Jordaens spent the entire length of his long career in Antwerp. He was a pupil of Adam van Noort, and his early works reflect the strong influence of Rubens ' vitality and Caravaggio 's naturalism. He was Rubens ' collaborator and main assistant for twenty years (1620-1640), but pursued his own career as a painter of religious and mythological scenes and as a portraitist, with a vigorous, realistic manner bursting with vivacity and lyricism. The still-life and animal elements always had a high profile in his work. He then favoured a more brutal realism which sometimes verged on the lurid. His later years were characterised by leanings towards Baroque excess and an unusual sense of pathos. Jordaens, together with Rubens and van Dyck , made an essential contribution to 17th century Flemish art.
