A Guard Room

Usually known as a painter of peasant life, here the Flemish painter David Teniers the Younger (1610-90), depicts another recurring theme of his prolific practice. Guard house or guard room scenes were popular subjects between 1620 and 1680, a subject not unrelated to the devastating decades of European wars that continued until 1648. As is customary in seventeenth-century Dutch painting, this work is full of potential symbols to be interpreted by the viewer. A diagonal shaft of light falls from the top left of the painting onto the fair hair of the youth who steps into the illuminated section.  Crossing from darkness into light, the boy and his dog perhaps introduce a note of youthful innocence as they leave behind the darkness and brutality of the lives of the soldiers depicted in the background. The hanging lantern, that appears to be unlit, is perhaps symbolic of the blindness of warring humankind. The lantern’s rope is tied onto the arch just above the boy’s head. The future, it seems, is in his hands.  The boy looks in the opposite direction to the soldier with a gun over his shoulder who marches out of the doorway.  In the foreground, Teniers depicts an array of armour. The ornate breastplate and helmet on the stand must belong to an army commander, yet also give the impression of a trophy of war. The red, white and blue plumage which adorns the helmet are the colours of the tricolour ’States Flag’ of the Dutch Republic.   

At the time The Guard Room was painted, neither the artist nor his father, the painter David Teniers the Elder (1582-1649), would have known peace in their time. The Eighty Years' War, also known as the Dutch War of Independence (1568 to 1648), saw the Dutch struggle to free themselves from Spanish rule. The horrors of war also persisted with The Thirty Years' War (1618 -1648).