page_title: Jacob Jordaens
section_title: As the Old Sing, So the Young Pipe
hierarchical_section_title: Jacob Jordaens / Works / As the Old Sing, So the Young Pipe
caption_attribution_description: English: As the Old Sing, So the Young Pipe oil on canvas 155 × 180 cm 1638-1640 inscribed t.c.: Ut genus,est genius concors consentus ab ortu Joconde database&#58; entry 06380000272
context_page_description: Jacob Jordaens was a Flemish painter, draughtsman and tapestry designer known for his history paintings, genre scenes and portraits. After Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, he was the leading Flemish Baroque painter of his day. Unlike those contemporaries he never travelled abroad to study Italian painting, and his career is marked by an indifference to their intellectual and courtly aspirations. In fact, except for a few short trips to locations in the Low Countries, he remained in Antwerp his entire life. As well as being a successful painter, he was a prominent designer of tapestries.
  Like Rubens, Jordaens painted altarpieces, mythological, and allegorical scenes, and after 1640—the year Rubens died—he was the most important painter in Antwerp for large-scale commissions and the status of his patrons increased in general. However, he is best known today for his numerous large genre scenes based on proverbs in the manner of his contemporary Jan Brueghel the Elder, depicting The King Drinks and As the Old Sing, So Pipe the Young.
context_section_description: As the Old Sang, So the Young Pipe (c.1638–1640) is considered a companion to The King Drinks (Louvre, Paris).  Both paintings are of a moralizing nature, have near identical measurements, and related styles. As the Old Sang, So the Young Pipe shows three generations of wealthy Antwerp burghers sitting around a table making music.  Being a popular theme among Jordaens and his clients, several versions of this painting were created.  In the version shown Jordaens' father-in-law Adam van Noort is depicted as the old man. In this popular painting genre, elderly and middle-aged figures are always portrayed singing and creating music, as children "pipe" along. The title is based on a popular proverb from the book Spiegel van den Ouden ende Nieuwen Tijdt, an Emblem book by Jacob Cats published in 1632. The Dutch proverb is Zo de ouden zongen, zo piepen de jongen, referring to the habit of birds to echo the pipe, or peeping chirp of their parents. Cats, a Calvinist, translated the proverb into a moralizing message; parents must be mindful of their actions and words, because children will copy their elders. The Dutch word for peep is just as in English, very close to the word pipe, and in this version, the bagpipe and flute pipe are used, but in some versions, the children are portrayed smoking a pipe, which even in those days was considered unhealthy for children. Jan Steen also used a bagpipe and flute in his paintings on the same subject from around 1668 and 1670, even depicting the poem by Cats in the former of the two scenes. In his paintings however, Jordaens conveys this moralizing message as well as the idea that younger generations succeed their elders.  The owl, considered the bird of the night, perched on the older woman's wicker chair, serves as a memento mori, a reminder of mortality.
caption: As the Old Sang, So the Young Pipe
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