Joos van Craesbeeck, * 't Wapen van Antwerpen*, 1635–1639

by Atelier Liesjes

A vaulted cellar, built of heavy stone blocks, serves as a pub. On the left, a stone staircase leads up to an open door, through which daylight streams in, revealing a street with a tree, a tower and a wall; an earthenware jug stands on the threshold. In the centre of the room is a jumble of figures: a man in a blue-green doublet grabs another by the collar and raises his fist, a third turns round with his cloak billowing, and on a row of barrels to the left sits a man with a broom beside him. On the right, in the shadows, an old man in a chair and several women wearing white bonnets look on. On the floor lie a hat, a stool, an overturned jug and scattered papers or coins; on the right stands a table with jugs.
Here, Craesbeeck captures a pub brawl in full swing, but he does so using the restrained techniques of the Baroque genre painting: an almost monochrome brown-grey palette, sharp highlights on faces and hands, and a composition that draws the eye from left to right across the room. The inn bears the town’s name on its signboard, and the painter seems primarily intent on depicting the folly of the drinking spree: the violence is comical, not gruesome. In this way, the work follows in the tradition of Brouwer and Teniers, in which folk life serves as a mirror of human frailty. Joos van Craesbeeck (Neerlinter c. 1605 – Brussels 1661) was a Flemish painter who began his career as a baker and was apprenticed to Adriaen Brouwer. In 1633–1634, he became a master in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke and later worked in Brussels, where he mainly painted tavern and peasant scenes. His finest work is characterised by a keen eye for posture and facial expression. A lively, dark painting that lends character to a classical or rural interior.