JANSSENS, Victor Honoré

Flemish painter and draughtsman. He was apprenticed to Lancelot Volders (fl 1657-?75) in Brussels from 1668 to 1675. He also studied with the Dutchman Pieter Molyn. He came under the patronage of Herzog Joachim II von Holstein-Plön, who supported his trip to Italy. In Rome he studied the works of Raphael and the ancient monuments and made drawings of the Roman Campagna. His highly popular small paintings were influenced by those of Francesco Albani. Janssens also painted a large altarpieceGLOSSARYA picture or sculpture that stands on or is set up behind an altar. The term reredos is used for an ornamental screen or partition, not directly attached to the altar table but affixed to the wall behind it. A diptych is an altarpiece consisting of two panels, a triptych one of three panels, and a polyptych one of four or more panels. From the 14th to 16th century, the altarpiece was one of the most important commissions in European art; it was through the altarpiece that some of the most decisive developments in painting and sculpture came about. for the JesuitsGLOSSARYThe Society of Jesus, a Roman Catholic teaching order founded by St. Ignatius Loyola in 1534. The express purpose of the Jesuits was to fight heresy within the Church (they played a leading role in the Counter Reformation), and to spread the faith through missionary work in the many parts of the world recently discovered by Western explorers and colonists. of Naples.