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Isack van Ostade (artist) Dutch, 1621 - 1649 The Halt at the Inn, 1645 oil on panel transferred to canvas Overall: 50 x 66 cm (19 11/16 x 26 in.) framed: 72.4 x 88.6 x 6 cm (28 1/2 x 34 7/8 x 2 3/8 in.) Widener Collection 1942.9.49 |
One of the most delightful aspects of seventeenth-century Dutch art is that it conveys a vivid sense of daily life. In this painting, for example, we see the bustle of activity outside a village inn as two well-dressed travelers arrive and dismount from their horses. A beggar woman with a child strapped to her back stands to watch while other figures converse with one of the travelers. The main street of the village is filled with other groups, among them men smoking pipes at a bench before the inn, a child playing with a mother's apron, and a man talking to a woman spinning yarn. Van Ostade creates a sense of conviviality by the apparent informality of these human contacts, and by including an array of animals within the scene. He also was careful to suggest the picturesque character of the buildings, trees and vines, and depicted the aged brick and mortar construction of the inn.
Isack van Ostade was the most important of a number of Haarlem artists who painted such subjects in the early seventeenth century. A student of his more famous, older brother, Adrian van Ostade, Isack tragically died at the age of twenty-eight. Despite his short artistic career, he had an extensive influence on his contemporaries, including Jan Steen, with whom he occasionally collaborated.