Jan Steen: Master painter of fun and rowdy times

Among the painters of the Dutch Golden Age, no artist had masterfully captured the lives of common people in their jovial state as Jan  Steen did.

Jan Havickszoon Steen, son of a brewer was born in 1626 at Leiden where he spent his formative years.  An unknown artist from Germany named Nicolaes Knupfer was his first art teacher. He then sought work and lessons outside his hometown moving from Haarlem, The Hague and Delft. While in Hague, Steen studied under the landscape artist Jan van Goyen whose daughter, Margriet, he later married.

Customarily placed next in rank to his contemporary Jan Vermeer, the vibrant portrayal of subjects in Steen's works, however, are still unparalleled.  His well known pieces are bizarre during their time: Holland then was largely a puritan society, and in contrast, Steen's works were mostly comical, festive and on occasion -- raucous.

It could be assumed without difficulty that compositions of Steen's paintings were mostly improvised and never planned in detail. The scenes are usually cluttered and disorderly that an unkempt Dutch home is now regarded as a Jan Steen household.

The charm of Steen's works lie in their genteel ambiance. Subjects are rendered with precise and  elaborate skill showing each individual's character. He is also known for his paintings of children and fine detail for textiles. His mastery of light is highly distinctive as his skill in handling colors specially rose, salmon red, pale yellow, and blue green.

Steen was often perceived as a wanton drunkard because of graphic themes in his paintings. While he owned and operated taverns on separate occasions at Delft in 1654 and Leiden in 1672; Jan remained prolific in his craft throughout his career.

The widely imitated Dutch master had produced around 800 paintings. He died in 1679 at the age of 53 where his remains were laid to rest in Pieterskerk, Leiden.

Images from top to bottom: 

(1) Jan Steen Self-Portrait, 1670,  from Carolus
(2) The Rhetorcians, 1668, from Gallery of Baroque Paintings

(3) The Row During Gambling, shot and cropped from The Story of Painting by Anna C. Krause, ISBN 3-89508-083-7 Konemann Verlagsgesellschaft. Original Photo by Jorg P. Anders
(4) Jan Steen, the dissolute Household, 1668,  from Persephone
(5) The Family Concert, 1666, shot and cropped from Museum Cafes and Arts Vol. XVII by Sharon O' Connor, ISBN 1-883914-34-5 Menus and Music Productions Inc.. Posted with kind permission from The Art Institute of Chicago
(6) The Village School, 1670 from Gallery of Baroque Paintings

(7) Jan Steen Self-Portrait as a Lutenist, 1663,  The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202. Distributed by Direct Media Publishing GmbH.

Video:

(8) Video from Youtube with kind permission from meesterschilders. Music by Peter Tchaikovsky, The Waltz of the Flowers.

Shutter Maestro Roberto Polillo

In a field where names such as Herman Leonard, Lee Tanner, Francis Wolff, William Gottlieb, William Claxton reign supreme; anyone who dabbles into jazz photography is destined to play camera aide. Their works adorned countless jazz publications and albums throughout the years. Each with famous shots marked indelibly into our minds.

It is only a matter of time that lens work of a prodigious youngster be rediscovered forty years after they have been taken. With great pride and pleasure, Cultchas crew now feature a hidden gem in jazz photography, Roberto Polillo.

 

Roberto, then aged sixteen began to cover important jazz artists for the magazine Musica Jazz. These were taken during concerts in Italy and neighboring countries in Europe from 1962 till 1974. His photographs could never have been caught by luck alone -- they are enough to fill an entire art gallery. In fact, his work has been on exhibit at various cities of his homeland Italy. A book aptly titled Swing, Bop, and, Free showcases jazz legends of the sixties captured by him.

A permanent exhibition of Roberto's masterpieces can be seen at the Centro Studi Fondazione Siena Jazz. A center for jazz studies dedicated to the memory of his father, the late, Arrigo Polillo.

All rendered in striking monochrome, his frames are never drab and unceasingly depict stories. Part of his pictures' dynamic appeal is his ability to capture what underpins an artist, possessing transparent sharpness as though his camera have pierced through their souls.

Like the musicians in his pictures, Roberto has impeccable timing, near-psychic sensitivity, and splendid skill in composition.

It is interesting to note that Roberto was never a professional photographer. He was software entrepreneur and co-founder of Etnoteam. At present, he is a professor of computer science at the University of Milano Bicocca on human-computer interaction. 

Nearly three decades of sabbatical in photography, he is now back capturing images -- no longer on film but digital. Other than Jazz, he is currently into different themes, in particular, street and pictorial arts. 

An online gallery maintained by Roberto himself can be accessed at flickr.

(1) Swing, Bop, and Free; Marco Polillo Editore, Milan
(2) Through the generosity of the Polillo family, Centro Studi Arrigo Polillo was established in 1989. The center now holds all documents and recordings amassed by Arrigo through decades of his involvement in jazz.
(3) The url of Roberto Polillo's flickr photostream: 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertopolillo

(4) The url of Centro Studi Arrigo Polillo: http://centrostudi.sienajazz.it

(5) All images are posted by Cultchas with kind permission from Mr. Roberto Polillo.
(6) Images from top to bottom: Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane, Lester Bowie,  Wayne Shorter,  Lennie Tristano, Horace Silver, Don Cherry with Sonny Rollins,  and Famoudou Don Moye