SECTION X ADRIAEN VAN OSTADE THE story of the life of Adriaen van Ostade is very quickly told. He was born at Haarlem in December 1610, and was buried there on May 2, 1685. He spent his whole life in his native town. About the year 1627 he and Adriaen Brouwer were pupils together under Frans Hals. In their choice of subjects the pupils were more closely related to one another than to their master. Both chose to represent the daily life of the lower classes. In his early years Ostade painted scenes with music, dancing, and drinking more frequently than pictures of family life or of common occupations, such as attending school, or pig-killing, and the like. As in his choice of subject, so in his method of painting, his colouring or his lighting, Ostade does not appear to be influenced by Hals to any appreciable extent. His colours are carefully blended j he shows none of those sudden transitions from one tone to another which Frans Hals employed throughout his life. The light falls through a small opening, usually invisible to the spectator, on Ostade's principal group, and illumin- ates it somewhat harshly, with the floor and the wall. His palette is limited to a few, mostly cool and neutral, tints a pale blue, light grey, purple, with the various brownish hues and intermediate tones. His groups contain a rather large number of figures. He delights in violent action and in heads that are caricatured. Pictures of this kind fill the first period of Ostade's artistic development, from about 1630 to 1640. At this later date the period of storm and stress ends. The lighting becomes less harsh and more harmonious in its effect. The themes become more restful, the figures truer to life ; the artist widens his choice of subject and enriches his colour. Domestic scenes now form a larger part of Ostade's work. He paints quiet conversation pieces, often with only two or three figures. He depicts games at backgammon or skittles or with a ball more frequently than the quarrels, often ensuing on those games, in which he had formerly delighted. He shows an increasing interest in open-air scenes, and even tries his skill at Biblical themes, portraits, and portrait-groups. The light and shade of his interiors are especially well rendered. Thus the master gradually approaches his maturity, roughly co-extensive with the years 1650-70. 140
