born 1605/06, Oudenaarde, Flanders
died January 1638, Antwerp
Brouwer also spelled Brauwer Flemish genre painter who influenced artists in
both Flanders and Holland.
Brouwer went to study under Frans Hals in Haarlem about 1621, gained a high
reputation in Holland, and returned to the South Netherlands in 1631. There he
was arrested and imprisoned by the Spaniards as a spy until September 1633. He
then settled in Antwerp. Except for a handful of landscapes, apparently from his
last years, all of Brouwer's pictures are of subjects drawn from common
life—showing peasants smoking, drinking, or brawling in taverns; quack surgeons
operating on grimacing patients; and so on. Most of the pictures are small and
painted on panel. The coarseness of his subjects contrasts with the delicacy of
his style, which in its mature stage shows an unusual mastery of tonal values.
A Boor Asleep
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