Summer

This painting represents in the best way Jordaens’s mature style, treating its subject in a manner that mingles realism and naturalism, its pictorial representation deploying broad strokes, with scant interest in the rendering of physical details. A thoroughly modern touch is evident in the way the painter projects the three adult characters in three different directions, following the nature of their reactions. The narrowed eyes of the character on the left side are a result of the pitiless glare of the sun, the blouse, pulled down to reveal the breasts and the heat-struck face of the character in the foreground are signs of the stifling summer heat, while the distress in the eyes of the central character reflects the charged atmosphere, preceding the storm. The women are caught in motion, their features, as well of those of the babe in arms, reveal ancestral strength and a great capacity for endurance, in spite of their congestion and the harrowing physical effort. Their elementary strength is mirrored by the forces of nature: the billowing cloud formations in the background and the rising wind, suggested by the way one of the women holds on to her straw hat. In his painting The Summer, Jordaens succeeds admirably in juxtaposing the full glare of a torrid summer day (radiating from left) and the menacing darkening of the sky preceding the storm (to the right). The characters are caught in the most dynamic moment, in a scene of nature perfectly illustrative of human reaction to its whims. ©Dana Roxana Hrib, European Art Gallery Guidebook, Second edition, Sibiu 2011.