Ostade, Isaak van

Description:

Haarlem 1621 - 1649
40 x 60 cm
Interior of a barn. Oil/oak panel, signed (and dated 1642?) below centre.
Ferdinand III Mülhens Collection, Cologne.
With an expert report by Walther Bernt, 1962.
For a moment, incident sunlight illuminates the interior of a farm barn. We see: a jumble of lines, blocks, specks and clusters of light, blackness, dusty haze. And when the eye has become accustomed to the half-darkness: a jumble of barely usable equipment, baskets, kettles, cattle harness, a half-collapsed hayloft.... in the centre a heavy framework of beams with broken attic, wheelbarrows, shovels, broken fish traps...Everything is unstable, threatening to fall over, collapse or, if the wind slams the door in the east again, to sink into complete darkness. In the middle of the room, and a little "cleared" from the light, two children help each other to put on their poor clothes, in the background the grandfather prepares the morning bed.
A century later, Mr Piranesi composes his "Carceri"...
Isaak van Ostade's creative period lasted only a decade, and yet he is counted among the outstanding innovators of Dutch genre and landscape painting. His early peasant pieces are still based on the works of his brother and teacher Adriaen, but Isaak's versatile and independent personality asserted itself early on.