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JORDAENS, Jacob
Painting: Allegory of Fertility
191 x 2261 mm Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels This sketch for the homonymous painting in the Brussels museum is fascinating in more than one respect. First of all because it allows us, so to speak, to look over the artist's shoulder during the creation process. A comparison between the drawn object and the painted composition shows us how Jordaens strongly increased the concentration of the figures in the painting. By omitting motifs from the original sketch, such as a figure looking upwards to the right of the woman with a mantle and a goat or ass on the right edge, the satyrs to the right are more closely connected with the nymphs in the middle. The painter makes the link between both groups even tighter by having the nymph's hand reach upward at the back and by reversing the position and the direction of the gaze of the crouching nude in the front. Finally the central group of women is made tighter by the removal of a flute-playing satyr in the background and of one of the children in the foreground. In a second draft sketch, conserved in the Copenhagen museum, most of the changes have already been carried out, demonstrating how the artist achieved his balanced final result not immediately but in various phases. We note that Jordaens already planned the cornucopia in his sketches, although in the final painting it was executed by Frans Snyders. The lowering of the skyline in the painting is to be attributed to a later shortening of the canvas by a foreign hand. Secondly this sketch illustrates Jordaens' preference for pen and paper as against chalk in his initial designs, unlike Rubens, who frequently opted for oil paint sketches. This concords with Jordaens' training as a "water painting painter". This technique had been developed in earlier generations, in particular in Mechelen, where it was used to produce a cheaper variant of tapestry, which was very expensive. On the one hand a drawn sketch was less good than an oil paint sketch in suggesting both the placing of the shapes and their colouring and modelling. On the other hand, it allowed an artist with a good command of ink and water to achieve a lively linear handling, a subtle chiaroscuro effect and a sense of nuance. Jordaens has taken full advantage of the possibilities of this balanced drawing technique in this sketch. , Artist: JORDAENS, Jacob , Allegory of Fertility , 1651-1700 , Flemish , graphics , mythological
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