Jan Swerts

Jan Swerts (25 December 1820, Antwerp - 11 August 1879, Marienbad) was a Belgian painter of historical subjects and portraits who worked on many publicly funded commissions. He played a major role in introducing German Romantic historical painting into Belgium. His fresco’s using oil paint heralded a revival of a colouristic style derived from Rubens and the Flemish Baroque combined with historical and psychological realism.

Jan Swerts was a student of the leading Antwerp history painter Nicaise De Keyser at the Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts. Here he met Godfried Guffens, another pupil of De Keyser, who became a close friend. The two friends visited Paris together in 1648 where they saw paintings of Victor Orsel, a French follower of Johann Friedrich Overbeck. Overbeck was the leading painter of the German Romantic Nazarene movement, which aimed to revive honesty and spirituality in Christian art. Swerts and Guffens were so impressed by this style of painting that they decided to travel on to Germany where they visited the frescos painted by the Nazarenes.

They left in August 1850 and travelled to Aachen, Köln, Düsseldorf, Remagen, Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, Prague and Munich. In these various places they met with members of the Nazarene movement who where engaged in various monumental commissions. Finally, they arrived on 12 December 1850 in Rome where Overbeck resided. They returned to Belgium with the intention to implement the ideals of the Nazarenes in Belgium.

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