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The Four Elements and Ages of Man: Fire and Childhood

1668 · Staatliche Museen, Kassel

mythological

This painting is part of a series of four representing the personification of the four elements and the four ages of man. The first painting of the series combines fire with childhood. A boy, cheeks puffed, is blowing on an ember so as to light a torch.

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The Four Elements and Ages of Man: Fire and Childhood

About the Artist

Jan Lievens

1607 – 1674

Jan Lievens (or Lievensz.), Dutch painter of portraits and religious, allegorical and genre subjects. He was a friend and contemporary of Rembrandt and a pupil of Lastman in Amsterdam. Then shared a studio with Rembrandt in Leiden in the later 1620s: many works of this period show one influencing the other. Lievens went to England, probably in 1632 after Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam, but he was in Antwerp by 1635, where he was influenced by the courtly style of Van Dyck. He returned to Holland in 1639 and became a successful painter of portraits and allegories. Raising of Lazarus is a good example of his works.

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