Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924073798336 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 924 073 798 336 THE FINE-ART LIBRARY. EDITED BY JOHN C. L. SPARKES, Principal of the National Art Training School, South Kensington - Museum, THE Dutch School Painting. ye rl ENRY HA YARD. TRANSLATED HV G. POWELL. CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited: LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK ,C- MELBOURNE. 1885. CONTENTS. -•o*— ClIAr. I'AGE I. Dutch Painting : Its Origin and Character . i II. The First Period i8 III. The Period of Transition 41 IV. The Grand Ki'ocii 61 V. Historical and Portrait Painters ... 68 VI. Painters of Genre, Interiors, Conversations, Societies, and Popular and Rustic Scenes . 117 VI [. Landscape Painters 190 VIII. Marine Painters 249 IX. Painters of Still Life 259 X. The Decline ... . . 274 The Dutch School of Painting. CHAPTER I. DUTCH PAINTING : ITS ORIGIN AND CHARACTER. The artistic energy of a great nation is not a mere accident, of which we can neither determine the cause nor foresee the result. It is, on the contrary, the resultant of the genius and character of the people ; the reflection of the social conditions under which it was called into being ; and the product of the civilisation to which it owes its birth. All the force and activity of a race appear to be concentrated in its Art ; enterprise aids its growth ; appreciation ensures its development ; and as Art is always grandest when national prosperity is at its height, so it is pre-eminently by its Art that we can estimate the capabilities of a people. There seems to be some one happy period in the life of every nation when all ' things prosper at once. Power, courage, and energy distinguish its 2 DUTCH PAINTING. political life, affording security for the present, and bright hopes for the future, and winning from all around admiration and respect. Public wealth and private fortunes, now at their zenith, encourage every enterprise and justify every venture, while strength and elegance, energy and grace, set their seal upon the Arts. Before this time has come men are only feeling their way : with no guiding principle of their own, they give themselves up to foreign inspiration. The individuality of the race has not declared itself in all its strength ; works of art still lack the special stamp which con- stitutes originality, and do not yet exhibit the style pre-eminently characteristic of the national genius. Then in a moment a complete change takes place. The nation becomes its own mistress ; it has, so to say, served its apprenticeship to life, and, for a time, at least, asserts its independence. Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, and Literature, based on all that is noble in the mind and generous in the heart of man, now flash forth at once, like a brilliant display of fireworks. This brilliance, how- ever, lasts but a short while. It is possible just to scale the dizzy heights of excellence, but not to linger there. The first slope gained, there remains the second still to be reached. Ascent is inevitably followed by descent ; and there soon sets in a period of blight, decline, and death. The national character decays with the decadence of Art ; the love of glory is stifled ; enthusiasm grows cold ; wisdom and re- serve supplant imagination ; foresight takes the place ITS ORIGIN AND CHARACTER. ^ .3 of daring, and courage no longer lends a deaf ear to the dictates of reason. It is always the same story. The life of nations, like that of individuals, is controlled by an irresis- tible destiny, which compels them to pass through the three stages of youth, manhood, and old age, to which everything in the world is subject. But if the road traversed is always the same, the works of art which mark its successive stages are by no means alike. They differ, indeed, in form and style, according to the character, ability, and energy, or, in a word, the genius of the people which produced them. They preserve the stamp of the sentiments of which they are the expression, and in their harmo- nious lines we can read the virtues which presided at their birth as well as the failings which impeded their development. Buffon said, " Style is the Man ;" with more reason we may say, " Art is the Nation." For every manifestation of Art is indeed a summing-up of the prevailing tastes and sentiments of the whole people, which speaks to posterity through its Art, saying, "Judge me on evidence ; that is, by my works." Holland, with its admirable school of painting, affords us the best demonstration of this great law. The first stammering expressions of Dutch art proceed, as is always the case, from foreign sources, and external influence is discernible in its earliest examples. It was to Flanders first of all that it went to 4 DUTCH PAINTING. look for inspiration, and to select models. During the supremacy of the House of Burgundy it derived its ideas from no other source. Its artists had neither individual expression nor national charac- teristics, and painting in the Netherlands differed in no way from painting at Ghent and Bruges. On the succession of the House of Austria the source of inspiration was changed. Dutch artists crossed the Alps and accepted Italy, with her examples of classic art, exalted and glorified by tradition, as their supreme mistress. Gothic art fled at the approach of the Renaissance, and Flanders gave way to Rome. In due course the supremacy of the House of Austria ceased to oppress the Dutch provinces. A long and terrible revolution put an end to a govern- ment which seemed all-powerful. The chains of slavery were broken, Holland at last won her inde- pendence, and Dutch art from this time forth owed its inspiration, its methods, and its style to its own surroundings alone. Dutch scenery helped to form the great colourist school of the North, while the religious and social condition of Holland gave an impetus to the growth of Naturalism. II. From the moment when Dutch painting becomes independent it shows one prevailing quality, which remains as its distinctive characteristic until the last hour of its existence as a school. ITS ORIGIN AND CHARACTER. 5 A feel ing for and love of coloyr are manifested with an extreme intensity in tne works of all the artists belonging to the school. Colour, in fact, reigns supreme mistress over them all. No one seeks to .withdraw from its enchanting thraldom, but all, on the contrary, pay tribute to it and render it homage ; all bow beneath its fairy sceptre, and make themselves adepts in its worship — the great as well as the little, the wise as well as the fooUsh. The reason for this intense love of colour has been long and earnestly sought for. Inquirers have given themselves up to numberless suppositions, ingenious, certainly, but all of them faulty, from being based upon false premises. It was assumed that the climate of Holland must be, above all, sad, gloomy, dark, and misty. Hence it was not easy to find in the observation of Nature the source of this general and ruling idea of colour, and thus it was that M. Edgar Quinet was led to suppose that the light which so intensely illumines the canvases of the Dutch masters had been brought from beyond the seas — that sunbeams, in fact, had been imported from Java, with rare birds and brilliant draperies. There is no fear of laying too much stress upon this point, for it is a fact which is most assuredly very curious. Among all the travellers who have gone through the Netherlands there is hardly one who did not arrive there with what may be called a bulky baggage of preconceived ideas, or who remained long enough to enable him to get rid of his singular prejudices. Listen to their stories. They will" tell you that 6 DUTCH PAINTING. everything you see in Holland has been made in the country. Its engineers have driven back the sea ; its architects have formed its soil, and its painters must have invented its light. M. Vitet, who a good many years ago visited Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague, saw, as he himself affirms, "the whole country under a gloomy, misty sky, with neither transparency nor colour." M. Taine speaks complacently of the " coaly sky " of Amsterdam, and M. Charles Blanc of " the veiled sky '' of the Netherlands. I only cite these in order to avoid being led into useless repeti- tions. I may also add that a guide printed in London speaks of the " fogs of The Hague." We shall now, however, once for all, treat this strange prejudice as it deserves. No, Holland is not foggy, "coaly," and gloomy, without transparency or colour. On the contrary, it is one of the most luminous countries in the world. Its sky, charged with vapours, reflects light with surprising intensity. The clouds which are almost always floating above it cast over the landscape shadows sharply marked, but transparent, and thus divide the boundless plain into wide stretches of country, alternately dark and light. All painters agree that colours, of themselves, have no value. What gives them their brilliancy is the contrast which they form with their immediate neighbours, as well as the proportion of light and shade, of black and white which enters into their composition. It is contrast and tone which heighten or lessen their efifect, augment or reduce their force. These broad belts of brown ITS ORIGIN AND CHARACTER. 7 which cross the landscape heighten the colour of the lighted portions, and the plain which stretches as far as the eye can reach produces, by its succession of luminous and obscure parts, more striking effects of colour than any other country, perhaps, in the whole of Central Europe. The colours thus spread over the Dutch landscape are of a character to produce .tone. The constant humidity of the polders communicates to the endless meadows an eternally green tint, always fresh and ■ brightj which forms in some sort the keynote of the landscape. The sky above and the water below, which reflects the sky, are both of a silvery white, or of an excessively pale azure. Then between the sky and the ground the red-roofed houses, with their brown walls, the large black windmills, whose sails are barred with ochre or saffron, complete a combina- tion of colours of the most wonderful brilliancy. The brown opposed to the white, the red to the green, the orange to the blue — is it possible to imagine more vivid contrasts, anything warmer or more forcible .' To all those who have long travelled over the inter- minable plains of Holland, who have navigated her canals and streams, this contrast appears so striking that one asks how so many educated men, so many expert critics, could have passed by this spectacle without perceiving its character ! One fact, however, ought to have set them thinking. Apart from Nature itself, it should have been enough for them to study the works of the Dutch landscape painters ; either the pictures of Ruysdael, 8 DUTCH PAINTING. Hobbema, and Paul Potter are so many misrepre- sentations, or the natural features of Holland are altogether different from what they have been de- scribed in books. " Tell me," says Lamennais, speaking of the illus- trious masters whose names I have just mentioned, "by what mysterious magic they keep us for hours together plunged in mute contemplation before the most ordinary and simple appearances in Nature. A meadow, with a brook and a few ancient willows ; a valley, with a stream running through, swollen by a storm, the last traces of which, lighted by the rays of the setting sun, are fading in the distant horizon ; a desert strand j a cabin at the foot of a naked rock, with the sea beyond ; an agitated sea, and in the distance a sail leaning over among the waves by pressure of the wind." We know now the secret of this mysterious magic. In order to become magicians, it was only necessary for these incomparable artists to catch and render exactly every fleeting aspect of Nature, without striv- ing to compose a false and pompous scene. " It is necessary," wrote Paul Delaroche, " that an artist should force Nature to pass through his mind and his heart." From the seventeenth century Dutch painters put this beautiful maxim into practice. It is owing to this that at the present time their works possess a charm of which neither fashion nor time has been able to rob them. They excite deep feeling because they who painted them felt deeply, and dis- played their feeling in the truthfulness of their work. ITS ORIGIN AND CHARACTER. 9 But the influence which the earnest study of Nature exercised over the great Dutch artists was not confined to colour. On examining their works we shall find still further proofs, no less decisive, of the workings of Nature, and, at the same time, see what limita- tions the place in which they lived imposed upon their choice of subjects and upon the general progress of their school. III. In countries parched by the sun, where the dry air is deprived of all watery vapour, aerial perspective, as it is called, scarcely exists at all. Outlines are hard and sharply defined ; tones are positive and violent, and without charm for the eye; colouring, harsh and crude, scarcely arrests attention, while form becomes of the greatest importance. Thus the effects due to the combination of lines are much more strongly marked, and the mind of the artist, subjected necessarily to the influence of the scenes which surround him, naturally attaches greater value to outline. In these sunburnt countries the study of Nature inevitably produces great draughtsmen rather than. great colourists. On the contrary, where a light haze, as in Holland, perpetually reigns in the atmosphere, where a silvery vapour interposes itself between the eye and the object it rests on, outlines are npre^sar ily gnftpnprl a nd t hecombina tions of lines lack precision . On the other hand, colours form patches, and in con- sequence of indefiniteness of outline have a marked lO DUTCH PAINTING. tendency to melt into one another. The repeated, unfailing, and enduring effect of such a scene upon the njind of the artist can easily be ima- gined. No argument will ever influence him so strongly as will the things he has himself seen. Speaking to the eyes of his contemporaries, it is by his own that the painter learns the language in which to express himself Hence it is explained how Venice, Holland, and Flanders, humid countries par excellence, and even England herself, have been the schools of colourists, and have produced very i&w artists who were great draughtsmen. The social condition in which Dutch painting developed itself in that period of its history which may be called " independent," had also a strongly-marked influence not only upon the choice of subjects, but also upon the manner of treating them. " In Holland," to use the expression of M. Vitet, " the people were no longer Catholic, but had become Republican." Hence, there were no more churches to ornament, no more palaces to decorate, and con- sequently no more saints, no more Madonnas, and very few of those grand compositions usually called "historical " to be painted. Mythologies and alle- gories, moreover, were distasteful. Protestant aus- terity, which had driven the saints from their sanctuaries, could not decently open the door to the too frivolous divinities of Olympus. There was no reigning family. It is hard to say what would have become of the painters in this un- fruitful region, who felt themselves capable of doing ITS ORIGIN AND CHARACTER. II great things in Art, if it had not been for their va nity and self-loyg , which never quite lost their power. It was in fact due to these two sentiments that in the absence of sacred subjects and of crowned patrons the Dutch painters did not stand still. The town-halls replaced the palaces ; the doelen and the charitable refuges took the place of temples and churches. Since it was not possible to have one's picture painted in the style of the powerful families of Italy and Germany, or of Flanders, kneeling at the feet of the Virgin, or pro- tected by the zegis of some fortunate patron, the sacred personage who was only there as a pretext was boldly dispensed with, and the civic guards, regents, and magistrates bestowed their full-length portraits, not on the temples of faith, but on the municipal palaces, the hospitals, and the shooting galleries. As all these works were portraits, it was neces- sary that they should be .true - likenes s e s. For these worthies were simple-minded enough, and cared little about being idealised. As a result of this, the painter, having to follow Nature very close ly, accus- tomed himself never to work without a constant reference to his model, and thus pa inting her.a me _more and mo re