Adriaen Brouwer

Adriaen Brouwer painted the rough side of life: peasants drinking, smoking, gambling and brawling in smoky taverns. What matters most is the faces, which show pain, anger, disgust and pleasure with startling truth, painted with a loose, fluid brush and subtle colour.

Born in Oudenaarde in Flanders around 1605, he worked in Antwerp, Amsterdam and Haarlem before settling in Antwerp in 1631. He died there in 1638, in his early thirties, leaving only about sixty pictures. Other artists admired him enormously: Rubens owned 17 of his works, and Rembrandt also collected him. He influenced Adriaen van Ostade and David Teniers the Younger. His late landscapes, such as Dune Landscape by Moonlight, are unusually free and atmospheric. The Alte Pinakothek in Munich has a major group of his tavern scenes.

In Brawling Peasants and Feeling, look at how much he says through a single expression.