Isaac van Ostade

Isaac van Ostade (1621 – October 16, 1649) was born in Haarlem, and began his studies under his brother, Adriaen, with whom he remained till 1641, when he started on his own account.

At an early period he felt the influence of Rembrandt, and this is apparent in a Slaughtered Pig of 1639, in the gallery of Augsburg. But he soon reverted to a style more suited to his brush. He produced pictures in 1641-r642 on the lines of his brother--amongst these, the Five Senses, which Adrian afterwards represented by a Man reading a Paper, a Peasant tasting Beer, a Rustic smearing his Sores with Ointment and a Countryman sniffing at a Snuff-box. A specimen of Isaac's work at this period may be seen in the Laughing Boor with a Pot of Beer, in the museum of Amsterdam; the cottage interior, with two peasants and three children near a fire, in the Berlin museum; a Concert, with people listening to singers accompanied by a piper and flute player, and a Boor stealing a Kiss from a Woman, in the Lacaze collection at the Louvre.

The interior at Berlin is lighted from a casement in the same Rembrandtesque style as Adrian's interior of 1643 at the Louvre. The low price he received for his pictures of this characterin which he could only hope to remain a satellite of Adrian induced him gradually to abandon the cottage subjects of his brother for landscapes in the fashion of Esaias Van de Velde and Salomon van Ruysdael. Once only, in 1645, he seems to have fallen into the old groove, when he produced the Slaughtered Pig, with the boy puffing out a bladder, in the museum of Lille. But this was an exception. Isaac's progress in his new path was greatly facilitated by his previous experience as a figure painter; and, although he now selected his subjects either from village high streets or frozen canals, he gave fresh life to the scenes he depicted by groups of people full of movement and animation, which he relieved in their coarse hurnours and sordid appearance by a refined and searching study of picturesque contrasts. He did not live long enough to bring his art to the highest perfection. He died on the 16th October 1649 having painted about 400 pictures (see H de Groot, 1910).

The first manifestation of Isaacs surrender of Adrians style is apparent in 1644 when the skating and sledging scenes were executed which we see in the Lacaze collection and the galleries of the Hermitage, Antwerp and Lille. Three of these examples bear the artists name, spelt Isack van Ostade, and the dates of 1644 and 1645. The roadside inns, with halts of travellers, form a compact series from 1646 to 1649. In this, the last form of his art, Isaac has very distinct peculiarities. The air which pervades his composition is warm and sunny, yet mellow and hazy, as if the sky were veiled with a vapour coloured by moor smoke. The trees are rubbings of umber, in which the prominent foliage is tipped with touches hardened in a liquid state by amber varnish mediums. The same principle applied to details such asglazed bricks or rents in the mud lining of cottages gives an unreal and conventional stamp to those particular parts. But these blemishes are forgotten when one looks at the broad contrasts of light and shade and the masterly figures of horses and riders, and travellers and rustics, or quarrelling children and dogs, poultry and cattle, amongst which a favorite place is always given to the white horse, which seems as invariable an accoml~animent as the grey in the skirmishes and fairs of Wouwerman.

But it is in winter scenes that Isaac displays the best qualities. The absence of foliage, the crisp atmosphere, the calm air of cold January days, unsullied by smoke or vapour, preclude the use of the brown tinge, and leave the painter no choice but to ring the changes on opal tints of great variety, upon which the figures emerge with masterly effect on the light background upon which they are thrown. Amongst the roadside inns which will best repay attention we should notice those of Buckingham Palace, the National Gallery, the Wallace and Holford collections in England, and those of the Louvre, Berlin, Hermitage and Rotterdam museums and the Rothschild collection at Vienna. The finest of the ice scenes is the famous one at the Louvre.

For paintings and etchings see Les Fréres Ostade, by Marguerite van de Wiele (Paris, 1893). For his etchings see L'Œuvre d'Ostade, cu description des eaux-fortes de ce maître, etc., by Auguste d'Orange (1860); and Catalogue raisonné de toutes les estampes qui forment l'œuvre grave d'Adrian van Ostade, by LE Faucheux (Paris, 1862).

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.