Gabriel Metsu

Gabriel Metsu (1629-1667)

Nació en Leiden y murió en Amsterdam. Hijo del pintor Flamenco Jacques Metsu. Vivió la mayor parte de su vida en Leiden. Fue fruto del tercer matrimonio de su padre con Jacmijntje Garniers, que era viuda de otro pintor y que aportó a este matrimonio a otros tres niños.

Representó, desde sus orígenes y con gran éxito imágenes de la vida cotidiana de las personas de las clases sociales bajas (mercados y tabernas) contrastadas con las de la vida de las personas de clases altas. En estas imágenes aplicó las lecciones sobre luz y sombras que aprendió en sus orígenes. Representando a sus personajes con expresiones de concentración y aplicando efectos de luz y tonos cálidos, así como con un gran estudio sobre los tejidos.

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Gabriel Metsu (January 1629, Leiden - buried Oct 24, 1667, Amsterdam), Dutch painter, was the son of the Flemish painter Jacques Metsu, who lived most of his days at Leiden, where he was three times married. The last of these marriages was celebrated in 1625, and Jacomijntje Garniers, herself the widow of a painter with already three children, gave birth to Gabriel.

What Metsu undertook and carried out from the first with surprising success was the low life of the market and tavern, contrasted, with wonderful versatility, by incidents of high life and the drawing-room. In no single instance do the artistic lessons of Rembrandt appear to have been lost upon him. The same principles of light and shade which had marked his schoolwork in the "Woman taken in Adultery" were applied to subjects of quite a different kind. A group in a drawing-room, a series of groups in the market-place, or a single figure in the gloom of a tavern or parlour, was treated with the utmost felicity by fit concentration and gradation of light, a warm flush of tone pervading every part, and, with that, the study of texture.

"Young girl at work"