Silène et les quatre saisons

This painting of Silenus and the Four Seasons, around 1650, in the Louvre, combines mythological subject matter with the robust, fleshly painting style that made Jordaens the leading painter in Antwerp after Rubens's death in 1640. The drunken Silenus surrounded by seasonal figures exemplifies Jordaens's earthy vitality. 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 fleshy, full-bodied figures are rendered with Jordaens's characteristic robust modeling and warm palette. The composition overflows with physical abundance, reflecting his Flemish love of material plenty and sensuous energy.