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The curious art of Jan van Kessel provides an intriguing lens through which to explore the intersections between craft practices, collecting, and the pursuit of natural knowledge in early modern Antwerp. The Antwerp artist Jan van Kessel the Elder (1626-1679) was esteemed throughout Europe for producing finely-wrought, miniature paintings on copper that depict a wide range of flora and fauna, exotic landscapes, and objects of natural artistry (e.g. shells, coral, precious stones). The ‘natural’ world presented in Van Kessel’s art was not a transparent window onto nature, however, but instead was ambitiously crafted through the artist's reappropriation of Antwerp's artistic traditions, material culture, and artisanal knowledge practices. Through a combination of wit, technical virtuosity, self-referentiality, and allusions to local art-historical lineage, Van Kessel’s paintings encourage viewers to simultaneously think about art, in terms of collecting, connoisseurship, citation, and media, and think anew about nature. This study uses Van Kessel’s art as a distinctive lens through which to examine the relationship between craft, curiosity, and the pursuit of natural knowledge in the early modern period. Each chapter situates Van Kessel within a particular context where art and natural history intersected in late seventeenth-century Antwerp. Taken together, these investigations reveal how his production responded to a unique convergence of circumstances in that city which included the growth of a popular, commercial strand of natural history, a thriving culture of art collecting and connoisseurship focused on local artists, and a burgeoning luxury industry. Van Kessel’s material and conceptual interventions into the representation of nature, such as his innovative, painted “cabinets without drawers” and witty signatures formed from insects and snakes, enabled him to redefine the scope of natural historical illustration and negotiate the value and status of the small-format cabinet picture

Netherlandish Renaissance-Baroque styles --- Kessel, van, Jan [Elder] --- Painting, Flemish --- Painters --- Peinture flamande --- Peintres --- Kessel, Jan van, --- van Kessel I, Jan, --- Painting --- van Kessel I, Jan, - 1626-1679

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Au XVIIe siècle s'affirme dans la peinture flamande un genre bien singulier, l'art animalier. Les peintres flamands, si sensibles au rendu des matières, excellent dans la représentation plus ou moins fidèle de l'animal. La primeur est donnée au réalisme au détriment du fantastique. Le processus de spécialisation est enclenché. Si les scènes de chasse et les étals de marché traduisent opulence et raffinement, d'autres sujets se démarquent par leur orientation plus existentielle. Les paradis terrestres évoquent une période révolue où prédateurs et proies cohabitaient en une douce harmonie. L'homme devient alors quasi inexistant voire totalement absent. C'est le règne animal, par excellence! L'exposition est une première: malgré l'attractivité de la thématique et leur importance capitale dans l'émergence de l'art animalier, les peintres animaliers flamands au XVIIe siècle, n'ont jamais fait l'objet d'une étude globale et approfondie. Exhibition: Musée de Flandre, Cassel, France (08.10.2016 - 22.01.2017).

Painting --- Zoology --- animal painters --- Flemish [culture or style] --- anno 1600-1699 --- Flanders --- Exhibitions --- Iconography --- animaliers --- vogels --- paarden --- Rubens, Peter Paul --- Snijders, Frans --- Fijt, Joannes --- Vos, Paul de --- Savery, Roelant --- Brueghel, Jan (de Oude) --- Utrecht, Adriaen van --- Kessel, Jan van (de Oude) --- Boel, Pieter --- 17de eeuw --- Vlaanderen --- Dierkunde --- Iconografie --- Schilderkunst --- Vlaams --- dierenschilders --- Painting, Flemish --- Animal painters --- Animals in art --- van Utrecht, Adriaen --- paard --- de Vos, Paul --- Brueghel, Jan I --- animaliers. --- vogels. --- paard. --- Rubens, Peter Paul. --- Snijders, Frans. --- Fijt, Joannes. --- de Vos, Paul. --- Savery, Roelant. --- Brueghel, Jan I. --- van Utrecht, Adriaen. --- Kessel, Jan van (de Oude). --- Boel, Pieter. --- 17de eeuw. --- Vlaanderen. --- animal painters [animal subject]