The Antwerp School

	*The "ANTWERP SCHOOL"*
Staying in Antwerp for a longer while will enable you to visit also its very important *State Museum of Fine Arts* and/or the superb *Rubens' House. Both possess a huge collection of fine works, painted by Rubens* and by many other flemish Baroque masters; most of them belong to the famous so-called"ANTWERP SCHOOL".

Many painters took over Rubens' style, were often his collaborators and friends or his pupils. They often specialised: some were excellent portrait painters, others mainly made landscapes, or were flower-, animal- or still life-painter... Let's briefly enumerate some names of important Antwerp masters of the first half of the 17th century - of RUBENS' semi-century - whose works you can admire in the Antwerp Museum or in Rubens' House.

Collaborators but NOT pupils ... Amongst those who often worked with Rubens, but hadn't been his pupils, are for instance:

Jan BRUEGHEL Sr and Jr, son and grandson of *Pieter (Brueghel) the Elder, the world famous Antwerp* Renaissance master who died in 1569.
	Both are mainly known for an immense production of very detailed flower compositions, often completed with tiny insects of all kind, resting on leaves and twigs.
The *"Madonna with Child"*, surrounded by a splendid chaplet of flowers, was one of their favourite themes.

Frans SNYDERS ...
... was the Antwerp pioneer/ master as to the pure *still life*: a table,a cupboard richly decorated with a glass jar, a nice cup, a cupper plate, a basket filled with all sorts of fruit. Sometimes birds, a hare, hunting trophies lie exposed next to those objects.
	Snyders was unique in representing hunting scenes:wild animals, geese... chased by furious hounds. Rubens regularly asked him to complete *mythological scenes* or *landscapes with such hunting activities*.

Cornelis DE VOS
	He was Snyders' brother-in-law, and wasn't just a famous Antwerp painter: as a merchant he also sold paintings of other masters.
De Vos specialised in life-sized portraits: individuals or family portraits of high class citizens and their children, of members of Antwerp guilds and corporations (f.i. the one of *Abraham Grapheus,* shown on the right) His work was of high technical quality. For that matter, Van Dijck, Rubens and De Vos belonged to the very best.

Jacob JORDAENS ...
... was about 30 years long the most important baroque painter of Antwerp after Rubens and Van Dijck died (1640,1641).
	Unlike these two, Jordaens was rather the painter of the *commonalty; his models were family members or friends of his neighbourhood.On the other hand, like Rubens and some other Antwerp painters, he produced many fabulous baroque cartoons* (coloured drawings), splendid compositions for tapestry, woven in weavers' workshops in Brussels, Antwerp and other cities of *BRABANT*.

Jan BOECKHORST
worked many years for *Rubens'* workshop, later for *Jordaens*. He mainly produced numerous large altarpieces and also allegorical and mythological compositions; sometimes he painted them after Rubens' concept.

Next, who were Rubens PUPILS* ?*(click)
	...or return to the Quick Links Page. Latest update April 7th 2005.

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws