As the Old Sing, So Pipe the Young

Jordaens painted this version of As the Old Sing, So Pipe the Young around 1638, one of several treatments of the Flemish proverb illustrating how children inherit behavior from their elders. Jordaens returned to this subject multiple times, treating it with variations that suggest both its commercial popularity and its personal resonance. The raucous family gathering — old men carousing, women joining the song, children mimicking their example — reflects Jordaens's sustained interest in the intersection of Flemish popular wisdom, genre painting, and the moralized display of social behavior. The Antwerp tradition of proverb painting, originating with Pieter Bruegel, reaches its Baroque culmination in these crowded, energetic compositions painted by Jordaens for a prosperous bourgeois market.

The crowded composition fills the canvas with figures of different ages in a boisterous family gathering. Jordaens' warm, earthy palette and vigorous brushwork create an atmosphere of lively domestic chaos.