Jan Stobbaerts

With his dark-brown studio tones and forceful depiction of trivial subjects, Stobbaerts was a pioneer of Realism and 'autochthonous' Impressionism in Belgium.

[2] Jan Stobbaerts was born in Antwerp as the son of the carpenter Maarten Jozef Stobbarts and his wife Johanna Rosalie Pardon.

Here he met Henri de Braekeleer who became a lifelong friend and fellow rebel against academism in art.

The uncle of de Braekeleer was Henri Leys, the leading Romantic painter in Belgium at the time.

In this city he was recognized as an important artist unlike in his native Antwerp where he often had conflicts with local art critics and organizers of exhibitions.

[5] His composition entitled The stable of the old farm of Cruyninghen, which had been refused for the salon of Antwerp in 1885, was purchased by the Belgian state the next year for the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.

The painting shows a butcher cutting the throat of a cow in the front of the scene and the blood flowing out into a container.

[8] His sober monochrome palette developed to a more balanced color scheme and he gave more attention to the effect of light.

Around 1890, Stobbaerts' style underwent a considerable change likely under the influence of his discovery of Impressionism and his personal search for resolving the problem of light.

The artist concentrated on the effect of light and the forms, while they remained recognizable, became less clear as if seen through a soft-focus lens.