naturalistic in the best sense of the term, and was modified at the same time by the influences of the climate, and by the restrictions imposed by the manners of the country. Moreover, as Lammenais very well remarks, " whenever colour is the principal aim of the 12 DUTCH PAINTING. artist, Art naturally tends to materialise itself." Thu'S it is not with musket on shoulder, or lance in hand, that these civic soldiers and military citizens, the national guards of an epoch before ridicule had stuck its claws into the pretensions of a citizen sol- diery, are oftenest represented. Nor was it with law books before them that the discreet magistrates, honest men whom self-sufficiency and intolerance had not yet blinded and stiffened, were painted, but with glass in hand, their faces lighted up with gay con- versation, and their mouths opened in song, discourse, or conviviality. From the town-halls and from the doelen, the taste for these scenes of gaiety passed into the houses of the burghers, and soon there was not a residence, public or private, which did not possess some one of these representations of feasts — official banquets, homely festivities, and drinking bouts, in which pleasure is the general law, where mirth is excited by the influence of red or white wine, and manifests itself by general communicativeness and boisterous outbursts which betoken approaching drunkenness. This is the reason wh y gaiet y became one of the very marked characteristics of the whole Dutch school. "-Exteriority," to use a technical term, was innate in the school, nearly all of whose members painted for painting's sake, got to^prove-aJJieoLv. hii t to relate a |act. It i^ever^oauirredJO-iJidJiJiund^ ait.,,.could haye_a^.philc)sophical_^ With the exception of one painter — and that~one, for this very reason, the greatest of them all — there is no one to ITS ORIGIN AND CHARACTER, 1 3 whom we could impute lofty intentions, without ex- posing ourselves to a great misconception by attribu- ting to pictures pretensions which theynever had. This " exteriority " to which we have just referred is mani- fested, moreover, by a very remarkable tendency, which we cannot pass over in silence. That tendency is an absolute contempt for what we agree to call historical truth, and very slight regard for archaeo- logical accuracy. Nothing surpasses, in fact, the whimsical freedom with which these joyous painters interpreted scenes of the Old Testament and fables of the Greek mythology. These masters, as worthy inheritors of the primi- tive Flemish school which clothed the saints and the apostles in the costumes of their own times, did not take the trouble, like the Italians, to create a conventional world in which to place Jesus and to depict His disciples. Not only, as remarks M. Thibaudeau, did Rembrandt borrow from Holland the types which served him to represent the whole of his pictures of Christ, but he went to the neighbouring synagogues to obtain the costumes of his Pharisees, and, in order that future critics might not think that he paid no attention to tradition he showed a heap of sabres, turbans, and furs, and cried, with a noble conviction, " Here are my antiquities ! " Such are the principal traits of the Dutch school, which belonged so nearly to the soil from which it sprang, that all those artists, who abandoned their country and went abroad, abdicated by that single 14 DUTCH PAINTING. act their only real claim to originality, modified the characteristics of their art, and changed their methods. For instance, we should look in vain in Berchem, in Karel Dujardin, in Bamboche, in Asselyn, in all those "joyous deserters," as they have been called by an eminent critic, for the calm and reserved inspiration of Van Goyen, of Hobbema, or of Paul Potter. In them the sincere and tranquil observa- tion which distinguishes the elder Palam^des, the two Ostades, Brekelenkam, Pieter de Hooch, and Van der Meer of Delft has been entirely lost. All those who banished themselves from the silvery sky, the reflecting waters, the red-brick houses and green meadows of Holland, forgot the subtle charm which their native land had taught them. We see the Dutch school, in its maturity and grandeur, borrowing nothing from the outside world ; it finds everything in its own resources. But here a doubt manifests itself, and a question arises — does a Dutch school really exist .' It is indisputable that there does exist a distinct Dutch art with peculiar characteristics, a distinct indi- viduality and an extraordinary vitality; which has pro- duced a number of masterpieces which it is impossible to confound with those of any other time or country. To deny this would be to close our eyes to evidence ; but the question of a school remains unanswered. To form a school there must be one or several masters, with pupils or followers, and, above all, a particular philosophy of Art, with definite teaching resting on principles peculiar to itself, which, trans- ITS ORIGIN AND CHARACTER. 1 5 mitted from generation to generation, end by be- coming a tradition. It is easy to find in Dutch art masters in abund- ance, and pupils and disciples, who become in their turn renowned masters. But it is almost impossible to discover anything which resembles the special teaching of which we speak, or anything whatever which approaches in any way to a tradition. On the contrary, it is by an absolute freedom in manner, and by independence carried to excess, in the conception of their works as in their exe- cution, that both masters and pupils are distin- guished. In other countries, by the side of the radiant figure of each mighty genius we see an army of pupils, painting with more or less of talent, but in the same style. In Dutch art this is not the case. Each one forms his own style, each possesses a dis- tinct individuality, which is easily recognisable ; each has his own particular charm and his own difierent shades of expression — in a word, each has originality. One only of these painters really had disciples, in the strict sense of the word, that is to say, he taught something more to his pupils than the practice of his art, the technical part of painting. That one is Rembrandt, and it would be in vain to seek another who has transmitted to those who received his lessons the grand ideas which inspired him, the principles which he believed to be right, and the methods by which they could be applied. In the opinion of all his critics Rembrandt stands out an exceptional figure in the art of his country. l6 DUTCH PAINTING. M. Charles Blanc calls him "an exception in the Dutch school." M. Vitet shows him to us as a painter who, without ever having left his own country, was the least Dutch in his painting, and who appears to stand apart even in the midst of the young artist-world which he taught, governed, and illumined by his genius. In spite of his unusual power and exceptional influence ; in spite of his persuasiveness, and the authority which he knew how to claim for himself, we shall soon see that Rembrandt only exercised a limited sway over his pupils. None of them, in fact, owe their development entirely to him. To some of them — Maas, for instance — he only teaches the secret of his vigorous impasto, and his admirable light and shade. Others, like Gerard Dow, only retain from his teaching his marvellous manner of distributing light, and of rendering shadows trans- parent. For the rest^ they differ so much that it may almost be asked whether they really had their teaching from Rembrandt at all. He was more fortu- nate with Van den Eeckhout, Govert Flink, Ferdinand Bol, and Fabritius, transmitting to them in a certain degree his style, his principles, his manner of com- prehending and distributing masses and of the dis- position and employment of light. He inoculated them, if I may so say, even with his picturesque interpretation of history and the Holy Scriptures ; but with one or two exceptions, as soon as these earnest pupils depart from their master, and cease to be subjected to his direct authority, their native ITS ORIGIN AND CHARACTER. 17 independence gains the upper hand, and, httle by little, they seek to form a style of their own, which leads them first to disregard, and afterwards to disdain altogether, the authoritative traditions which they had received. This absence of settled principles and of a defi- nite philosophy of Art, this failure of the great masters to retain their authority and influence, this want of unity of grasp, of a common end and a common ideal,, appear to us sufficient grounds for repudiating the name of school which has been too generally admitted ; and accordingly it is the history of " Dutch Painting '' which we shs^ll now endeavour to write. i8 CHAPTER II. THE FIRST PERIOD. Although it may be easy to discover, in the climatic conditions of the Netherlands, and in the charac- teristics of the nation, the true origin of the grand art of Holland, it is difficult, on the other hand, in the present state of our knowledge, to trace it historically. The reason of this is easily understood. The Netherlands had not the good fortune to possess an historian of their old painters, such as Vasari, at a time when recollections were still fresh and the history of Dutch art easy to trace. The first writer who mentions Dutch artists was Carel van Mander, in the seventeenth century, an epoch when Gothic art commenced to decline in estimation. Besides this, when Van Mander wrote, two important events had already occurred, which had thrown the knowledge of the old works into great confusion. The Reformation, in despoiling the churches, sup- pressing the abbeys, and destroying the monasteries, in giving over to the " image breakers '' all the sacred pictures from the brushes of the early masters, had struck a great blow at the history of Art ; whilst the emancipation of the United Provinces, in causing the removal from the town-halls and royal palaces of the The Van Eycks.j THE FIRST PERIOD. 19 paintings of sovereigns, governors, and officers whose memory was hateful, obscured its origin. The conse- quence of this double destruction, which was to a cer- tain extent methodical, is that we know the names of many painters whose works are totally unknown to us, whilst the artists whose names and works are both lost are still more numerous. A kind of contempt for the "primitives," the masters of the olden time, together with a mistaken patriotism which refused to acknowledge that Dutch art dated farther back than the political emancipation, and an orthodox exclusiveness, which denied that anything took place before the religious emancipation, pre- vented the historians of the Netherlands from studying these early times, and the obscurity of the subject, in- stead of diminishing, has been increasing day by day. Carel van Mander, already mentioned, and all the biographers who have followed him, including Houbraken, Campo Wcyerman, Sandrart, and Degcamps, agree in naming as the originators of the school the brothers Van Eyck. It would certainly be difficult to choose a more brilliant and magnificent commencement, if com- mencement it can properly be called. The marvellous art of these two brothers is certainly no sudden inven- tion. It is the realisation of an ideal, the perfection of a style, the carrying into practice of a special and peculiar theory of aesthetics, which appears to have been completely demonstrated in their works. Their manner, in fact, is perfect, and superior to ours, since, in spite of our widely differing theories, c 2 20 DUTCH PAINTING. [The Van Eycks. we find nothing we can improve on in it. Their works have, moreover, passed through more centuries than those of our own day will ever see. Up to the present time they have preserved all their freshness, and since the time in which they were painted we have lost the secret of that soft but powerful serenity, that simplicity of execution, that conciseness of ex- pression and consistency of method, that richness and brilliancy, which are characteristic of their ad- mirable talent. It is, therefore, not surprising that the absolute perfection of their works should have shed such a lustre as to have thrown into the shade all that was not of their production. The brothers Van Eyck had the signal good for- tune, V. 'lich in the history of humanity is reserved to a very small number of geniuses, to live at the very time which was most favourable to their mar- vellous capabilities. They appeared at that precise moment when Society, repudiating the abstractions of the schoolmen, was, by the production of a world of realities, making way for the generous outburst of the Renaissance. A century earlier or later their position in the history of Art would have been much less important, because they could not then have become the inspired interpreters of this magic revolution. But they do not confine themselves to interpret- ing for us the leading thoughts of their time, or moving us by the elevation of their ideal and the fulness of their genius. We feel ourselves astounded The Van Eycks.] THE FIRST PERIOD. 21 at the miraculous learning and finished experience, which they manifest from the commencement, and in spite of ourselves we are led to seek out their predecessors. We cannot help wondering whether they were magicians, who invented everything, or whether they were not rather the successors or descendants of the miniaturists of the Court of Burgundy, the fol- lowers of Jean de Bruges, the painter of King Charles V.,* but with wider aims, more ambitious methods, and a technique which they at once brought to perfection. It is exceedingly probable that they were the disciples of a school of painting already rich in second-rate works, which have now disappeared, though its traces are to be found upon the banks of the Rhine and the Meuse, and that this school by its previous productions had prepared the way for them, and made their development possible. Their biographers show them to us living at Ghent, where they had established themselves amidst a cor- poration of painters, which had already existed many years. It was there, perhaps, that they learnt the secrets of the firm and full painting, the simple yet vigorous * See at The Hague in the Museum Meermanno Westreenianum the "Vulgate," executed by this painter, upon the frontispiece of which is represented the portrait of King Charles V. in profile. Before the King a kneeling figure represents Jean Vaudetar, the donor, who presented this Bible to the King. These two portraits, remarkable for their flesh colouring, date, according to the dedication, from the year 1371. See "The Flemish School of Painting," English Edition, p. 20. 22 , DUTCH PAINTING. [The Van Eycks.' grace, the ingenious light and shade, the" wise sub- ordination which impresses upon the least of their works a grand and masterly character. It is still uncertain what masters revealed this art to them, with its secrets, its methods, and its learning. Or, on the other hand, perhaps these admirable methods and processes formed part of their personal baggage which they took with them to Ghent. If so, whence did they obtain them ? It is said that they were at first the pupils of their father. If this be true, it was at Maaseijck, in Limbourg, upon the banks of the Meuse, midway between Maestricht and Roermondj that they received their first education. At Maestricht, even from the tenth century, we find a great movement of life and art. A magnificent sanctuary was constructed here for a revered saint, and costly jewels had to be chased for its adornment. Generations of sculptors existed there, who followed the purest Roman style in the decorations of the old basilicas of Saint Servais and Notre Dame. At Roermond we see, even in the beginning of the twelfth century, Count Gerard III., of Guelders, group- ing around him a legion of architects and sculptors . for the construction of the famous minster. We also find there a famous glass manufactory celebrated during the Middle Ages. It is, then, by no means sur- prising that there should have been in those regions a school of painters, robust and clever, who decorated ■ churches and castles in a style both ample and noble. The mural paintings discovered at Haarlem, Deventer, and at Maestricht, in the Church of the VanOuwater.] THE . FIRST " PERIOD. 