The Fiddler
About the painting
A fiddler wearing a tall hat and rags plays his instrument to a captive audience of peasants young and old in a dark interior, illuminiated by a beam of light entering through the door at left. Painter, draughtsman and etcher, Adriaen van Ostade was probably a pupil (together with Adriaen Brouwer) of Frans Hals in Haarlem. Hals influenced him very little, whereas Brouwer, had a decisive influence on the evolution of van Ostade’s idiosyncratic portrayals of peasant life. Most of van Ostade's paintings are signed and dated. 1367-1869 is among a number van Ostade's domestic scenes in which figures and space blend in an atmospheric treatment of light. The blue-grey tonality is characteristic of Adriaen's earlier works which later shift to a palette of warmer green-browns.
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The surface of 1367-1869 is quite damaged but a sense of the original mood and of the appearance of the little girl at centre is suggested by a another painting of an itinerant musician attributed to van Ostade and dated 1655 (repr. Hofstede de Groot, no. 440) and is comparable in format and subject matter to Fiddler at the door of a house in the Fitzwilliam Museum of 1639. Adriaen van Ostade’s peasants are mostly shown relishing the small pleasures permitted by their modest existence, the simplicity of peasant life is held up as a model (Vivitur parvo bene: ‘One may live well on little’) or even idealized, in the manner of bucolic poetry.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Particulars
Meanwhile, in the life of Adriaen van Ostade
The whole life1634–1684 · Workplace
Haarlem
c. 1636
Joining a company of the Haarlem civic guard
At the age of 26 Ostade joined a company of the Haarlem civic guard.
1638
First marriage
Ostade married in 1638.
c. 1638 – 1640
Stylistic turning point under Rembrandt's influence
Around 1638 or 1640 the influence of Rembrandt abruptly changed Ostade's style: he painted "The Annunciation to the Shepherds" (Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Brunswick), with the principal groups dramatically lit by rays breaking through a gloomy sky.
