A vessel of clay or stone. [Not in use.]
Word of the Day: Catachrestical
1. A vessel of clay or stone.
To line, as a well, with brick, stone, or other hard material.
Steen
Encyclopedia Britannica
STEEN, Jan Havicksz (1626-1679), subject-painter, was born at Leyden in 1626, the son of a brewer of the place. He studied at Utrecht under Nicholas Knuffer, an historical painter, and about 1644 went to Haarlem, where he worked under Adrian van Ostade and under Jan van Goijen, whose daughter he married in 1649. In the previous year he had joined the painters’ guild of the city. In 1667 he is said to have been a brewer at Delft, and in 1672 he received municipal authority to open a tavern. The accounts of his life, however, are very confused and conflicting. Some biographers have asserted that he was a drunkard and of dissolute life, but the number of his works—Van Westrheene, in his Jan Steen, Étude sur l’Art en Holland, has catalogued nearly five hundred—is sufficient in itself to disprove the charge. His later pictures bear marks of haste and are less carefully finished than those of his earlier period. He died at Leyden in 1679....
The works of Jan Steen are distinguished by correctness of drawing, admirable freedom and spirit of touch, and clearness and transparency of colouring. But their true greatness is due to their intellectual qualities. In the wide range of his subjects, and their dramatic character, he surpasses all the Dutch figure-painters, with the single exception of Rembrandt. His productions range from the stately interiors of grave and wealthy citizens to tavern scenes of jollity and debauch. He painted chemists in their laboratories, doctors at the bedside of their patients, card-parties, marriage feasts, and the festivals of St Nicholas and Twelfth Night,—even religious subjects, though in these he was least successful. His rendering of children is especially delightful. Dealing often with the coarser side of things, his work is full of humour; he depicts the comedy of human life in a spirit of very genial toleration, but now and again there appear keenly telling touches of satire which recall such a pictorial moralist as Hogarth.
The National Gallery contains one picture by Jan Steen,—the Music Master; and other excellent examples of his art are preserved in the Royal, the Bute, the Ashburton, and the Northbrook collections, at Apsley House and Bridgewater House, and in the galleries of The Hague, Amsterdam, and the Hermitage, St Petersburg.
9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 22, p. 529
[387 words — estimated reading time: 3 minutes]
[387 words — estimated reading time: 3 minutes]
A lining made of brick, stone, or other hard material, as for a well.
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