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Adriaen Brouwer
c. 1605-1638 Flemish/Baroque
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Brief Biography-Adriaen Brouwer from Flanders is said to have been a pupil of Frans Hals in Haarlem and Adriaen van Ostade was a fellow student. Rumour had it that Hals mistreated him by overworking him. He moved to Antwerp in 1631, where he was impressed by Rubens when the Guild of Saint Luke and the rhetoricians’ chamber De Violieren admitted him. He was jailed by the Spaniards for political goings-on or spying in 1633. His prison baker, Joos van Craesbeck, became a friend and pupil. Rubens visited Duke D’Arenberg in the same prison and had Brouwer released. He gave him lodgings that Brouwer considered not much better than the prison, and Brouwer left Rubens due to his ill temper. Not long afterwards, he died due to a dissolute way of life.
His primary subjects were peasants smoking, drinking, and brawling in taverns. However, he did landscapes, and his work is of the Dutch character. In his later years, he painted numerous works in monochrome. Dirck Hals, the younger brother of Frans Hals, influenced his work. Anthony van Dyck painted his portrait in 1631-2. Rubens and Rembrandt collected many of his paintings, inspiring Jan Steen and David Teniers. |
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a boor asleep

a smoking room
peasants brawling
over cards

brawling peasants
card players
cardplayers in an inn
drunken peasant
in a tavern

feeling
in the tavern
inn with drunken
peasants

interior of a tavern

peasants fighting
peasants of moerdyck

peasants smoking
and drinking

seated drinkers
smell

tavern scene

the back operation

the bitter draught

the operation

the smoker

the smokers

youth making a face

twilight landscape

dune landscape
by moonlight

adriaen brouwer by
anthony van dyck
