s work of art is by the Golden Age Dutch artist Pieter van Anraadt. He’s mostly known for painting historical subjects and portraits, but he has done some still lifes, such as this one: Still Life with Earthenware Jug, painted around 1658.

Anraadt-still-life

One description of the painting is the following:

Beer drinking has often been associated with smoking, as many still lifes and genre scenes of the seventeenth century reveal. This still life by Pieter van Anraadt, who was better known as a portrait painter in Deventer, is a good example of a painting which unites these two pleasures. It shows a jug and a glass of beer on a table; nearby are several clay pipes and some tobacco on a tray, and a brazier. The simplicity of the scene and the perfectly balanced triangular-shaped composition is offset by the jumble of pipes forming a mesh of crossed lines.

You can read van Anraadt’s biography at Wikipedia or at the Mauritshuis, the museum where the painting hangs. There are also a few links to other works, such as ArtCyclopedia, and ArtNet.

Beer In Art #150: Jan Luyken’s The Brewer

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This week’s work of art is by the same artist as last week, Dutch illustrator and engraver Jan Luyken. His watercolor painting, The Brewer, was originally done as a study for an engraving he was working on for a larger project, a book entitled “Het Menselyk Bedryf,” or “Book Of Trades.”

Luyken-brewer

Both the watercolor and the subsequent engraving, which is below, was completed in 1694.

Luyken-brewer-engraving-1

The final engraving was included in The Book of Trades, and looked like this in one edition.

Luyken-brewer-flier-1

The Curious Observer, writing about Luyken’s Brewer, has the following:

At the time, low-alcohol beers, safer to drink than water, were the common everyday beverage of everyone, including children, who ate bierenbrood, bread boiled in beer.

Luyken’s image shows the brewer’s two biggest problems: barrels, and clean, fresh water. Both were scarce in Holland, the water because of textile-industy pollution and sea salt that leaked into the system of canals. Fresh water had to be imported in special ships and carefully poured into barrels.

And I also found a version of the Brewer that has been colored.

Luyken-brewer-flier-3

You can read Luyken’s biography at Wikipedia or at Scroll Publishing. You can also see the rest of the engravings from The Book of Trades and you can see other works at WikiGallery. Also, his biblical set, Martyrs Mirror, from 1685, can be seen at Bethel College’s website.

Beer In Art #149: Jan Luyken’s The Cooper

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art-beer
This week’s work of art is by the Dutch illustrator and engraver Jan Luyken. His watercolor painting, The Cooper, was originally done as a study for an engraving he was working on for a larger project, a book entitled “Het Menselyk Bedryf,” or “Book Of Trades.”

Luyken-cooper

Both the watercolor and the subsequent engraving, which is below, was completed in 1694.

Luyken-cooper-engraving-2

The final engraving was included in The Book of Trades, and looked like this in one edition.

Luyken-cooper-flier-2

On critic, writing about Luyken’s Cooper, has the following to say:

Luyken’s rapid treatment of the work is accentuated by the use of quick brush strokes in the watercolour highlights. The cooper, who is outside his workshop, is attaching the barrel staves which he has shaped and positioned in the background, his colleague is coating the inside of a barrel with wax.

You can read Luyken’s biography at Wikipedia or at Scroll Publishing. You can also see the rest of the engravings from The Book of Trades and you can see other works at WikiGallery. Also, his biblical set, Martyrs Mirror, from 1685, can be seen at Bethel College’s website.

Beer In Art #147: Jan Vermeer’s The Procuress

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This week’s works of art is an early work by the renowned Dutch painter Jan Vermeer, though technically Johannes Vermeer. In fact, the Swiss Berger Foundation claims it’s Vermeer’s very first known painting, though others disagree. It’s most often known as The Procuress, though occasionally it’s called The Go-Between. Painted in 1656, today the painting hangs in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, which is in Dresden, Germany. I saw the original when I visited the nearby Radeberg Brauerei a number of years ago, as we stayed in downtown Dresden.

