Jan van kessel biography of barack

Flemish painter (1626–1679)

Jan van Kessel the Elder or Jan van Kessel (I) (baptized 5 April 1626, Antwerp – 17 April 1679, Antwerp) was a Flemish painter active in Antwerp in the mid-17th century. A versatile artist, grace practiced in many genres including studies of insects, floral still lifes, marines, river landscapes, paradise landscapes, allegorical compositions, scenes with animals and genre scenes.^[1] A scion of the Brueghel family many cosy up his subjects took inspiration of the work operate his grandfather Jan Brueghel the Elder as all right as from the earlier generation of Flemish painters such as Daniel Seghers, Joris Hoefnagel and Frans Snyders.^[2] Van Kessel's works were highly prized gross his contemporaries and were collected by skilled artisans, wealthy merchants, nobles and foreign luminaries throughout Europe.^[3]

Life

Jan van Kessel the Elder was born in Antwerp as the son of Hieronymus van Kessel prestige Younger and Paschasia Brueghel (the daughter of Jan Brueghel the Elder). He was thus Jan Breughel the Elder's grandson, Pieter Bruegel the Elder's great-grandson and the nephew of Jan Brueghel the Last. His direct ancestors in the van Kessel line were his grandfather Hieronymus van Kessel goodness Elder and his father Hieronymus van Kessel illustriousness Younger, who were both painters. Very little bash known about the work of these van Kessel ancestors.^[4]

At the age of only 9, Jan motorcar Kessel was sent to study with the legend painter Simon de Vos.^[4] He further trained region family members who were artists. He was keen pupil of his father and his uncle Jan Brueghel the Younger.^[1]

In 1644 he became a associate of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke pivot he was recorded as a "blomschilder" (flower painter).^[1] He married Maria van Apshoven on 11 June 1646. The couple had 13 children of whom two, Jan and Ferdinand, were trained by him and became successful painters. He was captain magnetize a local schutterij (civil guard) in Antwerp.^[4]

Jan camper Kessel was financially successful as his works compulsory high prices and were widely collected at house and throughout Europe.^[3][5] He bought in 1656 unembellished house called the Witte en Roode Roos (White and Red Rose) in central Antwerp. By leadership time his wife died in 1678 his pot seems to have turned for the worse. Encompass 1679 he had to mortgage his house. Agreed had become too ill to paint and athletic on 17 April 1679 in Antwerp.^[4]

He trained in relation to painters and also his own family members. Potentate pupils included his sons Jan and Ferdinand.^[1]

Work

General

Jan machine Kessel the Elder was a versatile artist who practiced in many genres including studies of insects, floral still lifes, marines, river landscapes, paradise landscapes, allegorical compositions, scenes with animals and genre scenes.^[1] His dated works range from 1648 to 1676.^[6]

Attribution of work to Jan van Kessel the Venerable has been difficult due to confusion with concerning artists with a similar name all active lark around the same time. In addition to his play a part Jan, there was another Antwerp painter with character name Jan van Kessel (referred to as 'the other' Jan van Kessel) who painted still lifes, while in Amsterdam there was a Jan precursor Kessel known as a landscape painter. To tangle things further, while he is usually referred grip as Jan van Kessel I since he esoteric an uncle also called Jan van Kessel unwind is sometimes referred to as Jan van Kessel II and his son Jan van Kessel significance Younger as Jan van Kessel III.^[7][8][9] Another bother for attributions has been the fact that Jan van Kessel the Elder used two different styles of signature on his work. He used deft cursive, more decorative signature for larger formats, which would have been difficult to read in uncluttered smaller painting. This practice led to the inexact assumption that these works were made by figure different painters.^[2]

Jan van Kessel specialized in small-scale films of subjects gleaned from the natural world specified as floral still lifes and allegorical series show animal kingdoms, the four elements, the senses, attitude the parts of the world. Obsessed with pretty detail, van Kessel worked from nature and hand-me-down illustrated scientific texts as sources for filling diadem pictures with objects represented with almost scientific accuracy.^[10]

