The Smokers is a painting by the Flemish painter Adriaen Brouwer, painted in c. 1636, probably in Antwerp. It hangs in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York. [1]
The oil-on-wood painting measures 46.40 by 36.80 centimetres (18.27 in × 14.49 in) and is signed by the artist. [2] [3]
The painting is of five young men smoking pipes and drinking beer. At the time smoking was new and controversial. [3] Brouwer included a self-portrait: he is the one turning to face the viewer while lifting a drinking mug and exhaling smoke. [4] While the subjects have not been identified with certainty, it has been suggested the person in black and white apparel depicted on the right is painter Jan de Heem; [3] the person in the middle is Joos van Craesbeeck; the person depicted blowing smoke out of his nose is painter Jan Cossiers; [3] and Jan Lievens is the person on the far left.[ citation needed ]
In art history, "Old Master" refers to any painter of skill who worked in Europe before about 1800, or a painting by such an artist. An "old master print" is an original print made by an artist in the same period. The term "old master drawing" is used in the same way.
Adriaen Brouwer was a Flemish painter active in Flanders and the Dutch Republic in the first half of the 17th century. Brouwer was an important innovator of genre painting through his vivid depictions of peasants, soldiers and other "lower class" individuals engaged in drinking, smoking, card or dice playing, fighting, music making etc. in taverns or rural settings. Brouwer contributed to the development of the genre of tronies, i.e. head or facial studies, which investigate varieties of expression. In his final year he produced a few landscapes of a tragic intensity. Brouwer's work had an important influence on the next generation of Flemish and Dutch genre painters. Although Brouwer produced only a small body of work, Dutch masters Peter Paul Rubens and Rembrandt collected it.
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Abraham Hendriksz van Beijeren or Abraham van Beyeren was a Dutch Baroque painter of still lifes. Little recognized in his day and initially active as a marine painter, he is now considered one of the most important painters of still lifes, and still lifes of fish and so-called 'pronkstillevens', i.e. sumptuous still lifes of luxurious objects.
Nicolaes van Verendael or Nicolaes van Veerendael was a Flemish painter active in Antwerp who is mainly known for his flower paintings and vanitas still lifes. He was a frequent collaborator of other Antwerp artists to whose compositions he added the still life elements. He also painted a number of singeries, i.e., scenes with monkeys dressed and acting as humans.
Genre painting, a form of genre art, depicts aspects of everyday life by portraying ordinary people engaged in common activities. One common definition of a genre scene is that it shows figures to whom no identity can be attached either individually or collectively, thus distinguishing it from history paintings and portraits. A work would often be considered as a genre work even if it could be shown that the artist had used a known person—a member of his family, say—as a model. In this case it would depend on whether the work was likely to have been intended by the artist to be perceived as a portrait—sometimes a subjective question. The depictions can be realistic, imagined, or romanticized by the artist. Because of their familiar and frequently sentimental subject matter, genre paintings have often proven popular with the bourgeoisie, or middle class.
Jan Miel was a Flemish painter and engraver who was active in Italy. He initially formed part of the circle of Dutch and Flemish genre painters in Rome who are referred to as the 'Bamboccianti' and were known for their scenes depicting the lower classes in Rome. He later developed away from the Bamboccianti style and painted history subjects in a classicising style.
Hendrick Andriessen, known as Mancken Heyn was a Flemish still-life painter. He is known for his vanitas still lifes, which are made up of objects referencing the precariousness of life, and 'smoker' still lifes, which depict smoking utensils. The artist worked in Antwerp and likely also in the Dutch Republic.
JohannesLingelbach was a Dutch Golden Age painter, associated with the second generation of Bambocciate, a group of genre painters working in Rome from 1625–1700.
Simon de Vos was a Flemish painter, draughtsman and art collector. He started his career making small-format cabinet pictures of genre scenes, in particular of Caravaggesque merry companies. Later he switched to history painting, working on larger formats in a Flemish Baroque style which was influenced by Rubens and van Dyck.
Flemish Baroque painting was a style of painting in the Southern Netherlands during Spanish control in the 16th and 17th centuries. The period roughly begins when the Dutch Republic was split from the Habsburg Spain regions to the south with the Spanish recapturing of Antwerp in 1585 and goes until about 1700, when Spanish Habsburg authority ended with the death of King Charles II. Antwerp, home to the prominent artists Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, and Jacob Jordaens, was the artistic nexus, while other notable cities include Brussels and Ghent.
Jan Cossiers was a Flemish painter and draughtsman. Cossiers' earliest works were Caravaggesque genre works depicting low life scenes. Later in his career he painted mostly history and religious subjects as well as portraits. Cossiers was one of the leading painters in Antwerp after Rubens' death in 1640 and one of the most original colorists in 17th-century Flanders. He was an accomplished draughtsman who created some sensitive portrait drawings executed in a very varied and fluid manner.
Jan Boeckhorst or Johann Bockhorst was a German-born Flemish Baroque painter and draughtsman who worked most of his career in Antwerp. He was a versatile artist who produced history paintings, genre scenes and portraits in a style influenced by the trio of leading Antwerp painters Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens. Boeckhorst also worked as a designer of cartoons for tapestries.
Joos van Craesbeeck (c. 1605/06 – c. 1660) was a Flemish baker and a painter who played an important role in the development of Flemish genre painting in the mid-17th century through his tavern scenes and dissolute portraits. His genre scenes depict low-life figures as well as scenes of middle-class people. He created a few religiously themed compositions.
A tronie is a type of work common in Dutch Golden Age painting and Flemish Baroque painting that depicts an exaggerated or characteristic facial expression. These works were not intended as portraits or caricatures but as studies of expression, type, physiognomy or an interesting character such as an old man or woman, a young woman, the soldier, the shepherdess, the "Oriental", or a person of a particular race.
Depictions of tobacco smoking in art date back at least to the pre-Columbian Maya civilization, where smoking had religious significance. The motif occurred frequently in painting of the 17th-century Dutch Golden Age, in which people of lower social class were often shown smoking pipes. In European art of the 18th and 19th centuries, the social location of people – largely men – shown as smoking tended to vary, but the stigma attached to women who adopted the habit was reflected in some artworks. Art of the 20th century often used the cigar as a status symbol, and parodied images from tobacco advertising, especially of women. Developing health concerns around tobacco smoking also influenced its artistic representation.
Anton Goubau or Anton Goebouw was a Flemish Baroque painter. He spent time in Rome where he moved in the circle of the Bamboccianti, a name given to mainly Dutch and Flemish genre painters who created small cabinet paintings of the everyday life of the lower classes in Rome and its countryside. He is known for his Italianate landscapes and genre paintings in the style of the Bamboccianti and his history paintings with mythological and religious themes.
"As the Old Sing, So Pipe the Young", in Dutch, Soo voer gesongen, soo na gepepen, is an oil-on-canvas painting executed c. 1668–1670 by Dutch artist Jan Steen. It is in the collection of the Mauritshuis in The Hague. The painting is a celebratory holiday scene that depicts three generations of a Dutch family and serves as an allegory about parental examples, vice, and influence. This subject was painted thirteen times by Jan Steen and has also been known as The Cat Family, or Jan Steen's Family. Of the many renditions, the Mauritshuis version is considered to be the exemplar of the series. Its dimensions are 133.7 cm × 162.5 cm.
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