Jan van Wechelen

[3][4] He is first mentioned in 1557 as Jan van Wechlen, the master of an apprentice by the name of Hans de Boeys in the records of the Guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp.

[6] The artist's work enjoyed an excellent reputation at the beginning of the 17th century and was collected by Rubens as well as the prominent art collectors Cornelis van der Geest and Pieter Stevens.

It shows a large church interior with a crowd of people in contemporary as well as foreign dress who are listening to Jesus Christ who is preaching while seated near a column.

By placing a preaching Jesus amidst modern church architecture and a contemporary crowd the composition should possibly also be read against the background of the iconoclasm of the Beeldenstorm, which had caused a reflection on the role of religious art in the Low Countries.

Contemporary religious practice was compared with the words and deeds of Christ and his apostles and the past and the future of religion, its temples and its rites were under scrutiny.

[11] Jan van Wechelen produced three versions of a composition representing a village kermesse with peasants making merry.

He was close to Pieter Brueghel the Elder in his ability to animate these picturesque scenes with a great number of characters with comical and delightful attitudes.

The realism in his genre paintings reveal a rather profane spirit while his lines with clearly emphasized forms connect his work to the rigorist trends that were developing in the Low Countries around 1540.

[13] By staging the dramatic scene on the square of a Flemish town an accusation of sinfulness and culpability is directed at the contemporary crowd witnessing the event.

[14] Jan van Wechelen painted at least two versions of the Road to Calvary, another theme popularized by Pieter Brueghel the Elder.