Colors, character’s position, their attitude, their dress code, their faces, the lights, the backgrounds represent stylistic tools that both Nicolas Poussin and Isak van Ostade use for expressing a meaning. They use all these elements as metaphors, symbols for their understanding of the family life. While Poussin reflects at the purity and chastity of the Holy Family, focusing on the infant Jesus Christ and his mother Maria for emphasizing the idea of how a normal, loving family should look like, Isak van Ostade targets other specificities of human kind, representing another side of humans, which is cruelty, vulgarity, and savage, by focusing on the butcher. In fact, both artists use artistic elements for describing how they perceive humans, based on different role models: wherein Poussin’s role models are represented by the members of the Holy Family, for Ostade humans are embodied by peasants. The two artists dress these characters with their own perceptions about how they consider the Holy Family, respectively the peasants to be, aiming to attribute their characteristics to the normal families.
Nicolas Poussin "Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist and Saint Elizabeth"
Poussin’s acceptance of the Holy Family and its friends’ traits are exposed in his painting “Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist and Saint Elizabeth”. The painter expresses a suave image that features a peaceful community, relaxed, playful. The drawing expresses caring for the close one, sharing moments of joy through welcoming everybody to join the community that possesses these values, being at peace with oneself and with the ones around, but also adulation and belief. These are all principles of Christianity, entrenched in the popular culture from generation to generation. The artist sustains and perpetuates this believe, taking forward the Christian values through his drawing.
The little children from the right of the painting express two Christian principles. First, the Jesus Christ’s command: “Let the children come to me”, which represents the idea of continuity of religion by attracting more adepts, from their early existence. The second principle is the one of adulation. Both the children and the people surrounding little Jesus worship him. The children lay flowers in Jesus’ way, showing their appreciation and deep esteem for Him. All their attention is oriented towards Him.
The women surrounding the Infant Jesus are protective of him, expressing the human caring for children, maternal love, and in the same time showing their praise for Him. The grownups watch Him playing with the children His age, being filled with admiration and sympathy for their innocent play.
The artist has immortalized a serenity moment, in which Jesus’ destiny of becoming the savior of humanity, bearing such a great responsibility on His shoulders is far away. The artist has surprised the peace and relaxation of a small community, praising a little child in a beautiful meadow, on a warm day. The background illustrates Roman buildings, which indicates that the action takes place in the Antic Rome. It also exhibits other people practicing activities specific to those times: sailing with the boat and riding horses. The drawing has warm colors and brings the lights in front, on the action that complements the baby Jesus. The brushes used are clear, illustrating the expressiveness of the characters and the other elements included in the drawing. The décor is also clear and creates the objective image of the Roman Empire, through its buildings and the characters illustrated in the back and the distinct features of a loving family and community.
Pussin symbolizes the traits of a normal family, in the close community of its peers. The values described above indicate the ideas that the artist that human are warm, affective, caring, playful, relaxed, at peace and in acceptance with one another.
Isack van Ostade's "Peasants Outside a Farmhouse Butchering Pork"
In comparison, Ostade’s drawing “Peasants Outside a Farmhouse Butchering a Pork”, also illustrates a family scene, captured from the realities of the 17th century Holland. The painting exposes a normal scene from the life of farmers of those times, who did what it was needed to survive, to have what to put on the table. Although the artist captures the violence, the vulgarity and the cruelty of the human species, the drawing solely expresses the reality, and not only the reality of the seventeenth century, but the one that still exists today.
This is a vivid image of how farmers are living. It represents nothing unusual for them, as a prove being the people surrounding the butcher, who are minding their own businesses. There are two children grouped together on the right of the butcher, who seems to be the master of the house, probably their father. They are watching the scene, but not necessarily with curiosity if not more with a mute supporting of the act. Next to the two children, a woman is cleaning something that seems to be a big pot, or a firehouse, probably preparing the place for cooking the pork. There are other children on the left of the butcher who are playing around, minding their game, without giving any attention to the butchering scene, which indicates the normality of the event and the fact that they have assisted to many similar scenes previously and this one does not represent any novelty for them. A dog is also included in the framework, precisely to illustrate the idea of a family event, a family that possesses a tamed dog, which will also benefit of the slaughtered pork. As it appears, the dog already benefits of something from this butchering, a piece, or something that people do not consume and it is thrown away to dogs.
Ostade illustrates a ritual of surviving and he immortalizes this image just as Poussin did with the values of the Christian family, in order to transmit these values to future generations, so that they can continue this tradition.
The artist uses warm colors, but pale lights, so that he creates the impression of a scene taken from a dark story. This is how he perceives the reality: cruel, vulgar, and filled with mystery. In fact, this is what the paradox of this drawing is. While it exposes a tableau extracted from the real world, the author charges it with an inhumanly mystery, through the use of the brushstrokes, which are thick, making the characters to become one with the décor.
In fact, besides the central character, the butcher, who is dressed in blue, all the other personages of the drawing are covered in tones of brown, pale red, or unclear yellow and green. These are “dirty” colors, just because they are mixed with the predominant color of the painting – the autumn like brown.
These “dirty” colors create the image of untidiness, doubtful hygiene, specific to the lifestyle from farms. Many of the characters seem to be simple shadows, as they cannot be well distinguished. This indicates the communion between humans and nature, as these people seem to rise from the earth, trees, or air.
However, the butcher is positioned in the middle of the scene, he wears a distinguishable outfit and Ostade sets the lights on him, just as Poussin illuminated the baby Jesus. Similarly, this indicates that for this family, the butcher is the savior, the one the rest of the family praises, because he puts food on the table by butchering the pork.
The background is dark, indicating the gloomy living style of the peasants, their day to day oppressive existence. As such, the roof of the house seems to be a living creature that captures, absorbs any shape of light and transforms it into dark, for permanently maintaining a gloomy, tough existence for the farmers.
This overwhelming atmosphere is actually feeding the peasants’ thirst of surviving. Because of this environment they are permanently exposed to fighting for their existence and acting like savages, slaughtering pork or other comestible animals represent their second nature.
Analyzing these two paintings, a conclusion arises: the environment creates the human nature. People are adapting to the environment in which they live and they accept it, accept their condition. In both analyzed paintings, Poussin and Ostade exposed the image of two different families, extracted from different environments, different times, charged with different historical, cultural, and social connotations.
Works Cited
Poussin', Nicolas. Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist and Saint Elizabeth. Accessed on 29 April 2012. Retrieved from http://www.nicolaspoussin.org/The-Holy-Family-with-the-Infant-St.John-the-Baptist-and-St.-Elizabeth-large.html. N.d. Web.
van Ostade, Isack. Peasants Outside a Farmhouse Butchering Pork. Accessed on 29 April 2012. Retrieved from http://www.terminartors.com/artworkprofile/Ostade_Isaack_van-Peasants_Outside_a_Farmhouse_Butchering_Pork. N.d. Web.
