Abduction of Europa

This Abduction of Europa, around 1615, in the Gemäldegalerie Berlin, depicts the mythological rape of the Phoenician princess by Zeus in the form of a bull. The early work shows Jordaens developing his characteristic style of monumental, fleshy figures within the Rubensian tradition of Antwerp painting. Jacob Jordaens, the most productive and commercially successful painter in Antwerp after Rubens's death in 1640, dominated Flemish painting through the middle decades of the seventeenth century. His mastery of large-scale multi-figure compositions, his ability to orchestrate warm golden light across complex scenes of festivity and narrative, and his characteristic combination of Flemish earthiness with Baroque compositional ambition made him the natural heir to Rubens's tradition in the Southern Netherlands. His enormous output served the aristocratic, ecclesiastical, and civic patrons who continued to commission ambitious paintings even as the Flemish economy contracted in the later seventeenth century.

The massive white bull and the voluptuous Europa dominate the composition with the physical abundance characteristic of Flemish Baroque painting. Jordaens's broad, confident brushwork creates a sense of power and movement in the mythological drama.