JACOB JORDAENS' YOUTH

Jacob Jordaens was born in Antwerp (Belgium) on May 19, 1593. Jordaens studied under Adam van Noort, a man who had also taught Peter Paul Rubens. Jordaens married his master's daughter, Catharina. He studied works of Italian masters, but the most influential was Rubens who employed him sometimes to reproduce small sketches in large.


JACOB JORDAENS AS AN ARTIST

Rubens' influences were plentiful: Jacob Jordaens painted in the same warmth of colour, the same truth to nature, the same mastery of chiaroscuro and the same energy of expression as Peter Paul Rubens did. But Jordaens is inferior in choice of forms, in the character of his heads, and in correctness of drawing. Not seldom he sins against good taste, and in some of his humorous pieces the coarseness is only atoned for by the animation. Of these last he seems in some cases to have painted several replicas. He employed his pencil also in biblical, mythological, historical and allegorical subjects, and is well-known as a portrait painter. Jacob Jordaens also etched some plates.

He found his models in the street or they came from his own family. Jordaens was clearly not interested in aristocratic faces and delicate hands like his contemporary Antoon Van Dijck.


JACOB JORDAENS' LAST YEARS

After the death of Rubens, Jordaens became the leading figure in the Antwerp school, which gave him the chance to produce paintings for Churches and Courts. Jacob Jordaens died October 18, 1678 in his homecity Antwerp.