Painting Human Flesh: Theory Compared to Jacob Jordaens’ Practice

This paper will discuss the development and technique of painting flesh in a number of works by Jacob Jordaens (1593–1678), a highly successful Antwerp painter greatly influenced by Peter Paul Rubens. Jordaens relied heavily on Rubens in his formative years until around 1618, and on the experience that Rubens brought to Antwerp from Italy after working for aristocratic patrons in Mantua, Rome and other Italian cities (fig. 1). While Irene Schaudies in her essay for this volume focuses on the influence of Rubens’ models on Jordaens’ Bacchic figures, this essay shall attempt to demonstrate how Jordaens, later in his long career, structured his layers of flesh paints in a very different and somewhat less economical way compared to Rubens. The question of the extent to which Jordaens modelled his own treatment of human flesh on Rubens’ influence will be investigated in the context of contemporary written source material on the visual representation of flesh.