Teniers, << tuh NEERZ or TEHN yurz, >> David, the Younger (1610-1690), was a Flemish painter. He painted peasants, alchemists, witches, soldiers, and the middle class, often showing these people working or enjoying festivals. Teniers’s landscapes celebrate the virtues of idealized rural life. Teniers also painted religious subjects, especially the temptations of Saint Anthony. In addition, he created paintings that functioned as inventories of the rooms used as art galleries in wealthy homes.
Most of Teniers’s paintings present detailed, brightly colored small figures, often in crowded compositions. Many of Teniers’s scenes include a large group of objects arranged in a still life at one side in the foreground. The objects usually contribute to a moral that is expressed in the painting. For example, a broken jug might refer to unacceptable behavior taking place within the painting.
David Teniers the Younger was born in Antwerp in Flanders, now part of Belgium. David Teniers the Elder, his father, was also a noted painter. In 1651, David the Younger moved to Brussels, where he was court painter to the governor who represented the Spanish king. In the early 1660’s, Teniers helped establish the important Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp to train painters and elevate their status in society. Teniers had a large workshop of assistants who produced copies of his paintings to satisfy the demand for his work.
