Essay on Jan Steen's 'The Dancing Couple': A Harmony of Symbols

The Dancing Couple, artwork by Jan Steen, is intriguing in many aspects. The portrayal of the work as well as what it represents, including the characters, makes the work so fascinating. More importantly, through art, Steen creates a fussy atmosphere, with a lot of symbolic references, making the artwork more interesting. The individuals in the painting appear to be in harmony, eating, drinking, and dancing together.

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Jan's The Dancing Couple has a strong symmetrical balance evinced by the characters' position in the work. The dancing couple is in the middle of the art with speculators on both sides, left and right. There is evidence of asymmetrical balance, considering that there characters both on the left side of the art as well as to the right side (Maslov, 2020). Furthermore, other characters are behind the dance scene, creating a balance in the entire image. This evinces the love ad harmony between the couple dancing together in front of everybody.

The paint has a complementary color that gives harmony in the entire setting, giving the set up a lively aspect that blends in with the described activity. More importantly, the combination of the colors provides a constant celebration mood, supported by the fact that the story of the paint involves a celebrating couple. For instance, the lady's dress blends with her husbands' along with the rest of the characters in the paint (Maslov, 2020). The complementary color, therefore, enhances the subject of the work by giving it a particularly common theme that runs across the entire work.

The implied mood in the artwork reinforces the happiness and celebration of the couple, along with the rest of the characters. Noticeably, the characters drink and eat in what appears to be a comfortable environment. This can only imply a joyous and happy mood. Additionally, the dance, along with the looks on the characters' faces, can only be possible in a happy mood scenario, which enhances the paint's work.

Jan has managed to use chiaroscuro all through the painting, especially through the faces of the characters. Scott (2020) explains that chiaroscuro entails a particular technique that depends on the effect on an extensive gradation of light and darkness. Jan uses this technique to make the look of the characters' faces more realistic, thereby enhancing the celebration mood as the subject matter of the paint. The shadow and light further highlight the characters' faces, drawing attention to their eyes.

The artist further uses depth in the painting to effectively give the space for all the characters in the picture. More importantly, he has employed a linear perspective to create an illusion of depth on the surface used. This gives the painting a clear look at the audience. The painting's lines converge, giving the indication that the room is angled in a way that the surfaces regress in depth. The artist has used the linear perspective in the art to represent three-dimensional objects in his painting, in the two-dimensional surface (Maslov, 2020). This, therefore, enhances the subject of the painting, by extending the natural and realistic aspect of the art.

Furthermore, the painting has a focal point represented by the couple dancing in the middle of the room. Just as the name of the artwork suggests, these two clearly show the focus of the artist's message, a happy celebrated couple.

The symmetry of the artist's paint reinforces the idea of love and harmony that the dancing couple presents. The two appear to be more connected through the dance, thereby attracting everybody's attention.

Works Cited

Maslov, Vlad. "Dancing Couple by Jan Steen: History, Analysis & Facts". Arthive, 2020, https://arthive.com/jansteen/works/253980~Dancing_couple#show.

Scott, Dan. "What Chiaroscuro Means and Master Painting Examples". Draw Paint Academy, 2020, https://drawpaintacademy.com/chiaroscuro/.