2$ Dominicans, sufficiently pfove that these vast decora- tions, embracing hundreds of figures of life-size, were at that time the ordinary decorations of Catholic sanctuaries. Unfortunately these works, by no means durable, have disappeared under the whitewash : with which Dutch cleanliness has covered them. We may, however, reasonably discover in' them the source from which the young Van Eycks drew, their inspiration, the school where they received the first notions of .their admirable art. Moreover, the renowned manufactory of stained glass offers a field of natural studies for inquiring minds, and it may have been in the laboratories of Maestricht that they discovered the admirable secret of painting in oil which at one stroke they brought to perfection. It would certainly be a grand and a beautiful problem to elucidate this first point, and to bind together these early links. But our ambition does not extend so far, for in this rapid study of the Dutch school we shall not go, back even to the glorious brothers Van Eyck. Less generous than the older biographers, our contemporary critics reject these illustrious painters as precursors of Dutch art. They claim them for Flemish art, and we must admit that they are not altogether wrong. Their claims rest upon arguments of indisputable value. The first painter mentioned by Van Mander as having; been born in Holland, and having worked there, and who, by this fact, became in a certain sense the founder of the school, was one Aalbert van 24 DUTCH PAINTING. ■ [Geertjen. OUWATER, who, during his life and for a long time after, passed for an eminent painter. Both the date of his birth and that of his death have been lost. We do not even know exactly at what time he lived ; but it is believed that, he was a contemporary of the Van Eycks. It is affirmed by the old biographers that he had acquired a just reputation by the manner in which he drew hands and feet, by the ability with which he draped his subjects, and by the naturalism with which he executed his landscapes. This latter trait is important and worthy of note. Unfortunately, no authentic work of this artist of the early times has reached us. A few landscapes, which it is said are his, and which figured in the sixteenth century in the gallery of Cardinal Grimani, have disappeared. A Pieta, in the Museum of Vienna, which is attributed to him by Passavant, is a good painting of a primitive Dutch master; but there is nothing to prove that it is Ouwater's. As regards this painter, therefore, his style, his ideal, his pro- cesses, are matters of conjecture. Aalbert van Ouwater had a pupil named Gerard, or Geertjen,* who, having established himself at Haarlem in order to learn painting, and fixed his residence in a hospital or convent belonging to the Knights of St. John, was for that reason baptised Geertjen van Sint Jan. We are no better informed of the life of the last-mentioned artist : but it is known that he died young, having scarcely attained the age * This name is a diminutive of Gerrit, or Gerardus. Dirck Bouts.] THE FIRST PERIOD. 2$ of twenty-eight. Nevertheless, he produced works fine enough to cause Albert DiJrer, during his journey in Holland, to think it necessary to visit them, and, having seen them, to speak of them with praise. The most important work known of his was a triptych, which was for a long time exhibited in the church of St. Bavon, at Haarlem. At the time of the War of Independence the soldiers injured the centre panel, the two wings being saved. They are now in the Imperial Gallery in Vienna. They are two fine paintings, treated, so far as their execution is concerned, with superior ability, but they have a brown and heavy tone. The figures, which are portraits, are not lacking in individuality, and the draperies are superbly modelled. The careful treatment of the landscape in these two wings probably shows the influence of Ouwater. With regard to the general style of the work, it would appear to be of about the year 1450, but rather later than earlier. On account of their resemblance to. these paint- ings, Waagen attributes to Geertjen two other wings, which are in the State Gallery at Prague ; but this is only an assumption. With DiRCK * or THIERRY Bouts, or Stuerbout, we emerge from this state of obscurity, and although we have only approximate dates, still we can, by a few landmarks, limit the field of our speculations. Dirck Bouts for a long time was known only under the name of Thierry van Haerlem, on account of his birth- * Dirck is the abbreviation of Diedericlc, wliichi means Didier or Thierry. 26 DUTCH- PAINTING, [Dirck Bouts. place, and he • is thus called by Vasari, who admired Fig. I. — THE JUDGMENT OF THE EMl'EROU OTHO : THE NODLEMAN UNJUSTLY BEHEADED. — Dirck Bouts. (Museum of Brussels.) his works, and by Carel van Mander, who devotes a Dirck Bouts.] THE FIRST PERIOD. 2^ short biography to him. Dirck Bouts was born, according to Wauters, in 1391, and according to M.. van Even, in 1405. It is not known who was his master. Waagen, upon the evidence of a writer of the sixteentli century — John Molanus — says tliat he first received instruction from his father ; but the same Molanus relates that the elder Bouts was no . longer living in 1400, which would make such instruction very un- likely. The name of Hubert van Eyck has also been mentioned; but there is really no ground for believing that he was the master of Dirck Bouts. We are no better informed as to the first works of the artist ; but the authorities are pretty well agreed as to the time when he definitively quitted Haarlem and Holland to establish himself at Louvain. According to M. Wauters, it was in 1458, and according to M. van Even in 1462. However this may be, Bouts became in a short time the most esteemed and the most famous painter of his adopted town. The magistrates of Louvain distinguished him by conferring on him the appointment of official painter to the town,* and those of his works which have come down to us, show clearly that he was worthy of this high distinction. Although his figures appear rather long and stiff, his drawing is elegant, his colouring clear and brilliant. Red and green assume .under his brush the brilliancy of the ruby and the * His real title was " Portrait painter to the town," which was conferred in 1461, which date would seem to confirm that given by M. Wauters. 28 DUTCH PAINTING. [Dlrck Bouts. emerald. His draperies are of unusual softness, and have none of that stiffness of fold which is peculiar to Jean van Eyck and some of his pupils. His flesh tints are of a warm and vivid tone, and his shadows are remarkably transparent. But his merit is manifested especially in his picturesque and original manner of arranging his compositions, and in his contempt for the rules of balance and the require- ments of symmetry, to which nearly all the artists of his time sacrificed themselves. Bouts is, besides, remarkable for the care and distinctness with which he treats the landscapes in the background of his pictures. Amongst the principal works which he painted for the town of Louvain may be mentioned the " Mar- tyrdom of St. Erasmus" and "The Supper," which were commissioned by the Fraternity of the Holy Sacrament. In 1468, one year after, having finished the second of these triptychs, he delivered to the Council two paintings representing " The Unjust Sentence of the Emperor Otho," for which he was paid 230 crowns, a considerable sum in those times. The subject of these two beautiful works, the figures of which are life-size, is taken from the Chronicle of Godefroy de Viterbo, written in the twelfth century. During a journey which the Emperor Otho was making in Italy, his wife fell in love with a gentleman of the Court, who, being himself married to a woman whom he loved, repelled the advances of the Empress. On her husband's return the Princess accused the gentleman of having endeavoured to DirckBouis.1 THE FIRST PERIOD. 29 seduce her, and upon this denunciation, unconfirmed Fig. 2, — THE JUDGMENT OF THE EMPEROR OTHO : THE LADY PROVING THE INNOCENCE OF HER HUSBAND.— ZJjVc/J Bouis. (Museum of Brussels.) by proofs, the Emperor, believing him to be guilty. 30 DUTCH PAINTING. [Dirck Bouts. caused him to be beheaded. Nevertheless, the widow appealed ag-ainst the unjust sentence which had been pronounced against her husband, and submitted to the judgment of fire without suffering the least hurt.. Convinced by this miracle, Otho caused the Empress to be taken and burnt, and thus to expiate the iniquity of her denunciation. These two pictures, which from every point of view are of the highest interest, were commissioned of the painter for the decoration of the Hall of Justice in the Hotel de Ville. They were to serve as lessons to magistrates, and to preserve them from hasty judgments. They were once in the possession of King William H. of Holland, but are now to be seen in the Brussels Museum. Bouts further painted for the town of Louvain a " Last Judgment," and numerous pictures for various corporations and private citizens. Amongst them the most celebrated are "Judas," "Abraham," and the " Harvest of Manna," now at Munich. " The Martyrdom of St. Hippolyte," now at Bruges ; and " Elijah in the Desert " and the " First Celebration of the Jewish Easter," now at Berlin. He was working at a polyptych, the panels of which were twelve feet high, when he suddenly died in 1479, at an advanced age, since, according to M. Wauter^, he would be eighty-seven years old, or eighty-four, according to M. van Even. If by his birthplace Dirck Bouts belonged to Dutch art, he so definitely deserted his country, and so resolutely fixed his resi- dence in Brabant, that the latter country may claim Enghelbrechtsz.! THE FIRST PERIOD. 3 1 him to some extent by way of annexation. With COR- NELIS EngheLBRECIITSZ it is not so. In him we have a painter who is really Dutch by birth, by the place where he worked, and also by the character of his talent. Cornells sajv the light at Leyden in the same year as that in which Dirck Bouts finished his two pictures of the " Unjust Sentence " — that is to say, in 1468. It is not known exactly who was his master, but we do know that his father, Enghelbert de Leyden, was an engraver, and that he was his son's in- structor is rendered all the more likely, as, according to Rathgeber and some other biographers, this Enghel- bert was something of a painter. But it appears that Cornells drew his inspiration principally from the works of Jan van Eyck, which he took as his models in forming his own style. We are told that he painted with much ability in distemper and oils, and that he covered the walls of his native town with his compo- sitions. Unfortunately, time soon effaced those large but perishable works, and man, still more destructive than time, has allowed only two pictures of this master to come down to us, which, however, are very interesting to those who know them. Of these pictures, the largest, which came from the Klooster Marienpoel, is treasured in the museum at Leyden. The middle panel represents " Christ upon the Cross." The two wings represent the " Sacrifice of Abraham" and the "Brazen Serpent." In this beautiful work, which evinces a singular originality, the painter disregards the masters who preceded him. 32. DUTCH PAINTING. [Enghelbrechtsz. His colouring is more liquid, more transparent, and less brilliant than the school of Bruges, his figures closely copied from Nature, already present those strange deformities and characteristics which we meet with again in Brauwer, Ostade, Steen, and Cornells Dusart, and his flesh tints, of a warm but heavy brown, do not compensate altogether for the incorrectness and rudeness of his drawing. Cornelis Enghelbrechtsz .died in 1553 in his native town. He left three sons, who were his pupils, and who are said to have been clever painters: — CORNELIS (1493 — 1544), styled the younger, to distinguish him from his father, also known under the name of Kunst, that is to say, " Art " (it has never been clearly ascertained whether this was a surname given to him, or his real family name); Luke, born in 1495^ and surnamed Kok (Cook), because his painting, not sufficing for the wants of his family, he was obliged to follow more than one profession ; and lastly Peter Cornelis, who bore, like his elder brother, the surname Kunst. The first of these three sons alternated between his own town and Bruges, according as he obtained com- missions. During his lifetime he passed for an artist of the first rank, but for this we are obliged to accept the statements of his contemporaries, for nothing he painted has come down to us. As to the second, we . know only that unfortunately he' allowed his affairs to fall into confusion, and was induced to go to England by the reputation for generosity which Henry VHI. enjoyed, and we lose all trace of him Lucas van Leyden ] THE FIRST PERIOD. 33 after he had crossed the channel. As regards the third, we know neither the date of his birth nor that of his death. We only know he was remarlcable as a glass painter. But even if there had not been preserved to us a single picture of Cornells Enghelbrechtz, even if he had had no son to continue the tradition inaugurated by him, his name would not have been the less illustrious, for he had the singular good fortune to have as a pupil one of the most celebrated masters of the Dutch school. This pupil was Lucas van Leyden, born in 1494, son of a glass painter renowned in his time. LuCAS VAN Leyden com- menced to draw almost as sogg-asjig^^was born. At nine years of age he w?^cf^RiA,^K^;^ of the graver, and engraved after his own designs. Awtwelve years of age he astoiiished artists of his iime by the fire, power, and\lMdness of a waj^r^olour drawing, in which he re^B^g^^^ n'p%j\I^5b«t." In spite of all the efforts of histStheTj-^Ugo Jacobsz,* and his mother, to moderate his ardour, he passed his days and nights in drawing, and always from Nature. With such a temperament, Enghelbrechtz could only, teach his pupil the practice of his art, and Lucas * Family names did not exist at this time in the Dutch lower middle classes, and in order to distinguish the sons, they added to their Christian names tfiose of their fathers, and in the genitive case, accom- panied by the substantive eoon. Thus Hugo, son of Jacob, was called Jacobszoon, and by abbreviation Jacobsz, whilst his son Lucas took the nane of Huigenszoon, or Huigensz, or Huigensen, which is the same name under different forms. D 34 DUTCH PAINTING. [Lucas van Leydc. soon surpassed his master in talent and renown. In spite of his brilliant beginning, Lucas van Leyden did not, as a painter, rise to the height attained by some of the great masters of the school of Bruges, and with his less elegant drawings, weaker touch, and less brilliant colouring, he never attained the serene grandeur of the Van Eycks and Memling. On the other hand, his constant study of Nature caused him to look around him for his models, and in this manner he became the worthy precursor of Dutch naturalist painters. His quickness in seizing everything which presented itself to his view enabled him to fix with the pencil or the graver the most trivial .scenes, the petty accidents of everyday life, the types which he met upon his road ; and by this he became the creator of genre painting, in which his compatriots soon excelled. Let us add, too, that when he engraved his imperfections disappeared. We see only in him the draughtsman, absolutely master of his material, the subtle observer, and, above all, the truthful artist. Vasari speaks of his etchings with the greatest admiration. He considers him equal to the most famous engravers of his time ; he places him even before Albert Diirer, who, he says, is less truthful and more confused. These judgments and well-merited praises, which posterity has almost unanimously confirmed, Lucas van Leyden had the happiness to hear during his lifetime from the mouths of all. Diirer himself paid him a visit, and expressed to him all the admiration which his magnificent talent had aroused FIG. 3. — PORTRAIT OF THILIP OF BVKGVNDY.— Lucas van Leyden. (Museum of Amsterdam.) D 2 36 DUTCH PAINTING. [Lucas van Leyden. in him, and it is stated that the two painters painted each other's portraits upon the same panel, wishing thereby to attest the friendship and esteem which united the one to the other. Feted and celebrated, enriched by the sale of his worksj and having had the honour of being per- mitted to paint the sovereign of his country and the most powerful persons of the Court, Lucas re- solved to travel after the manner of his celebrated friend, and to traverse the world in search of honours and reputation. He visited Holland, crossed Zeeland, and stopped at Middleburg, where he allied himself with Jean de Mabuse, and set out with him for Ghent. He passed through Malines, and made a stay at Antwerp, spending his money with prodigality, and living a gay life. But this journey, which he thought would augment his glory and establish his fortune, cost him his health and hastened his end. He returned to Leyden ill, exhausted, and full of pains, and he affirmed that artists, jealous of his success, had poisoned himi During the six years that he con- tinued to live he was bedridden, and a prey to a painful languor, against which he struggled by working furiously. He did not cease drawing until two days before his death, which took place in 1533. He was scarcely thirty-nine years old. In spite of this premature end, Lucas van Leyden left behind him a most complete and brilliant col- lection of works. His engraved works, catalogued by Bartsch, amount to no less than seventy-four plates, and include many of great merit. His JanMostaert] THE FIRST PERIOD. 