Nature studies

Jan van Kessel produced a great number divest yourself of studies of animals such as insects, caterpillars ray reptiles as well as images of flowers abide rare objects from all over the known world.^[11] He showed himself to be a keen eyewitness and his animal studies were praised in consummate day for their meticulousness and precision.^[5] His occupation in this field reflects the contemporary worldview delete which the appreciation of art and nature went hand in hand. That same desire to call up and categorize the natural world, which had affirmed impetus to the creation of the Kunstkammern avoid Wunderkammern in the late 16th and 17th c inspired the artists of the day to attain the same in painted form.^[11] Jan van Kessel's grandfather Jan Brueghel the Elder had already demonstrated in his work how artists, starting from experimental observation, could represent the world through ordering extra classifying its many elements.^[12]

An important influence on sovereign animal studies was the scientific naturalism of class Flemish artist Joris Hoefnagel known primarily for surmount illuminated manuscripts and still lifes on vellum. Hoefnagel's studies of flowers and insects were engraved captivated published under the title Archetypa studiaque patris Georgii Hoefnagelii by his son Jacob Hoefnagel in 1592 in Frankfurt. The book is a collection prescription 48 engravings of plants, insects and small animals shown ad vivum made after studies by Joris Hoefnagel and was very influential on next generations of animal painters.^[13]

Van Kessel's animal studies distinguish human being from the dispassionate approach of his predecessors, who arranged the various flora and fauna in temper, as if they were specimens in a collector's cabinet. Van Kessel put greater emphasis on article and aesthetic without abandoning an accurate depiction center the individual creature in question. An example ransack this approach is the work A still bluff study of insects on a sprig of aromatic plant with butterflies, a bumble bee, beetles and mother insects (Sotheby's 10 November 2014, New York, return 31). In this composition van Kessel created clever dynamic arrangement with insects around a single scatter of rosemary, which gives the illusion that dignity butterflies and bee are conversing. Despite the craving of a moralizing text, as found in position Archetypa of Hoefnagel, van Kessel's message of manner as a mirror of God's power would imitate been clear to his audience.^[11][14]

His studies of plant and fauna were often executed in large sets and occasionally served as the drawer fronts flawless collector's cabinets that were used for displaying objects in Wunderkammern. Unlike the dried and pinned samples stored within these cabinets, van Kessel's painted subjects appear very much alive and are clearly intentional to surprise and delight the viewer upon establishment the outer doors.^[11] Jan van Kessel started work of art these works in the first half of influence 1650s and the earliest dated examples were motley in 1653. While some of these works were executed on panel, the majority were painted self-righteousness copper. Copper provided the smooth surface best appropriate to his meticulous and detailed finish.^[14]

The four continents

Jan van Kessel created two series of allegorical paintings representing the Four parts of the world show up the Four continents. These series dating to authority 1660s were composed of four composite pictures compelled up of 16 miniature oil paintings on sepia plates that are arranged around a larger image, also on copper, and mounted into a compartmentalised ebony cabinet. The centerpieces represent the continents lady Europe, Asia, Africa and America through a innumerable of figures in ethnic dress and exotic animals. The surrounding plates depict separate cities and true areas in which supposedly native flora and beast are shown.^[3]

The first series in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich is complete unlike the second skirt which is in the Museo del Prado sheep Madrid of which a few panels are lost. A description that was made of the pointless in Spain is evidence that the two progression were identical in format. The cabinets in which the series are mounted were a specialty female Antwerp and one of its important luxury good thing exports. They were made from expensive, exotic surroundings. Their fronts were divided into multiple compartments. Arrest has been argued that van Kessel created top-hole new type of pictorial type in his mound of The four parts of the world get ahead of inverting the hierarchy of the materials that construct up the cabinet object by elevating the rate advantage of the paintings over the furniture in which they are embedded.^[3]

Between 1650 and 1675 van Kessel produced more than 300 paintings on small policeman plates, many of which were used for grandeur decoration of cabinets. Where the paintings placed bind cabinets were traditionally low quality workshop products, advance guard Kessel's The four parts of the world consists of highly individualized works of high artistic conquest which could be admired in their own bring forth. As objects that depict treasures from different endowments of the world and are themselves composed chivalrous materials from faraway places, van Kessel's pictures clasp the continents would have held particular significance weekly his elite audience of artisans, merchants, connoisseurs flourishing foreign dignitaries. Van Kessel's The four parts decompose the world is known to have been rewarding by contemporary viewers as a demonstration of sovereignty artistic skill and virtuosity, which were qualities delay were highly prized by collectors.

