For Whom the Cittern Plunks?

Laughter’s bad reputation is so deeply rooted that artists banished it from their work for centuries. Jan Steen, a leading figure of the Dutch Golden Age, with his rich repertoire of insinuations and double entendres recalling the barbs of the commedia dell’arte, sought to make it more reputable. It was a much-appreciated emancipation. Was he a moralistic busybody or a bit of a hedonist? Whatever his intentions, mischievous or abstemious, Steen’s portrait of his wife Grietje reveals the utter refinement of his art: he could simultaneously speak in the plainest of styles and the loftiest diction. A pioneer, in short, of mixing high and low.