37 drawings are very numerous, and nearly all are most spirited. His paintings have, unfortunately, been preserved with less care. Nevertheless, beautiful specimens of his talent are to be found at Vienna, Madrid, St. Petersburg, and, above all, in England. The Louvre does not possess one of his pictures, and in Holland only two are to be found — "The Last Judgment," preserved at Leyden, a vast triptych, which has been much injured by time and the clumsiness of restorers, and a " Portrait of Philip of Burgundy," which belongs to the Museum of Amsterdam. Jan Mostaert was born at Haarlem in 1474, and died in 1555 or 1556, and is, therefore, in the strictest sense of the word, the contemporary of Lucas van Leyden. His master, it is said, was Jacques de Haarlem, who. Van Mander tells us, was a good painter, but of so little repute that what we do know of him we owe to his pupil. Not content with being an artist of merit, Jan Mostaert distinguished himself by his learning. It was due, it appears, to this ability, almost as much as to his talent as an artist, that for eighteen years he was the painter in ordinary to Marguerite of Austria, the aunt of Charles V. This princess, in order to attach him more directly to her person, made him gentleman of her household, and ordered him to paint the portraits of the principal members of the Imperial Court. Independently of these orders he executed a certain number of religious pictures. Unfortunately, the latter were, for the most part, destroyed by the fire of Haarlem. On the death of his protectress (1530), 38 DUTCH PAINTING. [J^ome van Aeken. he retired to Haarlem, where he afterwards lived, honoured and esteemed, holding one of the first places amongst the artists of his country. Jan Mostaert is the last, in order of date, of the painters of the Dutch school who can be qualified by the word Primitives, and who, in their style and the general composition of their works, preserve what it has been agreed to call the Gothic tradition. Never- theless, if we study the two curious pictures in the Brussels Museum, which represent " Episodes in the Life of St. Benoit," the two portraits and the " Deipara Virgo " in the Museum of Antwerp, it will be seen that the artist had not sojourned at the Court of the Empress of the Netherlands for nothing. His colouring is warm, clear, and power- ful ; his figures are elegant, and one feels that they are lifelike ; but the influence of the Renaissance and a knowledge of the Italians are apparent, and presage the revolution which we shall presently witness. Nevertheless, before closing this first part of our study, we must not omit to mention a certain number of painters of less renown, whose names have come down to us. In order of date, we have, first, JfiROME VAN Aeken, a native of Bois le Due, who, after his native town, was called JfiROME Bos, born in 1450, died in 15 16. Aeken was one of the first artists in the Netherlands who painted in oil. His fruitful imagination showed itself in complicated, strange, and sometimes fantastic compositions. In the same style and at the same epoch Jan Mandyn distinguished himself at Haarlem David Jorisj.] THE FIRST PERIOD. 39 by his scenes of low life. Later he established himself at Antwerp, where he died in 1520. At his house in Antwerp lodged PlETER Aartzen, called, on account of his height, Lange Pier (Long Peter). Can we trace, in those familiar subjects in which Lange Pier specially delighted, the influence "of Mandyn upon his pupil > Are those modest homes and brilliant kitchens a reminiscence of his old master ? It would seem scarcely probable ; for, as he was born in 1507, our painter was very young when Mandyn died. On his subsequent return to Amsterdam Lange Pier attained a high position there, and he fulfilled, if we can believe M. Kramm, the functions of alderman. It is, however, certain that he died there in 1572 or 1573, honoured, and in the enjoyment of public esteem, leaving a son, Aart Pietersz (1541 — 1603), who was also an artist of merit, and distinguished himself as a painter of Still Life. David Jorisz did not close his career so quietly. A native of Delft, where he was born in 1 501, he made himself remarkable as a painter on glass and as an engraver. His manner, which resembles that of Lucas van Leyden, caused his drawings and plates to be sought after; but be was mixed up in the Anabaptist movement, which broke out in the first year of the sixteenth century. He pretended to be a prophet, and gave himself out as an incarnation of David, called himself the son of God, and finally was forced to flee from his native town to avoid the terrible persecution which fell upon his disciples and his partisans. His mother, whom he 40 DUTCH PAINTING. [Jaoob Cornelisz. had converted to his singular doctrines, was beheaded in 1537 ; but he sought refuge at BdlCj where he lived until 1556 hidden, under the name of Jan van den Broeck, or van den Burg. There only now remain to mention amongst those whose style ranks with that of the primitives, JACOB Cornelisz and his son, Dirck Jacobsz (1497: — 1 567), and Jan Swart; but these painters already belong to the Transition period — if not by their works, at least by their pupils. Jan Swart, native of Groningen, where he was born in 1469, was, in fact, one of the first Dutch painters who visited Italy, and who went beyond the Alps in search of a new theory of art. We know from Lamazzo that he lived in Venice, where he studied the masterpieces of Bellini and of Giorgione. He was called in the City of the Doges Giovanni de Frisia, or da Gra- ningie. On his return to his country he established him- self at Gouda, where he founded a school, and taught the principles which he had learnt amidst the lagoons. As for Jacob Cornelisz, he was the second master of Jan Schoorl, who was destined to complete the revolution of the school. Nevertheless, it does not appear, either by the triptych in the Museum of Brussels, which is attributed to Jan Swart, or the corporation paintings of Dirck Jacobz which are to be seen at Amsterdam, strange and primitive composi- tions as they are, that these two painters had benefited by the new ideas which were in a few years to trans- form the manner, taste, and style of Dutch painters. 41 CHAPTER III. THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION. We have now arrived at the time when the first revolution in Dutch painting was accomplished. The spirit which animated the Italian Renaissance had long before crossed the Alps. The campaigns of Charles VIII,, Louis XII., and Francis I. in Lom- bardy, had brought about a transformation in the taste of the French nobility. Artists, attracted by royal favour, had quitted the Peninsula, and had come to preach the new artistic gospel at Lyons, Fontainebleau, and Paris. Under the influence of their teaching, architecture, sculpture, and painting itself had entered upon a brilliant path, until then unexplored. Renouncing the traditions of the past, a new era had been inaugurated, which promised to be fruitful in masterpieces of every kind. In Germany, under the influence of the House of Austria, a similar movement had been commenced. The magnificence of the paintings imported from Italy, the stories of travellers, the marvellous bril- liancy which this golden century spread around itself, and which down to the present time is associated with the names of two Popes — Julius II. and Leo X. — and, beyond that, the protection accorded by Charles V. to 42 DUTCH PAINTING. certain masters of Florence and Venice, had opened the eyes of the least clear-sighted. Ever since the famous sojourn of Albert Diirer upon the shores of the Adriatic it was from beyond the Alps that light and in- spiration and examples were expected. The native genius was ready to be moulded and to bow under the new yoke, which was almost regarded as an enfranchisement. The Low Countries, situated on the north of the Austrian possessions, were long preserved from this peaceful invasion. Distance, the power of the native school, its just celebrity, and serene grandeur and feelings, which were deeply rooted in the heart of the nation, were so many obstacles op- posed to a rapid intrusion of principles differing from those which had prevailed down to that time. In spite, however, of this aversion and resistance, a revo- lution was, nevertheless, accomplished. The movement grew, and extended itself like a film of oil on water, and did this in proportion as philosophical ideas spread themselves simultaneously in the domain of literature; and the public mind was thus accustomed to accept without repugnance artistic influences from without. This is a curious coincidence, astonishing, but yet logical. Art, protected by the Popes, penetrated into the Netherlands exactly at the moment when the hearts and the minds of the people had already commenced to resist the Papal authority by detaching themselves from the religion of Rome. At this period ancient faith and ancient art were, in fact, about to vanish. The former is about to JanSchoorl.] THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION. 43 overpower the latter, and both were ready, at the least provocation, to disappear and founder in the same storm. In the religious domain it was the Spaniards who, by their exactions, provoked and brought about the catastrophe. In the domain of Art the transfor- : mation was brought about in a more gentle manner. It is a striking incident that it was a favourite of the Pontifical Court, the protig^ of Adrian VI., who took upon himself to provoke it. A figure at once interesting and curious is jAN ' SCHOORL, the well-meaning innovator and uncon- scious reformer, who was destined to bring about the transition. Adventurous by nature, of a roving temperament, which did not allow him to remain at home, he carried his vagabond humour about with him from place to place. At one moment we see him at Haarlem at the house of Master Jacob Cornelisz ; next at Utrecht with Jean Gossaert ; then he sojourned at Spiers, where he learned archi- tecture and perspective ; then again at Niirem- burg, where Albert Diirer gave him counsel and instruction, and at length he arrived in Italy, staying for a time in Venice, whence, taking advantage of an opportunity, he embarked for the Holy Land, visited the monastery of Zion, re-embarked for Malta, passed through Rome, and, while there, solicited a presenta- tion to tlie Pope. Thanks to the fact of his being a compatriot, he obtained the favour of painting the portrait of His Holiness. In the meantime, he painted for Raphael, drew for Michel Angelo, acquired a passion for antiquities, became curator of the 44 DUTCH PAINTING. [Jan Schoorl. Belvedere, and then, when he might have become definitely fixed in the Eternal City, suddenly returned FlO. 4. — DEATH OF THE VIRUIN. — Jan Sc/icorl. (Academy of Biiiges.) to Utrecht. There he opened a studio, and explained to his numerous pupils the marvels which he had seen, JanSchoorl.l THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION, 45 and led them to share his enthusiasm for the master- pieces with which he had himself been astounded, and implanted in the Netherlands Italian art such as he understood it, and as it was interpreted in his day. His example and precepts did not fail to bear their fruit. In Haarlem, to which place at times he transferred his dwelling, as well as in Utrecht, whither he returned, and where he died in 1562, at the age of sixty- seven, he left a school, which was devoted to his teaching, and which remained faithful to the lessons he had imparted. By his Influence a legion of painters sprang up, who were also ambitious to become the Raphaels and Michel Angelos of their own country. Heemskerck, Hubert,' and Hen- DRICK GOLTSIUS, BLOCKLAND, CORNELIS VAN Haarlem followed in his steps in the first place, and in the end surpassed him in the unfortunately irregular style which he had been the first to adopt. Jan Schoorl, in fact, preserved in his works a dignity and a reserve which we look for in vain amongst his successors; His known pictures, " The Virgin seated with the Child, in a Landscape," at Utrecht, his " Baptism of Christ," which he executed for Simon Saan, and which was to be seen in the museum at Rotterdam before the fire destroyed it, and his " Death of the Virgin," are by a great artist who knew Raphael, admired him, and sought respectfully to obtain inspiration from him, but who never had the vain hope of excelling the great Italian master. If his colour is brilliant and his drawing clear, the science of his art, though unmistakably present in his work. 46 DUTCH PAINTING. [Heemskerck. is never ostentatiously displayed, but is on the con- trary enveloped in an agreeable and genial modesty. Unfortunately, with his successors it is otherwise. We must not, however, be surprised at this. At the moment when Jan Schoorl went to Italy for his instruction, Italian art was on the decline, and his pupils, when they went on the same pilgrimage, only found that teaching which a rapidly declining school could give. Instead of healthy and robust traditions, they found only ostentatious false learning, with a pretension which is next door to pedantry, and which could only paralyse their better qualities. With Martin van Veen, who took the name of Heemskerck, from his birthplace, we see all dignity, calmness, and serenity disappear. In his pictures bodies are distorted ; draperies are raised and twisted in a thousand conventional folds, while we discover pretentious and far-fetched attitudes in the midst of multitudinous foreshortenings, without reason or meaning, coupled with an exaggerated display of technical skill and mere science, which is too desirous to make itself apparent. We must not, however, conclude, from these defects of Martin van Heemskerck, that his work is without merit, as has been too often supposed. He was a bold painter, full of fire when he has a brush in his hand, who preserved in the midst of his re- miniscences a pronounced individuality, and gave at the outset of his career proof of a decided bent towards Art. Born in 1498, the son of a farmer, he first had to Heemskerck.J THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION. 47 overcome a very great repugnance on the part of his Fig. 5.— JESUS before VILKTK.—Martiti van Hee7nsierck. father to his adopting the profession of painter. It 48 DUTCH PAINTING. [Heemsk«ck. was only under protest that he was allowed to commence his studies with Cornelis Wiilems, of Haarlem. His apprenticeship was, however, soon interrupted by paternal opposition. He was forced to return to farming work, but ran away, and took refuge at Delft, where he entered the studio of a painter named Jan Lucas, an artist of most mediocre ability. Seeing how little he learned in such a school, Martin soon left him, and was admitted to the studio of Jan Schoorl, where his progress was so rapid that in a short time he attracted the attention of con- noisseurs and the jealousy of his master. It was at this time that the artist set out for Italy. He sojourned for some time in Rome, where he copied and re-copied Michel Angelo, and returned to his country with portfolios full of contorted attitudes and extravagant foreshorten ings. On his return to Holland Heemskerck estab- lished himself at Haarlem, where he was for twenty- two ■ years churchwarden of his parish. Then, in 1572, fearing the horrors and perils of the siege which his adopted town was about to undergo, he retired to Amsterdam with his pupil, JACOB Rauwaerts. He was then seventy-four years of age. He lived there two years, and had the pain of seeing Haarlem sacked and his works dispersed, part of them being burned and the rest sent to Spain. Neverthe- less, he had produced so much that even at the present time his pictures are not rare. Remarkable compositions of his are to be seen at the Museums of Brussels, The Hague, and Haarlem. His works Antonio Mora] THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION. 49 are, moreover, scattered abroad in Germany. The Museum at Munich alone possesses eleven, and M. Michiels has catalogued 129 of them. From the studio of Jan Schoorl, too, came the excellent portrait painter, Anton IE DE MoOR. This artist, during his sojourn in Spain and Portu- gal in the service of Charles V., was known as Antonio Moro, by which name he is generally described. He was born in 15 12 at Utrecht, and after passing a few years with Schoorl he also set out for Italy, where his talents soon made him remark- able. Upon the recommendation of Cardinal Gran- velle the Emperor sent him to Lisbon to paint a portrait of the Royal family. Thence he proceeded to England to paint the portrait of Queen Mary which portrait he took back to the King of Spain. This confidential mission won ■ him a position at Court, and under Philip II. he enjoyed unusual favour, when some unknown event forced him to quit Spain and take refuge at Antwerp, where he became the favourite painter of the Duke of Alva. He died in Antwerp in 1581. In spite of his sojourn in Italy, and the en-_ lightened instruction which he received, Moro could not, in historical paintings, avoid the errors of the school of Jan Schoorl ; but, on the other hand, his portraits were marked by masterly bteauty of design, transparency of colour, melting touch, truthfulness of pose, and taste in the adjustment of accessories, which place him in the first rank among the masters of his epoch. 