Jan Wildens was a Flemish Baroque painter and draughtsman

Drawing

Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...

 specializing in landscapes.

Biography

Jan Wildens was born in Antwerp in 1586 and at the age of ten was apprenticed to Pieter Verhulst (d 1628) and entered Antwerp's guild of St. Luke in 1604 as a master. He departed for Italy in 1613 and the following year published a series of twelve engraving

Engraving

Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...

s based on the seasons of the year. Upon returning to Antwerp after a stay of three years, he became a frequent collaborator with Peter Paul Rubens until 1620. Wildens was responsible for the landscape backgrounds for various scenes in the designs for the Decius Mus tapestry series and for history paintings by Rubens that include "The Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus" (c. 1618; Munich, Alte Pinotek.), "Samson and the Lion" (c. 1618; Private Collection), "Cimon and Iphigenia" (c. 1617–18; Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum) and "Diana and her Nymphs Departing for the Chase" (c. 1616; Cleveland Museum of Art). Later in his career he was to paint landscapes for many other Antwerp painters such as Jacob Jordaens

Jacob Jordaens

Jacob Jordaens was one of three Flemish Baroque painters, along with Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, to bring prestige to the Antwerp school of painting. Unlike those contemporaries he never traveled abroad to study Italian painting, and his career is marked by an indifference to their...

, Frans Snyders, Paul de Vos

Paul de Vos

Paul de Vos was a Flemish Baroque painter.De Vos was born in Hulst near Antwerp, now in the Dutch province of Zeeland. Like his older brother Cornelis and younger brother Jan, he studied under the little-known painter David Remeeus...

, Abraham Janssens

Abraham Janssens

Abraham Janssens van Nuyssen was a Flemish Baroque painter.He was born at Antwerp, in a year variously reported between 1567 and 1576. He studied under Jan Snellinck, was a master in 1602, and in 1607 was dean of the master-painters...

, Jan Boeckhorst

Jan Boeckhorst

Jan Boeckhorst , was a German-born Flemish Baroque painter whose style was heavily influenced by Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens.-Biography:...

, Gerard Seghers

Gerard Seghers

Gerard Seghers , also Zegers, was a Flemish Baroque painter and one of the leading Caravaggisti in the Southern Netherlands.-Biography:...

, Theodoor Rombouts

Theodoor Rombouts

Theodoor Rombouts was a Flemish Baroque painter specializing in Caravaggesque genre scenes of card players and musicians.-Biography:...

 and Cornelis Schut

Cornelis Schut

Cornelis Schut was a Flemish Baroque painter, draughtsman and engraver active in Italy and Antwerp.-Biography:...

.

In 1619 Rubens acted as a witness to Wildens’s marriage to Maria Stappaert. She died in 1624 after bearing him two sons, both of whom became painters: Jan Baptist (1620–37) and Jeremias (1621–53). His works from these years employ decorative forms, loose compositions and a broad technique reminiscent of Rubens, though earlier influences on him such as Jan Brueghel the Younger

Jan Brueghel the Younger

Jan Brueghel the Younger was a Flemish Baroque painter, and the son of Jan Brueghel the Elder.He was trained by his father and spent his career producing works in a similar style. Along with his brother Ambrosius, he produced landscapes, allegorical scenes and other works of meticulous detail. ...

 and Paul Bril still continue to play a significant role. Wildens preference is for a calm and gentle approach expressed in marked symmetry of composition and soft, subtle colours. The contrast is evident in Wildens’s serene "Landscape with a Shepherd" (Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten), which was partly inspired by Rubens’s more dynamic "Landscape with a Shepherd and his Flock" (London, National Gallery). The two painters remained friends and at Rubens’s death in 1640, Wildens was one of the executors of his will.

Sources

• Hans Devisscher, "Wildens, Jan", Grove Art Online. Oxford University Press
  Oxford University Press
  Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
  
  , [9 November 2007].
• Hans Vlieghe (1998). Flemish Art and Architecture, 1585-1700. Pelican History of Art. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-07038-1