JohannesVermeer_-_procurous

In “Vermeer: The Complete Works,” author Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr, describes the painting:

Few of Vermeer’s paintings are as provocative as this fascinating scene of mercenary love, which, in its subject, as well as in its momentary gestures and expressions, seems to differ from his earlier biblical and mythological scenes. Here, behind a balustrade covered by a richly decorated rug, a procuress looks approvingly at a soldier, who offers a young woman a coin while fondling her breast. Holding a glass of wine in one hand, she willingly accepts his proposition with her other.

Wikipedia has its own page for the painting. And Essential Vermeer also has analysis of the painting from additional sources. They also have a very cool interactive Procuress where you hold your mouse over different parts of the painting to get detailed information about that area. For our purposes, here’s what they have to say about the beer in the picture:

Vermeer-procuress-ex07

And here’s the information about the Römer glass referred to above:

Vermeer-procuress-ex06

You can read Vermeer’s biography at Wikipedia and at ArTable. There are also endless resources at Essential Vermeer. To see the rest of Vermeer’s paintings, the Essential Vermeer has a complete collection or check out the Web Museum, the Web Gallery of Art or the Artchive.

Beer In Art #146: Judith Leyster’s Merry Drinkers

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As tomorrow is Halloween, this week’s works of art involves the supernatural as well as beer. It’s from around 1639 and was painted by Judith Leyster, one of three significant Dutch Golden Age female artists. It’s known by various titles, The Last Drop, the Gay Cavalier and the Merry Drinkers. Whatever you call it, the original is at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Leyster_Greedy_drinkers

The museum describes the painting:

The costume that the standing figure wears over his clothes suggests that the setting is vastenavond, the night before the beginning of Lent, when people frequently went on binges in order to prepare themselves for fasting and abstinence. This painting speculates on the consequences of such overindulgence. In their dissipated state, the gay cavalier and his companion ignore the menacing presence of the skeleton, which bears an ominous hourglass in one bony hand and a skull in the other.

But another art critic had this to say:

This candle-lit cabaret scene depicts beer drinkers engaged in a drinking competition of sorts. The use of shadow and contrasts in light is pronounced and is reminiscent of Caravaggio. Although the scene is a merry one, Death, symbolized by the skeleton, is present to encourage their excesses, marking them for an all too obvious fate. The setting is magnificently constructed and the lively treatment owes much to Frans Hals. The allegory is striking in the contrast it depicts between the carefree frolickings of the figures and the tragedy awaiting them.

So it seems not everyone agrees about what’s going on in the painting, but it seemed appropriate for Halloween because of the skeleton and the spectre of death it represents.

Leyster painted a number of portraits and genre paintings, and at least one more with beer. Below is The Merry Drinker, from 1630.

Judith_Leyster_Jolly_Toper

Unfortunately, she stopped painting after she married. Of course, it was the 17th century. You can read her biography at Wikipedia and at the National Museum
of Women in the Arts. And you can see more of her paintings at ArtCyclopedia, Olga’s Gallery, the Web Gallery of Art and the WikiMedia Gallery.

Beer In Art #130: Jacob Jardeans’ The Satyr And The Peasants

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This week’s work of art is by a Dutch Artist, Jacob Jardeans, who was better known in his own time than he is today. Unlike his contemporaries, Rubens and Van Dyck, Jardaens never left Antwerp or found the success that they did. But in his hometown, he was one of the most popular artists. He painted a lot of allegories and mythological pictures, such as The Satyr and the Peasants, seen below, which was created around 1640.

Jordaens-satyr-and-peasants-2

The portrait includes a peasant and his family, along with a satyr and a servant is bring beer. The satyr’s face is odd, almost seems to mocking his hosts. But it’s the peasant’s face, bursting with food, that has the really strange expression. He looks like he was caught mid-bite in a snapshot.

Curiously, Jardaens also painted a very similar scene, the main difference being the canvas is a bit wider to accommodate more area, and two more children, though the satyr has been replaced by another man (another peasant?) who’s draining his own mug of beer. The second painting is known as “Eating Man” but I don’t know if it was painted before or after the other one.

Jordaens-satyr-and-peasants

You can read Jardaens biography at Wikipedia or at the Jacob Jardaens official website. And you can see more of his work at Olga’s Gallery, at the official website gallery and the Web Gallery. And there are links to even more paintings at ArtCyclopedia.