50 DUTCH PAINTING. [Antonio Moro. Amongst the portraits executed by this artist one Fia. 6. — Tllli DAUGHTER 01" CHARLES V. — AllloilUi MorO. (Gallery of the Prado.) of the best i — - - ' <— — - -• , -1... ; --- Fig. 29.— the ford. — Philifs Wouwerman, (Museum of The Hague.) But there is scarcely one of his works which, taken by itself, is not striking, not only by the perfection of certain parts of it, but by the scientific composition, skilful arrangement, and dramatic sentiment of the whole. Three different and distinct manners are known J 2 132 DUTCH PAINTING. LPh'i'ps Wouw^nan. in which our artist conceived and executed his pictures. The first shows him undecided in the choice of his subjects, not having as yet definitely- adopted as his speciality subjects of war and the chase. He paints Biblical scenes, we have already mentioned, as marine subjects and pasture lands, while Fig. 30.— arrival at the mn.—Plulips Wouwerman. (Museum of The Hague.) he places in the foreground of his favourite compo- sitions groups of men and horses, heavy in execution and in an indifferent light.* We notice in his second manner an added grace in his figures and animals, together with an increased firmness and softness of * See in the Dulwich Gallery, Nos. 64, 23, and i 44, for examples of the early style. ' I as & " S O 2 134 DUTCH PAINTING. [Pieter Wouwerman. touch, besides which a superb amber light, the golden reflection of which gives a warmth to all it falls upon, floods his compositions* Lastly, in his third manner, which he appears to have adopted between 1655 and 1660, his colouring is modified, and from warm tones it changes to a lighter and more silvery style, but thanks to the marvellous delicacy of the execution, it still preserves a certain amount of the charm of his previous manner, although it is colder and dryer. These three manners are easily distinguishable in a considerable number of Wouwerman's works in the great museums of Europe. In the Louvre no less than fourteen of his pictures are to be found. The Royal Museum at Amsterdam pos- sesses twelve. The Mauritshuis at The Hague has nine, and of these latter one of the largest, if not the largest, is a battle piece of great force and astonishing execution. In the Louyre the "Departure for the Chase" and the "Cavalry Charge" are specimens of his second style, whilst the " Fat Ox in Holland," and the "Stag Hunt" clearly indicate the modification which the charming and delicate talent of this artist underwent later on. The immense success which his light and grace- ful compositions attained even during his life produced many imitators. His two brothers f — PiETER (1626 — • See Nos. 125, 126, 228, 137, and 173 in the Dulwich Gallery, as examples of the master's middle and best time. No. 136 is a later work. + Two pictures in the Dulwich Gallery, Nos. 63 and 64, exhibit the difference of style in the works of the brothers. .Henri Verschuring.] GENRE PAINTERS. 135 . 1683) and Jan (1629 — 1666) are the two which most nearly resemble him. The former, a pupil of Philips, succeeded in imitating his brother so well, that the greater part of his pictures, owing to a confusion of the initials, have been introduced into the trade as being the productions of his elder brother. His colour is, however, more opaque, his execution less- brilliant, his drawing less skilful, and his touch less free. A "View .of the Tower and Gate de Nesles," in the Louvre, appears to indicate that Pieter visited Paris, and remained some time on the banks of the Seine. As for Jan, he generally painted canal views ; and plains, which he filled with horsemen and soldiers, military marauders, and huntsmen. His compositions are lively, his touch skilful ; but he remains very far behind his brothers, and it is only now and then that his pictures recall to mind the talent of his elder brothers. Henri Verschuring, born at Gorcum (1627 — 1690), also painted scenes of military adven- ture, battles, and brigandage with a certain aptness of invention. P. C. Verbeck, too, is known by his compositions in this style, notably by his " Skirmish of Oriental CavaUers," which is in the Museum at Berlin. But the artist who, after Pieter and Jan, approaches nearest in style to Philips Wouwerman, was his pupil Barend Gaal. This clever artist, however, has to a great extent been cheated of the renown due to his scientific acquirements and to his natural talent, for speculators seized upon his works in order to pass them off under higher-sounding, and better-known . 136 DUTCH PAINTING. [Pieter van Laer. names. His painting, however, is less fine, less trans- parent, less soft in tone, and more commonplace than that of Wouwerman, to whom the greater part of his works are now attributed. His execution is heavier, his figures less graceful, and his horses more clumsy. The Museum of Rotterdam and that of Leyden are the only two in Holland which possess any of his works. In the Museum of the Hermitage there are two of his pictures. Pieter van Laer (1613 — 1674) we have reserved for the last of this group. Although older than the greater number of the artists whom we have just mentioned, and although he served as their master, Pieter van Laer is the one who forms the connecting link between war paint.ers and those who devoted their talent to rustic scenery. Born in 1613, Van Laer, whilst still young, left his country to establish himself at Rome. He remained there sixteen years, and returned with great abilities, a well-merited reputation, and a new surname. He was called Bam- boccio, or Bamboche, according to Dr. Waagen, in consequence of a physical deformity, and, according to other biographers, on account of the subjects to which he devoted his talent. At a time when noble compositions were in vogue, he painted exclusively country scenery, tavern brawls, and rural orgies. A remarkable skill of com- position, a lively idea of expression and movement, correct design, and warm and sometimes luminous colouring, a large and spirited touch, caused his works to be esteemed by the men of taste of his country, Adriaen Brauwer.] GENRE PAINTERS. 13/ whilst his skilfully-arranged landscapes recall Poussin and Claude Lorraine, preserving, at the same time, a slight pedantry, which, instead of disfiguring them, on the contrary, makes them attractive. The Louvre possesses two charming pictures of Pieter van Laer, " The Traveller in Front of an Inn " and " The Shepherd's Family," which may be counted amongst the best works of his style. The Cassel Gallery possesses three exquisite compositions of this master, notably "A Charlatan showing his Nostrum to the Crowd," which is his most important picture known. He is also well represented in the museums of Dresden and Vienna, but a remarkable fact is that in his own country he is the least known. The museums of Holland possess no specimen of the talent of Pieter van Laer. n. In spite of his capacity as an inventor, and a certain amount of ability which he displayed in the composition of his works, Bamboche was far from attaining the success achieved by the other two pupils of Frans Hals, Brauwer and Adriaen van Ostade. Little is known of the life of Adriaen Brauwer. It is believed that he was born in 1608, and that he died at Antwerp in 1641. Early in life he entered the studio of Frans Hals, who is said to have maltreated him and tyrannised over him with great cruelty. According to the story, Hals seems to have subjected his pupil to the harshest treatment in order to force him to paint pictures for which he obtained consider- 138 DUTCH PAINTING. [Adriaen Brauwer. able sums of money, only to squander it in disreputable excesses. Brauwer, continues the story, succeeded in escap- ing from this cruel slavery ; but his subsequent conduct showed that he little deserved the liberty which he had with such difficulty acquired. His biographers, in fact, depict him as leading a life of drunkenness and dissipation, wandering from town to town, and ultimately dying whilst still young, the victim of his vicious life. It is impossible to say how much truth there is in this sombre picture, and how much of it is to be attributed to the malignity of his contemporaries or to the vagaries of history ; but it must be confessed that the works of Brauwer justify in a singular degree the reputation that is attached to him. His com- positions, which for the most part represent peasants eating and drinking, are too correctly rendered not to have been taken from nature itself; and their persistent character would seem to indicate that the pupil of Frans Hals imitated not only the bold and spirited touch of his master, but also his mode of life. We have the more reason to regret these excesses as we must doubtless attribute to them the extreme rarity of the works of Brauwer, a rarity the more to be deplored on account of the artist's great talent. The pictures of this charming painter are, in fact, real marvels of arrangement and colouring. They are sober in conception, and exhibit exquisite modelling, remarkable softness, and light and shade full of trans- parency and truthfulness ; qualities which during his Adriaen Brauwer.J GENRE PAINTERS. 139 lifetime obtained for Brauvver the admiration of his Ml Fig. 32.— the smoker.— /irf'-'aOT 5™K7('f;-. (La Caze Collection, Louvre.) brother artists and the enthusiasm of Rubens, who I40 DUTCH PAINTING. [Adriaen van Ostade. held his works in great esteem* The scarcity of Brauwer's works is manifested even in the museums. Only one would have been found in the Louvre, if M.. La Caze had not bequeathed to that gallery four others in his collection — " An Interior of a Drinking House," " A Man Mending his Pen " " The Opera- tion," and " The Smoker." The museums of Holland possess only one, which is at Haarlem. The museum at Berlin possesses a certain number, but their authenticity is not altogether certain. The museums of Munich and Augsbourg are the most fortunate in the possession of pictures by this master, not only as regards quantity, but also as regards quality.f With Adriaen van Ostade, his fellow-worker, his co-disciple and friend, we find ourselves upon altogether different ground. Smith estimates'at about ^ur hundred the number of the acknowledged works of this excellent painter ; and his drawings as well as / his etchings indicate a life of activity, honesty, and industry which his biographers unhesitatingly confirm. Adriaen van Ostade was born in December, 1610: His father, as we are told, was a weaver, who abandoned the village, of Ostade, in the neighboi/r- hood of Eindhoven, to avoid religious persecution. * Rubens, after his death, caused the body of Brauwer, which had been interred in ■» plague cemetery, to be exhumed, and reinterred in the church of the Carmelites. lie had even projected the raising of a superb monument to him, but he died before this project could be realised. t See Dulwich Gallery, No. S4. for an excellent example of this artist. Adriaen van Ostade.] GENRE PAINTERS. 141 In 1605 he established himself at Haarlem, where he married, and of his marriage eight children were born. Of these children Adriaen was the third, and Isaak, of whom we shall speak presently, was the la:st. Adriaen early devoted himself to painting, and was apprenticed to Frans Hals, who conceived great Fig. 33. — THE RUSTIC FAMILY.— Adriaen van Ostade. affection for him, and developed his best qualities. He was married twice, led the life of a peaceful citizen, acquired a considerable fortune, and died at the end of April, 1685, esteemed by his fellow-citizens and regretted by his friends. Ostade, like his friend Brauwer, made a speciality of popular and peasant scenes. Taverns, village inns, hostelrles, and rustic scenes, constantly supplied sub- jects for his brush ; but he did not, like Brauwer, 142 DUTCH PAINTING. [Adriaen van Ostade. represent drinking-bouts, fights, and adventures in low life. His " Vagabonds " are honest people, devoting H O themselves to gaiety, singing, and drinking, and pro- fessing an especial liking for the games of skittles and Adriaen van Ostade.] GENRE PAINTERS. I43 bowls ; for the most part, however, they are worthy- fathers of famihes, detesting brawls, drinking only to ■ " Fig. 35. — RUSTIC^GOSSIP. — Adriaen van Oitadc. a moderate extent, rather affectionate than quarrel- some, rarely beating their wives, and never whipping their children ; and if they are always laughing, it is " because to laugh is the privilege of man." 144 DUTCH PAINTING. [Adriaen van Ostade. This particular point should be noticed, for in our opinion sufficient account has not been taken of it. Ostade may be reproachcil for having taken delight in representing trivial gaiety and coarse amusements Adriaen van Ostade.] GENRE PAINTERS. 145 " low subjects " as they were called in the seventeenth century ; and he appears to have been insensible to beauty of feature, elegance of form, and grace of movement. It is true he painted with a loving pencil| beings ill-formed, stumpy, and repulsive in their ugli- ness ; but he cannot be accused of having devoted his talent to the representation of the social de- pravities of his time. His ugliness is lost sight of in his marvellous execution, and no one better than he shows how artists, even with the greatest defects, may, by the perfection of certain qualities, charm the eye and please the mind of the most prejudiced. Ostade, however, had many good qualities. Besides a keen appreciation of nature and of the picturesque, he possessed extraordinary technical skill, together with a rare perception of harmony of colour, which made each of his works a feast for the eye. The admirable clearness of his light and shade, and the beautiful golden torie of his colour, have led those who see the hand of Renibrandt throughout the Dutch school, to say that our painter must have been the pupil of the great master. Nothing, how- ever, confirms this supposition, and it would appear that these qualities were eminently peculiar to Ostade, for they can be observed in his very earliest works. On the other hand, it is to be noticed that about the middle of his career his style underwent a curious change. The admirable flesh-colouring of his earlier period, slightly golden and of extraordinary splendour, becomes tinged with red, and harmonises better with the warm violet colour which he now more frequently K 146 DUTCH PAINTING. [Adriaen van Oslade. uses in his costumes. In the latter part of his life, again, his flesh-colouring becomes quite red, and his shadows lose their transparency. But it is only at the very Fig. 37.— the travelling musiciavis.— Adriaen van Ostade. (Museum of The Hague.) end of his active career that these defects are visible. The" Village Meeting" in the Museum of Amsterdam, and " The Fiddler " in the Museum of The Hague, Isaak van Ostade.] GENRE PAINTERS. 