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Lot Essay
Following the deaths of Sir Peter Paul Rubens and Sir Anthony van Dyck in the early 1640s, Jacob Jordaens became the preeminent painter in the Southern Netherlands. As Rubens’ natural successor, he was called upon by foreign princely courts to paint ensembles with mythological and allegorical subjects, and it is from these works that the present painting descends.
The pictorial history of Heraclitus and Democritus had its beginnings in the Renaissance, rooted in ancient literature that created an imaginary dialogue between the two pre-Socratic philosophers who were otherwise not contemporaries. In the seventeenth century, this legendary representation became popular among artists and religious moralizers in the North, embodying the ideological and symbolic idea of the folly and vanity of humankind through the tragedy of Heraclitus’ incessant weeping and the comedy of Democritus’ uncontrollable laughter. As a result of the Counter-Reformation, Democritus came to be seen as a pagan precursor symbolizing the Christian virtue of laughing at human folly, placed in the realm of heaven and thus on a higher plane than weeping at human misery. The two became especially favored subjects among the Dutch Caravaggisti returning from Rome during the second decade of the seventeenth century. Despite never having travelled south of the Alps, Caravaggesque tenebrism and use of realistic models were a source of inspiration for Jordaens in his earlier years, if mainly indirectly absorbed through Rubens, who painted a number of works that were strongly Caravaggesque after returning from Italy in 1608, such as Boy Blowing on a Brazier of circa 1616-17 (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden).
The present painting, dating to Jordaens’ artistic maturity, was probably painted in circa 1650, at a stage in the artist’s career when his Protestant sympathies increasingly drew him towards Calvinism. In a similar compositional and stylistic vein to his Moses and his Ethiopian wife Sephora of 1645-50 (fig. 1; Rubenshuis, Antwerp), it embodies a distinctly individual perspective on historic and allegorical figures. The composition was clearly a favorite in the artist’s studio, with an inferior workshop copy held at Erasmus House in Anderlecht.
Representing a kind of visual summa of the nature of the melancholiac, Jordaens here presents Heraclitus as an ascetic through his nakedness, huddled in a pose of sorrow and despair. Democritus, in contrast, is presented in the finery of one blessed with life’s good fortune, dressed in robes of lavish gold and blue with a decorative beret. As Heraclitus almost takes possession of the globe between them, staring introspectively into the distance, Democritus rests a comforting hand on his shoulder, pointing with the other in a downward gesture as an expression of his serene worldview. They confront each other as true baroque figures, devoid of any exaggeration or bombast through the pithy art of characterization.
We are grateful to Brecht Vanoppen for confirming the attribution after first-hand inspection and dating the picture to circa 1650.
The pictorial history of Heraclitus and Democritus had its beginnings in the Renaissance, rooted in ancient literature that created an imaginary dialogue between the two pre-Socratic philosophers who were otherwise not contemporaries. In the seventeenth century, this legendary representation became popular among artists and religious moralizers in the North, embodying the ideological and symbolic idea of the folly and vanity of humankind through the tragedy of Heraclitus’ incessant weeping and the comedy of Democritus’ uncontrollable laughter. As a result of the Counter-Reformation, Democritus came to be seen as a pagan precursor symbolizing the Christian virtue of laughing at human folly, placed in the realm of heaven and thus on a higher plane than weeping at human misery. The two became especially favored subjects among the Dutch Caravaggisti returning from Rome during the second decade of the seventeenth century. Despite never having travelled south of the Alps, Caravaggesque tenebrism and use of realistic models were a source of inspiration for Jordaens in his earlier years, if mainly indirectly absorbed through Rubens, who painted a number of works that were strongly Caravaggesque after returning from Italy in 1608, such as Boy Blowing on a Brazier of circa 1616-17 (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden).
The present painting, dating to Jordaens’ artistic maturity, was probably painted in circa 1650, at a stage in the artist’s career when his Protestant sympathies increasingly drew him towards Calvinism. In a similar compositional and stylistic vein to his Moses and his Ethiopian wife Sephora of 1645-50 (fig. 1; Rubenshuis, Antwerp), it embodies a distinctly individual perspective on historic and allegorical figures. The composition was clearly a favorite in the artist’s studio, with an inferior workshop copy held at Erasmus House in Anderlecht.
Representing a kind of visual summa of the nature of the melancholiac, Jordaens here presents Heraclitus as an ascetic through his nakedness, huddled in a pose of sorrow and despair. Democritus, in contrast, is presented in the finery of one blessed with life’s good fortune, dressed in robes of lavish gold and blue with a decorative beret. As Heraclitus almost takes possession of the globe between them, staring introspectively into the distance, Democritus rests a comforting hand on his shoulder, pointing with the other in a downward gesture as an expression of his serene worldview. They confront each other as true baroque figures, devoid of any exaggeration or bombast through the pithy art of characterization.
We are grateful to Brecht Vanoppen for confirming the attribution after first-hand inspection and dating the picture to circa 1650.