'Joos van Craesbeeck' was a Flemish painter who specialized in tavern interiors, tronie

Tronie

A tronie is a common type, or group of types, of works of Dutch Golden Age painting and Flemish Baroque painting that shows an exaggerated facial expression or a stock character in costume...

s, and other works similar to his teacher Adriaen Brouwer

Adriaen Brouwer

Adriaen Brouwer was a Flemish genre painter active in Flanders and the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century.-Biography:...

. Born in Neerlinter (Flemish Brabant

Flemish Brabant

Flemish Brabant is a province of Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium. It borders on the Belgian provinces of Antwerp, Limburg, Liège, Walloon Brabant, Hainaut and East Flanders. Flemish Brabant also completely surrounds the Brussels-Capital Region. Its capital is Leuven...

), he became a master in Antwerp's guild of St. Luke in 1633–1634, and like his contemporaries David Teniers the Elder

David Teniers the Elder

David Teniers the Elder , Flemish painter, was born at Antwerp.-Biography:Having received his first training in the painter's art from his brother Juliaen, he studied under Rubens in Antwerp, and subsequently under Elsheimer in Rome; he became a member of the Antwerp guild of painters in...

 and David Rijckaert III he developed rustic genre scenes

Genre painting

Genre works, also called genre scenes or genre views, are pictorial representations in any of various media that represent scenes or events from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, and street scenes. Such representations may be realistic, imagined, or...

. He subsequently moved to Brussels

Brussels

Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

, where he joined that city's painters' guild in 1651.

Paintings such as Death is Violent and Fast are typical of his small, theatrical images of peasant

Peasant

A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...

s brawling crowded with violent expressive figures. Unlike Teniers, whose style became more elegant, Craesbeeck continued to paint bawdy figures later in his career.

Sources

• Konrad Renger, "Craesbeeck [Craesbeke], Joos van," Grove Art Online. Oxford University Press
  Oxford University Press
  Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
  
  , [accessed 10 November 2007].
• Hans Vlieghe (1998). Flemish Art and Architecture, 1585-1700. Pelican History of Art. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-07038-1
• Karolien De Clippel (2006), Joos Van Craesbeeck (1605/06-ca 1660): een Brabants genreschilder (Pictura Nova XI). Turnhout": Brepols Publishers.