_Jan Steen_ (Dutch: 1626-1679).
It is in the collections of Holland, and especially in the
Museum of Amsterdam, that the best works of this remarkable
painter are to be seen--a painter whose talent and occasional
grace made Reynolds name him in the same breath with Raphael,
and who has by other critics been called the Molière of
painting. This latter comparison happily expresses the dramatic
and intellectual quality of Steen's best works. He drew not
merely Dutch life, but human nature. He depicts the comedy
of human life, for the most part, in a spirit of genial
toleration, but sometimes with touches of almost Hogarthian
satire. With regard to technical qualities, his best works are
admirable for their skilful composition, brilliant touch, and
harmonious colouring. "Steen when it pleased him was an artist
of great ability. Unfortunately it did not always please him
to be so, and then his colour became blurred, his execution
trivial, and the general aspect of his figures heavy and
monotonous; but whenever he exerts himself he becomes once
more and remains a great master. It is the more astonishing
to find these defects, as they are peculiar neither to the
beginning nor to the end of his career, and therefore cannot
be attributed to a hard apprenticeship or premature decay.
They are to be explained by the irregular life which the
painter led" (Havard). The number of his works, however,--of
which more than 500 have been catalogued--seem to negative the
stories in which some biographers accept of Steen's drunken
and dissolute life. He was the son of a brewer and was born at
Leyden. He first studied under a German painter, Knüpfer, at
Utrecht; afterwards with Adrian van Ostade, and Jan van Goyen
whose daughter he married in 1649. In the previous year he had
joined the Painters' Guild of Haarlem. That he was improvident
is proved by records of executions for debt which have been
discovered in the archives of that town. His pictures must have
fetched small prices, for he contracted to pay the year's rent
of his house for 1666-67 with three portraits "painted as well
as he was able," the rent being 29 florins. In 1669 his wife
and his father died, and Steen, who is supposed to have resided
for some years at the Hague, returned to Leyden and opened a
tavern, and for the rest of his life combined the businesses of
painter and publican.
A work of some humour. The music-master is sadly bored with the
exercises of his pupil at the harpsichord, but his disgust is fully
shared by the young brother whose turn is to come next, and who is
bringing a lute into the room. The picture is signed on the harpsichord.