1 47 which are dated, the first 1671 and the second 1673, still preserve the firmness of touch, the freshness of colour, as well as the freedom and gaiety of the works of his youth. One would never suppose, judging from these pictures, that the painter was then over sixty years of age. The most justly celebrated works of Adriaen van Ostade, which are to be found in the great public collections, are, in order of date — " The Organ Grinder," in the Museum of Berlin (1640); "The Interior of a Cottage," in the Louvre (164.2) ; "Peasants in a Drinking-House," at Munich (1647) ; " The Charlatan," at Amsterdam (1648) ; " Fiddlers and Singers," at Buckingham Palace (1656) ; " Meet- , ing at a Farm," in the Museum of the Hermitage (1661); "Peasants," in the Museum of Van der Hoop, which are of the same year ; " The Schoolmaster," in the Louvre (1662) ; "Peasants in an Inn," in the Museum of The Hague (1662); "The Artist- at his Easel," in the Museum of Dresden (1665) ; and probably also of the same date, " The Painter's Studio," in the Museum of Amsterdam ; and finally, the two pictures which we have mentioned above. Isaak van Ostade was Adriaen van Ostade's youngest brother, as well as his pupil. At first he drew his inspiration from his master, and devoted himself to painting village interiors, the subjects in which Adriaen had been so successful. But soon he showed himself in his own peculiar sphere, that is, country scenes enlivened by figures of men and animals which exhibit correct drawing and remarkable K 2 148 DUTCH PAINTING. [arnelis Bega. truthfulness, and possess an astonishing charm of colour. Smith, who has catalogued his works, attributes to him 112 pictures — a considerable number, if we take into account the brevity of his life, for he was born in 162 1, and died in 1657, ^t the age of thirty-six. His paintings, in spite of their eminent qualities, were for a long time much less esteemed by amateurs than those of his brother. It was in England that considerable prices were first paid for them, a fact which at once explains their rarity in public collec- tions on the continent. The Louvre possesses four paintings of Isaak van Ostade, all of good quality — "The Traveller's Halt at the Door of an Inn " (376), a brilliant work, bold in touch and beautiful colour- ing ; " The Halt " (377) ; " A Frozen Canal in Hol- land " (378), a picture, of which the light and shade, as well as the transparency and clearness, are ex- cellent ; and another, " Frozen Canal " (379), a less remarkable composition. The Museum of the Her- mitage has three of this painter's works, the Berlin Museum has a like number, and the Museum of Amsterdam two, one only of which is noteworthy. Isaak was not the only painter of merit who came from the studio of Adriaen van Ostade. The latter also instructed Cornelis Bega, Cornells Dusart, Michiel van Musscher, Richard Brackenburgh, and Jan Steen. Cornelis Bega was born in Haarlem in 1620, and died in 1664. He chose for representation the same subjects as his master, and like him painted peasant interiors. Though a more finished draughtsman, with more regard for grace of form and for the beauty of Cornells Dusart. I GENRE PAINTERS. I49 his figures, in all other respects he was very inferior to Ostade. When we notice his dry and heavy execution, his ruddy flesh-colouring, and his opaque shadows, we Fig. 38.— the village fair. — Cornells Dusart. (Museum of Amsterdam.) are surprised that he should have so far neglected the precepts and examples which were placed before him. CORNELIS Dusart (1660 — 1704), on the contrary, ISO DUTCH PAINTING. CJanSt«n. was the faithful follower of Ostade. Of all his pupils Dusart is the one who more nearly resembles his master, if not in his methods at least in his subjects in execution generally, and in spirit. His " Fish Market " in the Museum of Amsterdam, is an excellent picture, which of itself suffices to reveal the source of his inspiration. Nevertheless we do not find in his works that admirable amber colouring which lends such charm to the works of Ostade, nor his soft and melt- ing touch. His execution is more patchy, and his silver colouring is neither so soft nor so harmonious. MiCHlEL DE MUSSCHER (164S -^ 1705) scarcely painted anything but small portraits, in which the influence of Terburg and of Van den Tempel, his first teachers, manifests itself far more than that of Ostade. But Jan Steen (1626— 1679) and RiCHAKD BrackenburgH (1650 — 1702) remained faithful to the lessons taught by their master. The latter painted subjects similar to Ostade's, but with less transparency ; his drawing, however, was less stiff, his modelling more feeble, his execution more rapid. The former created for himself, by his genius and humour a place quite apart in the Dutch school. It may be said, in fact, that of all the painters of genre, Jan Steen is the one who displays most inven- tion, humour, and spirit. In those works on which he has bestowed most pains, he is second to no other master in composition, light and shade, modelling, animation, and delicacy of touch. M. van Westhreen, his biographer, compares him to Raphael. M. Waagen says that after Rembrandt he is the most original of JanSteen.] GENRE PAINTERS. IS I Dutch painters. This is certainly going too far ,^ g>:ag@p2">>.>@.tatto>^ @ Fig. 39. — THE CONSULTATION. — Jan Steen. (Museum of The Hague.) Stcen, when it pleased him, was an artist of great ability. Unfortunately it did not always please him to 1 52 DUTCH PAINTING. IJanSteen. be so, and then his colouringbecomes blurred, his exe- cution trivial, and the general aspect of his pictures heavy and monotonous ; but whenever he exerts himself he becomes once more and remains a great master. These extraordinary inequalities of composition are to be explained by the irregular life which the painter led. Born at Leyden, the son of a brewer, he early contracted whilst in his father's house habits of self-indulgence and extravagant living. His father, by sending him successively to Utrecht to study with Nicolaas Knufifer, to Haarlem, to the studio of Adriaen van Ostade, and finally to Van Goyen's studio at The Hague, appears to have inspired him with a taste for travelling, without in any degree mending his manners. It is said, in fact, that whilst with his last master Steen so compromised the daughter of the house, that he was obliged to marry her. Anyway, it is certain that in 1649 he married Marguerite van Goyen, by whom he had four children. In 1673, having become a widower, he married the widow of a bookseller, and died in 1679. It is at the Museum of Amsterdam that Jan Steen can be best studied in his varied and better styles. " The Fete of the Prince " particularly is a marvel of delicacy and composition. The scene, which is bathed in amber light, is full of life and crowded with figures ; the poses are wonderfully true to nature, and the faces all marked with an expression of gaiety ; the modelling is correct, and the composition is balanced with a precision hardly to be expected from an artist of such irregular habits. The colouring is generally JanSteen.l GENRE PAINTERS. J 53 thin, but the light portions of the picture are painted Fig. 40. — THE PARROT. — Jan Steen. (Museum of Amsterdam.) with consummate art on a ground of extraordinary clearness. " The Parrot " is wholly different in execution, 154- DUTCH PAINTING. [Jan Suen. but no less charming. Its composition is skilful and of great simplicity ; it is of a silvery light, solidly painted and vigorous in tone, while its tints are graduated with great delicacy. In the " St. Nicholas " ^he execution is heavier, but the composition is excellent. In the Museum of the Hague his " Representation of the Life of Man," which comprises no less than twenty figures, is quite as extraordinary as " The Fete of the Prince ; " whilst his " Menagerie," treated in the same style as " The Parrot," places its author almost on a level with Pieter de Hooch, Steen did not confine himself to painting tavern scenes. His humorous brush, as we have just seen, delighted in tracing the numerous episodes of family life. It is true he showed a preference for those akin to conviviality, as the St. Nicholas festivals and festivals of kings bear witness. He delighted in jokes at the expense of doctors, whom he liked to represent in consultation with love-sick girls. Our humorous painter has even sometimes so far gone out of his way as to represent Biblical scenes ; but in these latter works Steen was far from attaining per- fection. There is moreover, taking the whole of his works together, a considerable proportion in which his drawing, sometimes as correct as Terburg's, is broad and sketchy, like that of Jordaens ; and his touch, which can be as delicate as that of Metzu, is deficient in clearness, and results in nothing but a scrawl ; while his execution, sometimes as restrained as Ostade's, suddenly loses all its strength and force. JanSteeti.] GENRE PAINTERS. 155 It is the more astonishing to find these defects, as they are peculiar neither to the beginning nor to the end of his career, and therefore cannot be attributed to a hard apprenticeship or premature decay. They may be the result of the wild excesses Fig. 41. — REPRESENTATION OF HUMAN LIFE. — Jan Steen. (Museum of The Hague.) for which Jan Steen has been reproached ; and this we should be tempted to believe if, as Smith says, there was a time when the works of Steen were to be found in all the inns of Leyden, Delft, and The Hague. The few painters of tavern scenes and of peasant 156 DUTCH PAINTING. [Egbert van der Poel. life of whom we have still to speak, the Van der Poels, the Zorgs, the Heemskerks the Saftlevens, the Droochsloots, and the Molenaers are far from attain- ing the position of the masters whose biographies we have just hastily sketched. Nevertheless they are in- teresting, varied, sincere, original, full of talent ; and did they belong to another school less rich in masters of the first order, they would occupy us for hours ; as it is, we can only devote a few lines here to each. Nothing is known of the life of Egbert van DER POEL. It is believed that he was born at Rotter- dam, and it is in about 1650 that we see his best pictures appear. Writers give the year 1690 as that of his death. Although his name recalls fires especially — never did painter burn so many houses and farm cottages as Van der Poel — he painted also small scenes in the style of Ostade, as we see in his "Rustic House" in the Louvre, and the "Interior" by him in the Museum of Amsterdam. There are also a few pictures by him representing still life. These latter are assuredly his best, and whilst his brush is heavy and thick, his colouring both false and spiritless in the painting of men, they become lively, truthful, and spirited in the representation of pots and stewpans. Hendrick Maartens Rokes, surnamed Zorg or Sorgh, is not so great an incendiary, and is of happier inspiration. He was born at Rotterdam in 162 1, and is said to have i-eceived lessons from Teniers, but his talent much more resembles that of Ostade; and in the execution of some of his works the Cornells Saftleven.] GENRE PAINTERS. 157 influence of Brauwer is clearly visible. His best works are in the Museum of Dresden, and repre- sent a "Peasant Family" and the "Interior of a Tavern.'' The Louvre possesses one of his pictures, " A Kitchen," which is a good specimen of his talent ; and the Museum Van der Hoop at Amster- ^■^ Fig. 42. — RUSTIC interior. — Egbert van der Pod. (Museum of Amsterdam.) dam " A Fish Market," which, for colouring, is one of his best works. Zorg died in 1682. It was in this same year that CORNELIS Sacht- LEVEN or Saftleven died. Like Zorg he was born at Rotterdam, but fifteen years earlier. Like Zorg also he was inspired by Ostade, but he possessed less delicacy and was less successful. His colouring is 158 DUTCH PAINTING. (Egbert van Heemskirk. generally cold and opaque, and his method lacks fulness. Frequently he forgets himself in represent- ing scenes of doubtful taste, and often his com- positions are crowded with animals truthfully repre- sented. He specially excels in painting poultry. Few of his works are to be found in Holland. The Louvre possesses a portrait by him, signed and dated 1629 ; the Museum of Berlin " Adam naming the Animals ; " that of Cologne " A Concert of Cats." His name- is also found in the Catalogue of the Hermitage and in that of Copenhagen.* Egbert van Heemskerk is also little known in his own country, and biographers only mention two dates connected with him, that of his birth, 1610, and the probable date of his death, 1680. He was surnamed the Peasants' Heemskerk, on account of his favourite subjects. At the Louvre are to be seen two " Smoking Rooms " of his, which are not of extra- ordinary merit. His son, who bore the same Christian name, was also born at Haarlem, and was his pupil. Of less settled habits than his father, he left his own country and went to England. He, too, painted peasants, smoking rooms, and inns. Egbert Heemskerk the younger was born in 1645, and died in London in 1704. We have very little to say of JOOST CORNELISZ Droochsloot, who in a somewhat archaic style, devoted himself also to fairs and peasant scenes. We know that he passed his life at Utrecht. In 1616 • See No. loi. Dulwicli Gallery. Cornells Droochsloot.] GENRE PAINTERS. 159 he was made a member of the Guild of that town; in 1624 he was the Mayor; in 1638 he became the Dean of the Hospital of St. Job ; and he was still living in 1666. The Museum of The Hague possesses two pictures by him which show rather hasty execu- FlG. 43. — THE PORTRAIT OF THE PAINTER. — Joost Cornelisz Droochsloot. — (In the Collection of the Author.) tion. His portrait by himself, which is reproduced here, shows us his features. With regard to the Molenaers there were three of them, Barthelemy, Nicolas or Claes, and Jan Miense. The best and most clever of them was the last named. He excelled in representing peasant interiors and scenes of rustic life in a quiet style and in skilfully graduated tints. His colouring l60 DUTCH PAINTING. [Gerard Terburg. is warm and clear ; his drawing spirited, and his touch full of life. Besides this, he possessed a certain refinement, and his humour never overstepped the bounds of decency. While his works retain charac- teristics peculiar to him, they manifest also something of the styles of Steen, Brauwer, and Ostade. Nicolas represented scenes of a somewhat higher character, views of towns and a few fires. His paint- ing is less transparent, and in tones lacking warmth ; his figures are less animated. One of his pictures in the Museum of Rotterdam, representing a washhouse, is a good specimen of his painting. Of Barthelemy we know nothing. III. In addition to that numerous company of painters who devoted their time and care to scenes of rustic revelry and quiet interiors, the Dutch school can boast of another group of artists not less numerous and equally talented, who took their subjects and their types from the higher ranks of society, and. thus became the acknowledged painters of the aristocracy. At the head of this group we must place Gerard Terburg. He was born at Zwolle in 1608, and died in 1681. Terburg or Ter Borch (for although he may be better knpwn under the former name his pic- tures are more often signed in the latter form), received his first notions of painting in his father's house, and whilst still young he. quitted Holland to travel in Germany and Italy. Being at Munster in 1646 at the time of the signature of the famous treat}'-, he painted Gerard Terbiirg ] GENRE PAINTERS. l6l in a single picture, which is justly celebrated, the jjortraits of all the plenipotentiaries at the Congress. This picture* excited such admiration on account of its truth to nature, and the excellence of the portraits, that the Spanish ambassador took Terburg back with him to Madrid, where he soon became the fashionable painter. His works were so admired and esteemed that Terburg, fearing the animosity which his success excited amongst his Spanish rivals, fled to' London. For some time he lived in Paris, and finally returned to his native country. After making a short stay at Haarlem he established himself at Deventer, where he married. His great talent, his fortune, and his high connections gained for him public esteem. He was elected Burgomaster of his adopted town, and died in 1681 without leaving any issue. The pictures of Terburg are genre in the truest sense of the word. They rarely comprise rnOre than three figures, and often only one ; but their, truthful- ness, the correctness of the costume, the care with ■ which the execution of the accessories is carried out, render these little pictures real pages of history. Terburg sometimes, paints his pictures on a larger scale, as the " Peace of Munster " mentioned just now; or again like the painting which can be seen at. the Hotel de Ville of Deventer, which represents the whole Communal Couticil. But it is especially by his less complicated compositions that he . has become celebrated, and the reputation he has acquired is well * Now in tlie National Gallery. l62 DUTCH PAINTING. [Gerard Terburg. merited, for these small works are for the most part real masterpieces. Fig. 44.