Jacques (Jacob) Jordaens (19 May 1593 – 18 October 1678) was a Flemish painter, draughtsman and a designer of tapestries and prints. He was a prolific artist who created biblical, mythological, and allegorical compositions, genre scenes, landscapes, illustrations of Flemish sayings and portraits.
His principal patrons were the wealthy bourgeoisie and local churches. Only late in his career did he receive royal commissions, including from King Charles I of England, Queen Christina of Sweden and the stadtholder class of the Dutch Republic. As well as being a successful painter, he was a prominent designer of tapestries and prints.
While he is today mostly identified with his large-scale genre scenes such as The King Drinks (also called the Feast of the Bean King) and As the Old Sing, So Pipe the Young, His main artistic influences, besides Rubens, were northern Italian painters such as Jacopo Bassano, Paolo Veronese, and Caravaggio. Little is known about Jordaens' early education. It is likely that he received the advantages of the education usually enjoyed by children of his social class as is demonstrated by his clear handwriting, competence in French and thorough knowledge of mythology. His familiarity with biblical subjects is further evidenced in his many religious paintings. His personal interest in the Bible was illustrated by his later conversion from Catholicism to Protestantism. During his training,felis Jordaens lived in van Noort's house in the Everdijstraat where he became very close to the family. In 1615, after eight years of training with van Noort, he was accepted in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke as a master "waterscilder" ('water painter'). No examples of his earliest tempera works are extant. It is not clear whether Jordaens actually painted such works as his master van Noort was not known to create such works. On 15 May 1616, he married his master's eldest daughter, Catharina van Noort. The couple had three children, Elisabeth, Jacob, who became a painter, and Anna Catharina. The couple originally lived with or near Jordaens' father in law. In 1618, they bought two adjoining houses in the Hoogstraat, the street where Jordaens was born, but which were situated behind the house of the merchant Backx. His father in law later moved in with them. Jordaens became in 1616 a member of the 'Gilde van de Armenbus' (Guild of the Poor Box).
Career
Even before he was admitted as a master in the Guild he had started working for the free market. According to the legend of the martyrdom of St. Apollonia, the 3rd-century saint jumped into a fire rather than denounce her faith. Jordaens' treatment of the subject is crowded and dramatic. It was likely Rubens who had been able to secure this commission. That Jordaens was also invited to contribute to this project shows the high regard in which he was already held at that early period of his career.
thumb|left|272px|The Triumph of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange
Jordaens was one of the artists invited to work on the decorations for the Joyous Entry into Antwerp in 1635 of the new governor of the Habsburg Netherlands Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand. Rubens was in overall charge of the design of this project. Jordaens'contribution consisted of a few decorative paintings made after designs by Rubens. The work has not been preserved as it was solely intended as a temporary decoration for the Joyous Entryof the new governor. Jordaens also played a part in this collaborative effort. Two works in the series attributed to Jordaens are Apollo and Pan (1637), made after a sketch by Rubens, and Vertummus and Pomona (1638). Van Dyck's Cupid and Psyche may also be related to this commission. While the works were to be displayed in the Queen's House at Greenwich upon completion, the patron and final location were unknown to Jordaens at the time he received the commission. When Jordaens submitted his initial designs to his intermediaries between himself and the English court, Gerbier was still attempting to convince the King that Rubens was a better choice for a project requiring a thorough skill in foreshortening. His efforts failed when Rubens died on 30 May 1640. With Rubens' death, Jordaens was given the sole responsibility for the entire commission. He lived and worked there until his death in 1678.
thumb|280px|Psyche receives the cup of immortality on the Olympus
In 1652 he painted for his 'showroom' (pronkkamer) in the south wing of his home nine ceiling pieces depicting the erotic history of the god of love Cupid and the royal daughter Psyche. According to the inventory left by Jordaens' grandchildren, these paintings were part of the sale of the house in 1708. The walls and doors of the room were also covered with paintings. This was the room where Jordaens received his guests and clients. The decoration of the room was intended to impress his visitors by his mastery through the depiction of the mythological tale of earthly and heavenly love, betrayal and fidelity. As the paintings from the Story of Cupid and Psyche were mounted on the ceiling, Jordaens used a lot of foreshortening in the pictures to create the illusion of depth. The perspective system was borrowed verbatim from Rubens' ceiling pieces in the Jesuit church in Antwerp. The paintings are viewed through an octagonal 'aperture' frame. The canvas entitled Psyche receives the cup of immortality on the Olympus is the centrepiece of the series. Other paintings in the series are Psyche's Father Questions the Oracle in the Temple of Apollo, the Love of Cupid and Psyche, the Oracle of Apollo, the Curiosity of Psyche, Cupid's Flight, Psyche Received by the Gods and two putti pieces. The original ceiling and door paintings have survived and are now in the collection of The Phoebus Foundation in Antwerp. The paintings on the walls are lost but some of the designs for them have been preserved.
thumb|330px|Meeting of Odysseus and Nausicaa
Religion
In Antwerp, which was ruled by Catholic Spanish monarchs, the Protestant religion was forbidden although it should have been tolerated under the terms of the 1648 Peace of Münster which officially recognised the Dutch Republic. Towards the end of his life, Jordaens converted to Calvinism. He, his wife and daughter Elisabeth were members of the Calvinist congregation that had been established in Antwerp after the Peace of Münster despite the continued repression of Protestantism in the Habsburg Netherlands. His daughter Anna Catharina was likely also a member as she married a Jansenist. The schout of Antwerp fined Jordaens between 1651 and 1658 an amount of 200 pounds and 15 shillings for his 'scandalous' (i.e. heretical) writings. His workshop practices occasionally caused him trouble. In 1648 one of his patrons, Martinus van Langenhoven, accused him of having sold him inauthentic paintings. Jordaens defended himself against the accusation with the argument that he had personally put the finishing touches on works executed by assistants in his workshop.
