He begged for a living and often slept in a large ceramic jar, or pithos, in the marketplace. He declared himself a cosmopolitan and a citizen of the world rather than claiming allegiance to just one place.ĭiogenes made a virtue of poverty. He had a reputation for sleeping and eating wherever he chose in a highly non-traditional fashion and took to toughening himself against nature. He used his simple lifestyle and behavior to criticize the social values and institutions of what he saw as a corrupt, confused society.

He modeled himself on the example of Heracles, believing that virtue was better revealed in action than in theory. After his hasty departure from Sinope he moved to Athens where he proceeded to criticize many cultural conventions of the Athens of that day. He was allegedly banished, or fled from, Sinope for debasement of currency. He was born in Sinope, an Ionian colony on the Black Sea coast of Anatolia in 412 or 404 BC and died at Corinth in 323 BC.ĭiogenes was a controversial figure. Like Rubens, Jordaens relied on a warm palette, naturalism, and a mastery of chiaroscuro and tenebrism.ĭiogenes, also known as Diogenes the Cynic, was a Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Cynicism (philosophy). After the death of Rubens, Jordaens advanced to the position of one of the most admired painters in Antwerp. Jordaens was greatly influenced by Peter Paul Rubens who occasionally employed him to reproduce small sketches in a larger format. Not many of these pupils went on to fame themselves, however a position in Jordaens’s studio was highly desirable for young artists from across Europe. Like Rubens and other artists at that time, Jordaens’ studio relied on his assistants and pupils in the production of his paintings. Among them were his cousin and his son Jacob. Luke records fifteen official pupils from 1621 to 1667, but six others were recorded as pupils in court documents and not the Guild records, so it is probable that he had more students than officially recorded. Jordaens’ importance can also be seen by his number of pupils the Guild of St. Besides a large output of monumental oil paintings he was a prolific tapestry designer, a career that reflects his early training as a “watercolor” painter. His commissions frequently came from wealthy local Flemish patrons and clergy, although later in his career he worked for courts and governments across Europe.

His work, however, betrays local traditions, especially the genre traditions of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, in honestly depicting Flemish life with authenticity and showing common people in the act of celebratory expressions of life. For example, Jordaens is known to have studied Titian, Veronese, Caravaggio, and Bassano, either through prints, copies or originals (such as Caravaggio’s Madonna of the Rosary). Despite this, he made many efforts to study prints or works of Italian masters available in northern Europe. Jordaens never made the traditional trip to Italy to study classical and Renaissance art. He lived and worked here until his death in 1678. He would then later buy the adjoining house to expand his household and workspace in 1639, mimicking Rubens’s house built two decades earlier. In 1618, Jordaens bought a house in Hoogstraat (the area in Antwerp that he grew up in). In the same year as his entry into the guild, 1616, he married his teacher’s eldest daughter, Anna Catharina van Noort, with whom he had three children. although examples of his earliest watercolor works are no longer extant. This medium was often used for preparing tapestry cartoons in the seventeenth century. Luke as a “waterscilder”, or watercolor artist. After eight years of training with Van Noort, he enrolled in the Guild of St. During this time Jordaens lived in Van Noort’s house and became very close to the rest of the family.

Like Rubens, he studied under Adam van Noort, who was his only teacher. Jordaens familiarity with biblical subjects is evident in his many religious paintings, and his personal interaction with the Bible was strengthened by his later conversion from Catholicism to Protestantism. This assumption is supported by his clear handwriting, his competence in French and in his knowledge of mythology. It can be assumed that he received the advantages of the education usually provided for children of his social class. Little is known about Jordaens’s early education. Jacob Jordeans was born on May 19, 1593, the first of eleven children, to the wealthy linen merchant Jacob Jordaens Sr.

Painting of diogenes