— a solbiek offering pieces of gold to a young WOMAN.— Gera?-(f Terburg.— {Lonvie.) Indeed, it is difficult to say which is most worthy of admiration, the marvellous correctness of his drawing. Gerard Terburg.) GENRE PAINTERS. I63 the astonishing harmony of his colouring, or tlie deHcacy of his execution, which is in no way dry or laboured. Animated to tlie highest degree by a just appreciation of the picturesque, he avoids monotony in a style which would seem to be singularly confined and restricted, and by a few vigorous tones he com- municates to his composition a warmth of colouring which accentuates the fine and soft light in which the whole of the picture is bathed. From all points of view, therefore, he may be considered as the creator of a style in which several masters after him have distinguished themselves, but in which he has taken the first rank, and has been surpassed by none. Smith, who has catalogued his works, mentions ninety pictures. This number is considerable — when we take into consideration the time required by the painter to execute each of these exquisite works — but in it we do not include the very numerous portraits which Terburg has left behind hjm. It is clear that he was both quick and industrious. We shall limit ourselves to pointing out only the most important and best known of these little masterpieces. The Louvre possesses five examples of Terburg, including the " Reading Lesson " in the La Caze collection. The other four are " The Music Lesson," " The Concert," " The Assembly of Ecclesiastics," and finally " A Soldier Offering Pieces of Gold to a Young Woman," a simple marvel which has obtained the honour of being placed in the Salon Carre. In Holland the Museum of The Hague L 2 164 DUTCH PAINTINC. [Gerard Terlurg. possesses two, " The Portrait of the Painter " stand- ing three-quarter faced. He is wearing a fair wig, and is attired entirely in black — one of the most astonishing pictures in the whole School for energy. FiG. 45. — I'ATliRNAL ADVICE. — Gerard Terbiirg. (Museum of Amsterdam.) warmth, and power of colouring and finish ; and " The Despatch," which approaches in execution that of " The Soldier " in the Louvre. The Museum of Amsterdam also possesses the " Portrait of the Painter," but this is a head only; another portrait, said Gabriel Meizu.J GENRE PAINTERS. 165 to be that of his wife, is a charming picture. Finally, there is " Paternal Advice," which unfortunately has been much injured. Important works of Terburg are also to be found at the Hermitage, at Dresden, Cassel, &c. Of all the Dutch artists Gabriel Metzu is certainly the one who most nearly resembles the master just mentioned. He is almost the only one who is worthy of being compared to him. Gabriel Metzu was the son of Jacques Metzu, also a painter, and was born at Leyden in 1640. He did not travel like Terburg. The only journey he ever took in his life was from his native town to Amsterdam. He established himself there in 1659, and obtained the right of citizenship. It is difficult to imagine a more simple and less eventful life than his. In his youth he became the friend of Steen, and he appears to have preserved for a long time an affectionate relationship with him. But if sometimes Metzu borrows from his friend some of his spirit and lively mimicry, he mainly seems to seek his inspiration from Terburg, and endeavours to rival him. Like him he chose his models from the higher classes of society, and it is only exceptionally that he stops by the way to paint popular scenes such as that of the " Vegetable Market " in the Louvre. For invention, expression, and facile execution he may be placed side by side with Steen and Ostade ; for the selection of his subjects, for his taste, grace of expression, and good humour he is almost without a rival. His execution is marvellous. The complete finish 1 66 DUTCH PAINTING.. [Gabriel Metzu. of his pictures does not preclude a boldness of touch. Depth, clearness, brilliancy, and harmony are found Fig. 46. — THE OLD DRINKER. — Gabriel Metzu, (Museum of Amsterdam.) united in his little works so as to form pearls of great price. The most famous pictures of Metzu are, with his Gabriel Meizu.] GENRE PAINTERS. 167 " Market " just mentioned, " The Soldier Receiving a Fig. 47. — THE BREAKFAST. — Gabriel Metzu. (Museum of Amsterdam.) Young Lady," also in the Louvre ; " The Young Girl Writing" and " The Hunter's Portrait," in the Museum l68 DUTCH PAINTING. [Gasp:,rd Netscher. of The Hague ; " The Lady with her Daughter and a Cavaher " and " The Old Drinker," in the Amsterdam Museum. Amongst his popular scenes we must mention "The Twelfth-Night King" at Munich, and his " Poultry Merchants " at Dresden. Metzu also painted life-sized portraits, and a few allegorical re- presentations ; but in the two latter styles we cannot mention any work of his of extraordinary merit. Amongst the fashionable Dutch painters Gaspard Netscher appears to us to hold the third place. Gaspard was born at Heidelburg in 1639, and in his infancy only escaped from a terrible death by a miracle. His mother, in order to avoid being massacred by the soldiers who were besieging the town, took refuge in a chateau, where her two elder children died of hunger before her eyes. In order that the other two should not share the same fate, this courageous \yoman escaped through the investing lines, carrying; her children with her, and she reached Arnheim almost dead from fatigue and hunger. There she was re- ceived by Dr. Tullekens, who undertook the education of her children. At first Gaspard was intended for the medical profession, but his taste and aptitude were directed to painting. He was apprenticed to a painter of birds and game named Koster, and later he was sent to Deventer to study with Terburg.in whose studio he finished his education. It was in the latter school that he learnt the delicate arrangement of figures, and acquired that taste for elegance which makes him in one respect the equal of Terburg and G; Metzu, though he was never able to equal the Gaspard Netscher] CliNRE PAINTERS. I69 light and shade of the former, the correct drawing Fig. 48.— the concert. — Gaspard Netscher. (Museum of The Hague.) and the delicate touch of the latter, or the harmony and exquisite finish and naturalness of either. His I70 DUTCH PAINTING. [Frans van Mieris. best works, compared with those of his master, ap- pear dry, hard, cold, and formal. This relative inferiority did not prevent Netscher during his lifetime from being in vogue, or from attaining considerable success. A great number of portraits by him are well known, portraits of women especially, dressed in the white satin robes he ex- celled in rendering. Amongst these portraits there are some historical ones, which therefore are doubly interesting, for Netscher sojourned in Paris, and there painted a certain number of the courtiers of Louis XIV. Such are the portraits of Madame de Montespan and that of the Due du Maine, which are now in the Museum of Dresden. Gaspard Netscher had two sons, Theodore (i66i — 1732) and CONSTANTIN (1670 — 1722), who followed their father's career. They were the pupils and imitators of their father, and were much liked by their contemporaries, but posterity has not been so indulgent and has not ratified the too easy judgment which had been passed upon their cold and affected talent. Like Gaspard Netscher, Frans VAN MiERls (1635 — 1681) devoted himself to the interpretation of Dutch society, and like him also he was the founder of a dynasty of painters ; hence his name of Old Frans, which was given to him to distinguish him from his grandson. He was the pupil of Gerard Dow, and early showed such an aptitude for painting, that his master did not hesitate to qualify him by the title of " prince of pupils." But if he succeeded in proving FVans van Mieris.] GENRE PAINTERS. 171 himself, by the elegance of his poses, and the arrange- ment of his figures, the distinguished disciple of Gerard -^ ■tjiT f i ■i i JM Fig. 49. — THE grocer's shop. — IVitlem van Mieris. (Museum of The Hague.) Dow, his light and shade and execution were always far inferior to his master's. His works arc distinguished 172 DUTCH PAINTING. [ArydeVoU. by a certain dryness, which in his son WiLLEM (1662 — 1747), and still more in his grandson Frans the younger (1689 — 1763), becomes absolutely tire- some and disagreeable. The works of Frans van Mieris commanded high prices during his life, but they are now much less esteemed. Nevertheless there are some which merit the attention o£ connoisseurs. " The Portrait of the Painter and of his Wife," in the Museum of The Hague; "A Lady Teaching a Spaniel to Dance," in the Hermitage ; " The Consultation," in the IVIuseum of Vienna, are some of his choice works. As regards his son Willem, "The Grocei-'s Shop" in the Museum of The Hague, shows how dry it is possible to become in endeavouring to give too much finish to a work of small interest. Amongst the pupils of Frans van Mieris may be mentioned Ary de VoiS, a painter not without merit (born at Leyden in 1 641), who, combined with the finish which he learnt from his master, a delicate harmony, skill in modelling, and a depth which the latter failed to acquire from the instruction and example of Gei'Srd Dow. With the ; eminent artist whom we have just mentioned, we shall take leave of the dwellings of the aristocracy to penetrate into more modest homes. Dow will serve for the point of transition into the fourth class of genre-painting, a class which is certainly neither the least numerous nor the least brilliant. GENRE PAINTERS. 173 IV. Gerard Dow was born in Leyden in 1610. He was tlie son of a glass painter, a native of Friesland, and after being first apprenticed to an engraver, named Bartholomeus Dpiendo, and to a glass painter named Pieter Kouwenhoven, in 1628 he entered Rem- brandt's studio ; and it was with him that within the space of three years he learnt the marvellous secrets which were to make him an artist of the first rank. So soon as he felt himself able to do without his master, Gerard Dow devoted himself entirely to subjects of domestic life. He was the interpreter of honest and thrifty households. He conjured up before him industrious and economical housewives, and endeavoured to represent the quiet comforts of the Dutch home. This homely style does not require large dimensions, and hence it is that his pictures are generally small. The largest of them measiire scarcely twenty-four inches, and these are not. very numerous. His compositions comprise from one to five figures. He rarely attempted more important subjects, and animated scenes also seem to have been beyond his power. It is an exception when he takes the pains to represent an action, as in his " Evening School " in the Museum of Amster- dam, or in the " Dropsical Woman " in the Louvre. Most frequently his figures are. engaged each in his or her place in some quiet and discreet occupation. He is above all a meditative painter. On the other hand he possesses a keen appreciation of the 174 DUTCH PAINTING. [Gerard Dow. picturesque, and of all the pupils of Rembrandt he h Si ^^\ '"<' '■'j^.¥^i Fig. 50.— the"; dropsical woman. — Oemnf Dow, (Louvre.) manages his light and shade most skilfully. Frequently he steps almost upon the heels of tlie master in his Gerard Dow.) GENRE PAINTERS. 175 vigour of touch and in the transparency of his colour- ing, and he adds to these the attainments he owed to the able instruction of the great master, marvellous correctness of view, and an unrivalled precision of execution. Besides this his prodigality of finish never degenerates into dryness. His touch remains always free and soft. His works are so transparent and of such depth that his pictures seem like nature herself seen in a darkened mirror. There are few European museums which do not possess a certain number of pictures by Gerard Dow, and all or nearly all of them are very remarkable. Although he only lived sixty-three years (for he died in 167s), and in spite of the ample finish of his works, Dow produced a considerable number of pictures. We shall only mention those in the collections of Paris, Belgium, and Holland. The Louvre possesses no less than eleven pictures of Gerard Dow, to which should be added "The Old Man Reading" in the Collection La Caze, which makes up the number to twelve. These are " The Dropsical Woman," which is regarded, and rightly so, as Dow's masterpiece, and which is honoured with a place in the Salon Carre ; " The Silver Ewer," still life, a style rather rare in the works of this artist ; " The Village Grocer," " The Trumpet," " The Dutch Cook," a brilliant work, and the best representation that Dow ever gave to this subject ; " The Woman Hanging up a Cock at her Window," "The Weigher of Gold," "The teeth Extractor, " " Reading of the Bible," a picture full of sentiment ; " A Portrait of an Old Woman," and 176 DUTCH PAINTING. [Gerard Dow. finally, " Tlie Portrait of the Painter." The Museum Fii;. 51. — Ti IK YOU NT. TAn ORliss. — Gerard Dow. (Museum of The Hague.) of The Hague only possesses two works of the master, "The Young. Tailoress" and "A Young Woman Godfried Schalken.] GENRE ' PAINTERS. 177 holding a Lamp in her Hand." More fortunate is the Museum of Amsterdam, which exhibits "A Hermit," "The Inquisitive Woman," "A Portrait of the Master," and " The Evening School," a singular picture, and a real monument of power, illumined by three different lights, in which the painter has ex- pended great talent in the attainment of an effect which is by no means pleasing. This museum possesses another irnportant picture twenty-nine and a half inches high by twenty-three broad, the joint produc- tion of Dow and Nicolaas Berchem. It represents, in a standing posture, " Pieter van der Werf, Burgo- master of Leyden, and his Wife." In his style it is one of the best works.* Of the pupils trained by Gerard Dow who ac- quired the best reputation, are Frans van Mieris and Gabriel Metzu (whom we have already mentioned), Godfried Schalken, Van Slingeland, Van Tol (of which artists we shall now speak), and Q. Brekelenkam. Godfried Schalken was born at Dordrecht in 1643, and died at The Hague in 1706. He took his first lessons in drawing from Samuel van Hoogstraten, whence he passed into the studio of Gerard Dow. He there made rapid progress, and when he quitted his master,he was regarded by him as one of his best pupils. He next went to England, and painted a few portraits, notably that of William III., and returned to his own country, where he devoted himself to painting ♦ Add to these the pictures hi the National Gallery and two at Dulwich, Nos. lo6 and 85. The latter an early picture painted under Rembrandt's influence. M 178 DUTCH PAINTING. [Dominique van Tol. interiors, and particularly to effects of artificial light. Smith has catalogued his works, which comprise 127 pictures, the greater part of which are now con- sidered of little interest, doubtless because the effects of light in which Schalken delighted have consider- ably changed in tone by the action of time, and have become false and harsh, the flame appearing too pale and the flesh-colouring having assumed a brick-dust colour, which is very disagreeable.* PiETER VAN Slingeland, although he has also had the honour of a catalogue of his works by Smith, who mentions sixty of them, is not interest- ing. He could only imitate his master in the me- chanical aspects of his work. He even surpassed him in finish and precision, but his too elaborate execu- tion often degenerates into dryness. All that can be said in his praise is that the best of his works have been sometimes mistaken for the poorer works, of Gerard Dow.f The same may be said of Dominique van Tol, whose works are simply imitations of those of his master. He not only imitates Gerard Dow in colouring and technique, but also makes choice of the same subjects and the same expressions of counte- nance. Unfortunately, as is the case with all copyists, he lacks the sacred fire which animates the works of his master. His colour is colder, his sentiment less lively, his modelling less solid, and his touch more slovenly. * Dulwich Gallery, No. 151, is an attractive work by this painter, t An early picture is No. 238 in the Dulwich Gallery. Eglon van der Neer.] GENRE PAINTERS. 