Jana&JS

Jan Miense Molenaer’s works engage with the everyday lives of farmers in the seventeenth century. Molenaer, who worked in Haarlem, created several pieces focusing on peasant farmers, which together provide an interesting insight into the societal realities of the time.

The work depicts the interior of a barn in which a group of peasants have gathered for a feast. The men and women are seated at a table that runs diagonally through the pictorial space, and are taking pleasure in food, drink, and music. More enjoyment is evident in the depiction of a little boy playing with a cat. On the floor in the foreground is a magnificent still life showing various objects from peasant life: baskets, pots, jugs, and agricultural produce such as grain and vegetables. In a fascinating detail, Molenaer has painted his artist's signature as if it were carved into the table at which the company is seated, placing himself, so to speak, at the heart of the action.

Drawing inspiration from Molenaer’s composition, the Austrian/French street artists Jana&JS have produced a reinterpretation in a distinct and modern style, transporting the original painting’s central scene and its artistically rich still life objects into the present day[SS1] . Among the everyday objects scattered on the floor and around the table in this reinterpretation are bottles, jars, a plant in a pot and vegetables. In the background, we perceive the wooden walls and beams of a barn, sketched in the upper part of the picture. The boy having a fun time with the cat at the edge of Molenaer’s A company of peasants in a barn is a girl in the work by Jana&JS, and is in the foreground. Following Molenaer, Jana&JS have incorporated themselves in the work. In a reference to their technique of creating their murals on the basis of photographs they take themselves, JS appears in the picture photographing the scene from the door at the back of the barn, while Jana sits facing him.

The interpretation casts a modern-day eye on rural life and plays with the notions of continuity and change.

Click here to open the interactive application that juxtaposes the original and its reinterpretation and provides an engaging explanation of the artists’ creative process.