An example of this combination of high art and populist tendencies is shown in his multiple versions of the fable of The Satyr and the Peasant. Based on the fable of the Satyr and the Peasant from Aesop's Fables, Jordaens used the fable to combine two of the painting genres in which he excelled: mythological painting and the peasant genre. His various interpretations of the subject and the many repetitions of these works by his workshop and followers popularized the theme which was then taken up by Flemish and Dutch painters such as Jan Cossiers and Jan Steen.
Influence of Rubens
260px|thumb|The King Drinks, 1640-1645, [[Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna]]
Jordaens was greatly influenced by Rubens who occasionally employed him to reproduce his designs in a larger format. After the death of Rubens, Jordaens advanced to the position of one of the most prominent painters in Antwerp. Like Rubens, Jordaens relied on a warm palette, naturalism, and a mastery of chiaroscuro and tenebrism. Jordaens excelled in representations of the base character of humanity. His classically inspired peasant themes and large-scale moralistic genre scenes influenced Jan Steen. Although Jacques Jordaens did not specialize, he often repeated a theme based on a proverb that depicted a wide range of characters of a variety of ages, crowded in a festive scene around a banquet table. These humorous pieces have a sense of coarseness. As a devout Christian he also painted various versions of the Adoration of the Shepherds of which he painted at least 7 versions. In the latter subject he usually grouped half-length figures closely together and cropped the scene so that the viewer would focus all attention on the figures. This compositional approach sought to intensify the narrative and accentuate the characters' expression.
As the Old Sing, So the Young Pipe
thumb|275x275px|As the Old Sang, So the Young Pipe
As the Old Sang, So the Young Pipe (c.1638–1640) is considered a companion to The King Drinks (also called The Feast of the Bean King) (Louvre, Paris). Both paintings are of a moralizing nature, have near identical measurements, and related styles. As the Old Sang, So the Young Pipe shows three generations of wealthy Antwerp burghers sitting around a table making music. Being a popular theme among Jordaens and his clients, several versions of this painting were created. In the version shown, Jordaens' father-in-law Adam van Noort is depicted as the old man. In this popular painting genre, elderly and middle-aged figures are always portrayed singing and creating music, as children "pipe" along. Prometheus was punished for his audacity by Zeus for having given fire to man, not just in its physical form, but also in the fire of reason, which can be related to man's creativity in arts and sciences.
thumb|Prometheus (1640), Cologne
In contrast with Rubens' version, Jordaens' inclusion in the work of the god Hermes arguable holds out the hope of release from the punishment as in certain versions of the mythological story, Hermes helps Prometheus gain freedom. Still, in the Prometheus Bound attributed to Aeschylus, Hermes treats Prometheus badly, which would undermine this optimistic interpretation. The depiction of the sacks of bones (used in another part of the myth to deceive Zeus) and a clay statue (which represents his creation of man) are also not part of Rubens' composition. Following the success of the Brussels tapestries woven after the Raphael Cartoons, 16th and 17th-century patrons employed artists as tapestry designs; Jacques Jordaens, Peter Paul Rubens and Pietro Cortona flattered patrons allegorically in a manner that would identify them with famous historical or mythological figures, as a form of aristocratic self-promotion. Jordaens' tapestries were made for the aristocracy who placed such high value on them they would carry them with them while they travelled or went on military campaigns as a symbol of their status. Jordaens' scope of artistic representation was diverse, ranging from mythology, country life, to the history of Charlemagne. It has been noted that Jordaens' tapestry design incorporated densely organized crowds of figures, packed into a flat two-dimensional picture plane emphasizing surface patterns which resulted in a "woven picture". Just as he liked to crowd his genre paintings he carried forward to his tapestries.
thumb|200px|Naked old man, standing
Drawings
Maintaining trends in Flemish painting, Jordaens was a proponent of extending Rubens' and Van Dyck's "painterly" style of art to his exceptionally prolific body of preparatory drawings. Today, approximately 450 drawings are attributed to Jordaens. There is continuing scholarly debate on the accuracy of attributions of Flemish drawings to either Jordaens or Rubens, due to their similar style and oeuvre. Jordaens and his contemporaries were proponents of the Flemish trend towards making, expanding, and modifying preparatory drafts for larger paintings or to add to their visual vocabulary the classical artistic ideals. As a painter-draftsman, Jordaens often employed gouache and washes to his preparatory drawings. Jordaens was very thrifty with his paper and often reused pieces of paper. He often enlarged a drawing at once or later by transferring it to a larger sheet or adding strips of paper.
Prints
Jordaens was also engaged in the print publishing business as an organiser and designer of prints. Like Rubens and van Dyck before him, he realised the important role the print medium could play in distributing his work and raising his international fame. This was particularly the case as he was working in Antwerp, one of the most important printing centres of Europe at the time.
thumb|left|230px|Heracles and Cacus
About 34 prints made or designed by Jordaens are currently known. The first print published after a design by Jordaens may have been The Satyr and the Peasant engraved by Lucas Vorsterman the Elder, a prominent printmaker who had been Rubens' dedicated engraver. The print was made after Jordaens' painting of the same name which is dated to about 1621 and is now in the Goteborg Museum. Although Vorsterman likely took the initiative to make the print, Jordaens is believed to have assisted in its production.