As with many Dutch Baroque genre scenes with musical themes, Jan Steen signed his "Musical Family" n Chicago on the depicted sheet of music. Other artists signed on the musical instruments. By associating painting with music, which was one of the liberal arts since classical antiquity, Renaissance and especially Baroque painters hoped to enhance the nobility pf painting and raise it from a menial craftsmanship (as understood in the Middle Ages) to a liberal art tied to mind. By the same token, Renaissance and Baroque artists frequently compared painting to poetry, philosophy, history, and math (proportion and perspective),
