Soldiers beside a Fireplace

genre

During the second quarter of the 17th century a group of artists began to specialize in painting the life of soldiers. Scenes of plunder and battle were depicted but the ancient battle of sexes, where the field of action was a room in an inn or a barrack, and in which the outcome of the struggle is not much in doubt, was more frequently represented. Other popular subjects were soldiers drinking, smoking and gambling at cards or tric-trac, activities that contemporary predicants and moralists condemned as vices that endanger salvation.

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About the Artist

Willem Cornelisz. Duyster

1599 – 1635

Dutch painter of genre scenes and portraits, active mainly in his native Amsterdam. Most of his paintings depict soldiers, sometimes in action, but more usually drinking, gaming, or wooing. His delicate skill at painting textiles, his ability to characterize individuals, and his power to express subtle psychological relationships between them, suggest that if he had not been carried off by the plague in his mid 30s he might well have rivalled Terborch.

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