Nocturnal Appearance (the Dream)

Jacob Jordaens's "Nocturnal Appearance (The Dream)" (c. 1650) at the Staatliches Museum Schwerin is a mysterious nocturnal scene that demonstrates Jordaens's occasional forays into more dramatic, psychologically complex subjects beyond his usual robust genre and mythological paintings. Jordaens, who outlived both Rubens and Van Dyck to become the dominant figure in Flemish Baroque painting for the second half of the seventeenth century, was particularly celebrated for his exuberant genre subjects, especially his series on the Flemish proverb about the King of the Bean.

The nocturnal lighting creates an atmospheric composition unusual in Jordaens's predominantly warm, daylit oeuvre, with the dramatic shadows and the mysterious subject adding psychological depth.