The Battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs

This Battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs, around 1615, by Jordaens, depicts the legendary wedding feast that erupted into violence when the centaurs attempted to abduct the Lapith women. The dynamic subject suited Jordaens's talent for rendering physical conflict and bodily struggle. Jordaens, who outlived both Rubens and Van Dyck to become the dominant figure in Flemish Baroque painting for the second half of the seventeenth century, was particularly celebrated for his exuberant genre subjects, especially his series on the Flemish proverb about the King of the Bean.

The combat scene is composed with violent energy, human and centaur bodies interlocked in brutal struggle. Jordaens's powerful anatomical modeling gives physical conviction to the mythological confrontation.