15.12.1610 – 25.04.1690

David Teniers the Younger – an outstanding painter and engraver of the Flemish school. He was born in Antwerp in the family of the painter and the father received initial artistic training. Financial difficulties experienced by the family, Teniers made to work extremely hard, with the result that he was admitted to the Antwerp Guild of painters. The artist worked in a variety of genres, he painted portraits and landscapes, still lifes and allegorical scenes, masterfully portrayed animals. However, the bulk of the works were genre scenes from the life of simple people, Flemish peasants.

David Teniers was on friendly terms with the master of the peasant genre of Adrian Brouwer, and works by Teniers in 1630-ies, is very similar to the works of Brouwer, but the Teniers picture is not as gloomy and sad as his friend. Teniers created more idealized images, preferring to ignore the shadow sides of life of the people. The artist especially liked to paint peasants in their leisure, vacationers and merry, fond of writing festivals, a County fair. Only occasionally he depicted scenes of peasant labor – the harvest and the haymaking.

Showed himself to be an artist and a master of landscape. He started with the fantastic landscape of rocks, caves and waterfalls, but, gradually, his art included the image of a truly national Flemish nature, which the artist painted with special love and attention, the bright, major colours, the soft transitions of the brownish-green tones. An important role in landscape painting took the man.

The artist was characterized by a high pace of work. With great accuracy and extreme vigilance, he almost never bothered to correct their work. All the artist had created more than seven hundred works.

Teniers was extremely popular. His skills, entertaining plots of his paintings earned him the reputation among the nobility, and the burghers. In 1651 Teniers was appointed court painter and curator of the art gallery of the ruler of Flanders, the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm.

The artist tried his best to contribute to the development of the art of Flanders, thanks to his efforts in Antwerp for several years lasted the Academy of fine arts.

The master died alone and forgotten, but his art continued to live in the works of numerous students and followers.

Image: David Teniers The Younger. Flanders. A groom with a horse. XVII century (from the collection of WAHM them. I. N. Kramskoy).