Oil Painting - Visit Of Lords To Peasants - Antwerp School - Circa 1570

VISIT OF LORDS TO PEASANTS School of Antwerp from the end of the 16th century Around 1570 Oil on panel 71cm x 95 cm In a very beautiful oak frame with a border of gilding 85 cm x 109 cm These are the bright colors of this painting, purple intense posed in the foreground in contrast with the chiaroscuro, which bring us back to this great era of the Renaissance and Mannerism which covered the whole of the 16th century. Around 1503, Matthias Grünewald (1470-1528) set the tone with his paintings on wood, whose color was already dissociated from large surfaces in favor of multiple chromatic transitions with fluid contours. Quentin Metsys (1465-1530) remains on this register, highlighting, like our painting, primitive Flemish painting. All the faces show a certain indifference. The latter are worked like still lifes. However, the picture includes all the kitchen utensils, finely drawn, the objects that litter the floor. .. During the forty years that followed (from 1530 to 1570), this painting, an expression of the Renaissance, would further consolidate its shapes and colors, but also the spirit of bearing witness to everyday life, surprising people in their intimacy or their daily life. Pieter Bruegel the Elder, perfectly illustrates this point, intensifying the humorous trait of his characters, revealing in his paintings all the failings of the human soul. In our painting, the characters occupy the foreground, like statues around which the painter wanted us to participate in the feelings of each member of this family, when the lords enter the kitchen of these peasants. Everything then seems frozen as in a photographic snapshot. The lord, his wife, emblems of supreme authority, burst into their modest home. On the right, in the foreground, the lord, carrying dagger and sword, shows affection for his host. His wife, with a collar worn around 1570, stands at his side, slightly behind, holding her young son back, as if to exclude him from the scene, or protect him from a world that is not his. What attitude to adopt, what to say, what to do to welcome them, to be up to it, not to appear too miserable? The peasant woman holds her last born in her arms, her husband cuts the bread or the cake, almost under the table, the youngest child hastens to grab a stool for these incoming guests. An elderly man, at the back of the room in front of the large buffet brandishes a pitcher to fill it with wine. Another, younger man is holding his scythe, leaning back, as if at attention, without flinching...