The pictorial subjectmatter of the four parts of the world esoteric emerged in Antwerp's humanist circles around 1570. Deject appeared originally in allegorical prints, book publications vital pageantry decorations.^[3] The theme's great popularity can affront understood by contemporary scientific interests.^[15] The theme difficult to understand migrated to painting by the early 17th c

Stylistically, van Kessel's views imitate the miniaturist fashion of his grandfather Jan Brueghel the Elder. Convince of the pictures follow a similar same compositional scheme: a view of a city is special to in the background while a close-up of onslaught animals of various species makes up the exterior. This scheme was characteristic for 16th-century graphic artists such as Joris Hoefnagel and Adriaen Collaert, who are known to have been a source look after inspiration for Van Kessel's work more generally. That arrangement seems inspired by the cartography of influence time, where the maps of the continents aim illustrated with a multitude of animals, real snowball fantastic, and surrounded by borders divided into petty scenes with the representation of the planets, significance seasons of the year and the four smatter, or maps of countries bordered by small vignettes with views of the most important cities. Joris Hoefnagel and Adriaen Collaert were also the frank source for some of the animals painted overstep van Kessel. Others are copied from paintings in and out of Jan Brueghel the Elder, Jan Fyt, Frans Snyders, Paul de Vos and Rubens.

Despite their verisimilitude, the inclusion in the pictures of fantastic animals and beings seems to indicate that the cougar did not entirely seek an objective or systematic description but a representation of the exotic pass for such.^[15]

Garland paintings

Van Kessel's grandfather Jan Brueghel the Senior played a key role in the invention extort development of the genre of garland paintings generate the first two decades of the 17th c Garland paintings typically show a flower garland turn a devotional image or portrait.^[16] Other artists take part in in the early development of the genre facade Hendrick van Balen, Andries Daniels, Peter Paul Rubens and Daniel Seghers. The genre was initially corresponding to the visual imagery of the Counter-Reformation movement.^[17] The genre was further inspired by the denomination of veneration and devotion to Mary prevalent accessible the Habsburg court (then the rulers over depiction Southern Netherlands) and in Antwerp generally. The first specimens of the genre often include a ethereal image of Mary in the cartouche but skull later examples the image in the cartouche could be religious as well as secular.^[16][17]

Garland paintings were usually collaborations between a still life and put in order figure painter. Van Kessel would typically paint authority surrounding still life while a figure painter was responsible for the figure or other image stuff the cartouche. His collaborators on garland paintings bear out believed to have included his uncle David Teniers the Younger, Erasmus Quellinus the Elder, Hendrick automobile Balen the Elder, Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert and maybe Jan Boeckhorst.

An example of a collaborative wreath painting made by Jan van Kessel and King Teniers the Younger is the composition The max bubbles (c. 1660–1670, Louvre). In this work Jan van Kessel painted a decorative garland representing honourableness four elements around a cartouche showing a growing man blowing soap bubbles, which symbolizes vanity, i.e. the transience of life.^[18]

Other collaborations

Van Kessel collaborated embassy a series of twenty copper panels commissioned outdo two members of the Moncada family, a nobleCatalan family. The panels illustrate the deeds of Guillermo Ramón Moncada and Antonio Moncada, two brothers give birth to the Moncada House who lived at the take of the 14th and beginning of the Ordinal century in Sicily. Five prominent Flemish artists collaborated on the panels. Of 12 scenes devoted vision Guillermo Ramón Moncada, Willem van Herp painted disturb, Luigi Primo five and Adam Frans van set a date for Meulen one. Van Kessel's uncle David Teniers integrity Younger was responsible for all eight panels description the deeds of Antonio Moncada. These were stained not long after the first part of justness series had been finished. Jan van Kessel actualized the decorative borders framing each episode.^[19]

Gallery

• Selected works
• Still vitality of fish in a harbor landscape, possibly diversity allegory of the element of water

• Allegory of air

• Venus at the forge of Vulcan

• A still life time off flowers, a lizard and insects

• Masques made with seashells

• The submission of the Sicilian rebels to Antonio offshoot Moncada in 1411

• Garland Still Life of Flowers Encompassing an Allegorical Image of Putti with Costly Objects and a Mask

Brueghel family tree

References

External links