Adrian van Ostade (1610 - 1685). The father of the family. 1648. Etching

In the book The Old Masters, the famous writer and artist of the 19th century, Eugene Fromentin, defining the nature of Dutch art, wrote: “It is impossible not to notice that only one style and one method reigned in the Dutch workshops. There is only one goal - to imitate what is, to make you fall in love with what you imitate, to clearly express simple, lively and truthful feelings. Style thus acquires a simple and clear principle. Sincerity is his law, truthfulness is his duty. Its first condition is accessibility, naturalness, expressiveness. This follows from a combination of such moral qualities as spontaneity, perseverance, patience and straightforwardness. One might think that domestic virtues are transferred from private life to art and equally help to behave well and write well…. But just as in ordinary life there are driving forces that elevate it, so in this art, which is considered so attached to the practical side of life, in these artists… you feel a sublime and kind soul, loyalty to the truth, love for the real. All this gives their works value,

This approach is typical for the largest Dutch masters, among which Adrian van Ostade holds one of the first places. Adrian was the son of a weaver from the village of Ostade, Jan Hendrix van Eindhoven. The artist spent most of his life in Haarlem. In 1627, he entered the workshop of the famous painter Frans Hals, where he studied with one of the most talented Flemish genre painters, Adrian Brouwer. Probably, it was the acquaintance with Brouwer that played a decisive role in choosing the direction of the future artist’s work: Ostade spent his life describing the ordinary life of peasants, depicting scenes in village houses, taverns, and fairs. In his works of the first years, the grotesque and somewhat conditional characteristics of the real environment prevail. However, under the influence of the works of his great contemporary Rembrandt, Ostade’s images become more human and truthful, their surroundings are interpreted in more detail, chiaroscuro becomes of great importance. By the end of the 1640s, Adrian van Ostade was already a mature artist, with a great capacity for work and a recognizable handwriting.

An excellent example of Ostade’s style is the etching "Father of the Family", dedicated to his favorite theme of the peasant’s peaceful pastime of his leisure. Here, devoid of any idealization, the depiction of the appearance of poorly dressed people does not prevent the expression of poetic feeling. Before us is a modest interior of a village house: a flaming hearth, over which a cauldron is suspended, simple household items. The father of the family carefully feeds his child, his wife is standing near the fire with a diaper, and on the left, behind a three-legged stool, another baby is sitting, who scoops something out of the pot with a spoon and watches with interest the feeding of the youngest. The artist clearly sympathizes with his heroes, carefully peers into their faces, trying to note in them not only the characteristic features of their appearance, but also the manifestation of spiritual movements. The whole composition is imbued with an atmosphere of benevolent peace, quiet family happiness. Ostade acts here as a true poet of the hearth and "small" people.

The whole life of Adrian van Ostade was filled with continuous painstaking work. During his long and creative life, the artist created many paintings, hundreds of drawings and watercolors, and more than fifty beautiful etchings of his own composition. He depicted scenes from peasant and common people’s life, reproducing reality with an amazing understanding of the laws of picturesqueness and with rare technical skill. His works were highly appreciated during his lifetime, and in the 18th century the name of the artist was put on a par with the name of Rembrandt. A great admirer of his art was Peter I, who initiated the collection of Ostade’s works in Russia. Among the students of Adrian van Ostade were such renowned masters as Cornelis Pieters Bega, Cornelis Dusart, Jan de Groot, Frans de Jong, Michiel van Musser, Evert Oudendijk, Jan Steen,

The works of Adrian van Ostade are kept in art galleries in Amsterdam, The Hague, Paris, Berlin, Dresden, Munich, Vienna, St. Petersburg.