Alte Pinakothek, Munich; photograph, Joachim Blauel/Artothek

(1610–85). Dutch baroque painter and printmaker Adriaen van Ostade is known for his genre pictures of Dutch peasant life. He also painted religious subjects, portraits, and landscapes.

Ostade was born on Dec. 10, 1610, in Haarlem, Netherlands. He and Flemish genre painter Adriaen Brouwer probably were pupils of Frans Hals in about 1627, though Hals’s style is not clearly evident in their works. Brouwer was the most important influence in shaping Ostade’s early style. Like Brouwer, Ostade delighted in scenes of daily peasant life such as tavern brawls. Ostade often painted dimly lit interiors with a single source of light illuminating a principal group, as in Carousing Peasants in an Interior (1638?). He treated these themes with a broad and vigorous technique in a subdued range of colors that often borders on monochrome. He used a considerable element of caricature to underline the coarseness of his peasant types.

Ostade’s paintings from his early period, in the 1630s, are largely confined to a narrow range of neutral bluish-grays and browns, sometimes enlivened by a single note of bright color. Influenced by Rembrandt from the 1640s on, he gradually adopted a brighter palette. Although he still chose mostly peasants for his subjects, they tended to be less ribald and grotesque. In the works of his maturity, from about 1650 to 1670, landscapes and outdoor settings occur more frequently, such as peasants gathering by a cottage door or outside an inn as in The Itinerant Fiddler (1672). These later works show greater refinement and further development of his technique in working with light and color.

Ostade was a prolific artist who executed his small-scale works in oil, usually on wood panels. He also worked in watercolor, made spirited pen drawings, and produced about 50 etchings. He achieved much popularity during his lifetime, and in 1662 he was made president of the Haarlem painters guild. His younger brother Isack also was a successful painter. Ostade was buried on May 2, 1685, in Haarlem.