179 Amongst the little masters of this group whom we pass in review, we must also mention Johannes Verkolje, Eglon van dcr Nccr, A. de Pape, and Johannes van Staveren. Staveren, of whose life we know scarcely any- thing, painted many praying hermits and old women, in the style of Gerard Dow. In this special field he follows Van Tol and A. de Pape, of whom we know hardly more. He painted scenes of interiors and kitchens with considerable talent. Eglon van der Neer (1643 — 1703) was the pupil of his father, the celebrated landscape painter Aart van der Neer, of whom we shall speak presently ; but he followed the example of Dow, Mieris, and Nets- cher, and became the painter of elegant interiors. He is to be praised for the good taste of his compositions, the care with which the smallest details are carried out, his sentiment of harmony, and the delicacy of his execution. In his flesh-colour, however, there is unfortunately a brownish tone, which detracts from the charm of his figures. He has also painted certain Biblical subjects, and towards the end of his life he painted landscapes. But these attempts were not very successful, especially in the latter style, the affectation of his talent lending to his trees and vegetation a disagreeable and paltry aspect. Johannes Verkolje (1650 — 1693) followed the same masters, but with less servility. It is reported that whilst young he hurt his leg, and during the forced rest occasioned by this accident he drew M 2 l8o DUTCH PAINTING. [Quiryng Brekelenkam. with such spirit and showed such leanings towards art, that his father placed him when convalescent with Lievens, under whom he learnt to paint. He acquired rapidly some notoriety, married, and estab- lished himself at Delft, where he lived until his death. Although he belongs to the class of little masters, it cannot be said of Verkolje that he is a plagiarist. He composed with taste, and painted in a silvery tone peculiar to himself, while his treatment of drapery is admirable. His masterpiece, " The Courier," which was for some time in the Van Loon Gallery, belongs now to Messrs. de Rothschild. The Louvre possesses one of his pictures representing an interior. Johannes had a son named NiCOLAAS Verkolje (1673 — 1746), also a painter, one of whose pictures is in the Louvre. As regards talent Nicolaas was an artist of secondary merit. At the time when Gerard Dow began to be celebrated, he took as an apprentice a young man, a native of Swammerdam, named QuiRYNG BREKEL- ENKAM. The date of the birth of this painter is un- known, but it was probably between 1620 and 1625. It is known that he married in 1648, and that he died twenty years afterwards. Brekelenkam acquired from his master his method of light and shade, and im- bued himself at second-hand with the precepts of Rembrandt. It may be said that. of all the pupils of Dow he is the only one who continued the great traditions which had their foundation in the studio of the illustrious Van Rijn. Quiryng Brekelenkam.] GENRE IVMNTERS, l8l Brekelenkam was also a painter of quiet interiors, industrious households, and kitchen scenes. Of a • Fig. 52. — THE CONSULTATION. — Q. Brekelenkam. (Museum of the Louvre, La Gaze Gallery.) hundred and seventy-five paintings of his \vhich have been catalogued, only a single one is to be found in 1 82 DUTCH PAINTING. (Pieter de Hooch. the Louvre — " The Consultation," a picture of great merit. Brelcelenkam, inspired by Rembrandt's teaching, placed his figures, which he drew with considerable skill, in a beautiful amber light. They are neither too graceful nor too striking, but singularly life-like and truthful. The scenes in which he delights are always quiet, modest, and sober in movement and ex- pression, but his execution is none the less interesting. His touch is free, supple, and soft ; and his figures are modelled with remarkable power upon a red ground, frequently by the aid of simple transparent colours. It was also at second-hand but in a different town that PlETER DE Hooch learnt the traditions of Rem- brandt. Nevertheless these traditions are found in him to be so powerful and vivid, that many writers, ill-inforfTied as to his antecedents, have claimed Hooch to have been the immediate disciple of the great master. Pieter was born at Rotterdam pro- bably in 1632, and whilst still young, went to Delft, where he married in 1654. On the 20th of September, 1655, he was admitted a master in the Guild of St. Luke, and an entry in the re- gisters of the Guild appears to indicate that he left that town about 1658. Whither he went no one knows. Certain biographers believe that he estab- lished himself at Haarlem, whilst others think (and with better reason) that he fixed his domicile at Utrecht. During his stay at Delft he became con- nected with Johannes Vermeer, and doubtless with Karel Fabritius ; and thanks to the latter (see page Pieter de Hooch.] GENRE PAINTERS. 183 96) he was able to familiarise himself with the mag- nificent technique of which Rembrandt was at once ^■fmmm^Ssi0s Fig- 53-— the merry I.OtiG.—Pietcr de Hooch. (National Gallery.) the inventor and apostle. Pieter de Hooch differs in his f)owerful style, and in our opinion this is one of 1 84 DUTCH PAINTING. [Pieter de Hooch. his principal merits, from all those little masters whom we have reviewed. Whilst their figures stand out from a scarcely covered ground, De Hooch, on the contrary, thickly covers his works with fine washes, and so brings his figures into powerful relief, a method of F]G. 54. — A DUTCH iNI'EK]OR.—Ph/c-r de NoivA. (The Louvre.) which Jan Steen alone in the Dutch school gives the only other example. The little masters, moreover, generally obtain their harmonies in a sober key. In Pieter de Hooch, on the contrary, and his friend and con- temporary Johannes Vermcer (better known by the Pieter de Hooch.] GENRE PAINTERS. 185 name of Van der Meer of Delft), we find strongly- marked contrasts of robust and powerful tones, Fig. 55.— the c^-L-LAKZR.—Pk/er dc Hooch. (Museum of Amsterdam.) which render these two artists colourists of the first rank. We must not omit to mention also that these two 1 86 DUTCH PAINTING. [Pietcr de Hooch. artists employed pigments of extreme richness, such as . Naples and lemon yellows, and contrasted them with the cobalt blues and beautiful reds which wc have already admired in Maas. Nevertheless, though in perfection of execution < . LAii-X" v.^ .y JT^^^' -^ -^- Fig. 56. — VIEW of the town of delft. — Johannes van der AJeer, of Delft (Museum of The Hague.) the one rivals the other, they differ singularly in the use of the brush. Whilst Hooch has a vigorous and supple touch, Vermeer on the other hand proceeding by short steps, paints in small patches, and then connects the whole by glazing in a manner peculiar to himself, which produces a vibrating effect, a characteristic VanderMeer.I GENRE PAINTERS. I87 of this original painter which we cannot forget. Nevertheless, what especially distinguishes Pieter de Hooch, not only from his rival of Delft but from all painters past and present, is his manner of represent- ing the sun. His appreciation of light is almost un- rivalled. He illuminates all his pictures by brilliant rays, which are not simply an artistic artifice, but give to the work an astonishingly poetical tone. He is besides the painter of interiors par excellence. His Dutch houses and halls, represented with admirable freedom without vulgarity and with great precision of observation, do not resemble those of his contempo- raries, and are something more than mere frames for human action. It would be easy to remove from the picture his calm and simple figures, often relegated to some corner, without detracting from the painting its interest, which is centred in the beautiful warm colouring and the light and shade of his foregrounds. It is to England that De Hooch owes his recogni- tion, which was for a long time withheld, and it is in England that the greater number of his works are to be found. The Louvre possesses two pictures of his, " The Game at Cards," a work which is deservedly celebrated, and an " Interior of a Dutch House." At Amsterdam we find the "Cellarer," at Rotterdam " The Concert," in the Van der Hoop Museum " The Letter," " The Sweeper," " A Lord and Lady seated before a Country House." These works of the highest merit are sufficient to place Pieter de Hooch in the first rank of Dutch painters. Van der Meer of Delft is less successful. His 1 88 DUTCH PAINTING. (VanderMeer. works are either dispersed or destroyed, and we can only find a few rare specimens of his art distributed amongst private collections. In Holland two museums .only possess his works. In the Museum Van der Hoop, we find "The Reader," while the Museum of The Hague possesses an astonishing " View of Delft." In the Six Gallery at Amsterdam are two more beautiful specimens of this exquisite master — his famous " Milkwoman " and his " Street in Delft," which are two masterpieces. His other known works are in the Museum of Dresden, in the Brunswick Gallery, and the Arenberg Collection at Brussels. But these scattered works are very limited in point of number ; and our clever contemporary Biirger, who has de- voted considerable care lo the rehabilitation of this rare master,, has only been able to authenticate about thirty of his pictures. He was born at Delft in 1632, and at twenty years of age was received as a member of the Guild of St. Luke, elected elder in 1662, 1663, 1670, 1671, and died four years later. Johannes Vermeer certainly had, during twenty-two years of active work, time to produce many works of merit, but no one has yet been able to discover what has become of his pictures. Unfortunately for Dutch painting the glorious opening made by Pieter de Hooch and Van der Meer of Delft was not followed up by the painters who came after them. These great artists, unknown in their time, gathered round them no pupils, and left no imitators. Almost the only two painters of that Nicolaaii Koedijk.] GENRE PAINTERS. 189 epoch who may be ranked amongst the imitators of Pieter de Hooch are Jacob Uchtervelp, a second-rate master, one picture by whom is in the Museum of The Hague, called "The Fishwoman," and NiCOLAAS KOEDIJIC,who painted sunny interiors ; but we have no knowledge as to where and when he lived, nor who was his master. Fig. 57. — THE FLAGELLATION OF CHKIST. — Godjried Schalken. (Dusseldorf Museum.) ipo CHAPTER VII. LANDSCAPE PAINTERS. We have seen what deep root landscape painting had taken from the first in the Dutch school of painting. At its commencement even, this branch of art seems to have been the principal occupation of the school. Amongst the miniature painters and the " primitives " it attracted particular attention, and the Dutch school can claim the incontestable merit of being the first amongst modern schools to understand and interpret nature. Before the time of which we speak, artists seemed to take little interest in inanimate things ; they could not recognise in them expression, life, or beauty, and they regarded the painter's art merely as an illustration of human life. The result of this was that landscape was employed only as a vague back- ground, a kind of accessory decoration, in the midst of which were represented the actors in the human comedy or drama which formed the centre of interest of the picture. As an apology for directing some attention to trees, water, and rocks, it was necessary to devise and arrange them with a view to theatrical effect. This is the explanation of the fact that French Jan van Goyen.) LANDSCAPE PAINTERS. 191 and Italian landscapes, even those of Poussih or Claude Lorraine, are really architectural composi- tions. It was left to that vigorous race, the de- scendants of the ancient Batavians, who had been obliged to create for themselves what other peoples had been provided with by nature on their coming into the world — soil, vegetation, and climate — to discover that everything in this world has its own particular life and its own particular beauty. With them this sentiment is a natural one, for they display the same paternal tenderness and affection for familiar objects, as an author feels for his productions. Such is, we believe, the explanation of so important an innovation as landscape painting, which was in the course of a few years to bring forth in Holland so many marvellous masterpieces. After the precursors whom we have just men- tioned, it may be said that landscape painting in Holland had three fathers, so to speak, three artists of varying merit, but of equal importance in the world of art ; Jan van Goyen, Jan Wynantsz, and Pieter Molyn. Jan van Goyen, born at Leydenih 1596, belongs, not only on account of the date of his birth, but also by reason of the robust vigour of his temperament and his love for his country, to the energetic and powerful epoch, to. which the Low Countries owe their independence. It may be said that it was he who liberated landscape painting from the impediments, which had up to that time stood in the way of its development. He was the first to discover a poetry 192 DUTCH PAINTING. [Jan van Goyen. in the unbroken horizons of his native land, which though monotonous in appearance, were and are never: theless always changing. He was the first painter, in a country where water is in some sort the all-per- vading element, who was able to give to canals and streams a place of importance in art, and to realise Fig, 58. — VIEW of dordrbcht.— /a» van Goyen the deep emotion which is to be found in a low cloud-laden sky, or in the small ripples of a river illumined by silvery rays. While still young he quitted his native country, after having studied the essential principles of his art under several masters of small renown, among them Schilderpoort, Hendrick Klok, Willem Gerritsz, and others. He went then to France, and travelled Jan van Goyen.] LANDSCAPE PAINTERS. 193 through its principal provinces, but soon returned to Holland, desirous of seeing once more the humid country which he afterwards represented with his pencil. He was a clever draughtsman, more a har- monist than a colourist, and was pre-eminently Fig. 59. — VIEW on the meuse. — Jan van Goyen. (Museum of Amsterdam.) successful in producing powerful effects of light with a very small number of colours. His touch, which was marvellously light, gave to his skies and streams an inimitable transparency, whilst his range of colours, to a certain extent rudi- mentary, fluctuates between the two tones of pale green and pale red. The Louvre possesses four N 194 DUTCH PAINTING. [Coelebier. pictures of Van Goyen, and in nearly all the large European galleries, except that at The Hague, speci- mens of his work are to be found. The uniformity of his subjects relieves us of the necessity of indicating them by name. Van Goyen produced a great deal, and died in 1666, at the age of 70, without having ceased to work for a single day since the commencement of his artistic career. His pupils were numerous, and amongst them may be mentioned Steen, of whom we have already spoken, and who married his daughter ; and NicolaaS Berchem, of whom we shall presently speak, and who, though his pupil, could scarcely be said to have imitated his master. On the other hand, he had as followers, Salomon Ruysdael, Simon- do Vlieger, and Coelebier, but we do not know precisely whether these painters actually received instruction from him. Nothing is known of the life of Coelebier. His name is to be found in the registers of Haarlem, and therefore it may be inferred that he was a native of that town, as it is the one in which he undoubtedly lived. The only thing certain is that he imitated the pic- tures of Van Goyen so closely that at a distance his work might be taken for that of the master; on a near examination, however, the disparity becomes at once apparent, Coelebier's touch being heavy, thick, and devoid of originality. Simon de Vlieger, on the other hand, resembles Jiis master in the facility of his technique and the idelicacy of his drawing, while he differs from him mainly in colour, especially in his later style. He Simon deVlieger.] LANDSCAPE PAINTERS. 195 was born in Rotterdam in 1612, and is said at first to have frequented the studio of Willem van der Velde the elder, where it was no doubt that he learnt to represent with inimitable delicacy and astonishing truth the figures with which he enlivened his compo- sitions. But the broad and simple manner of Van Fig. 60I — THE REGATTA. — Siiiwn de Vlieger. (Museum of Amsterdam.) Goyen soon attracted him, and for some years he followed the lines which had been laid down in so skilful a manner by that master. Later in life he varied his method, particularly in colouring, and without losing his conception of nature, showed that he was a colourist more varied and accomplished than Van Goyen himself The Louvre possesses " The Sea during a Calm," and at the Amsterdam Museum may N 2 196 DUTCH PAINTING. fSalomon van Ruysdael. be seen one of his most beautiful examples, " The Naval Combat on the Slaak ;" this picture is dated 1633. His masterpiece, however, is to. be found in the Museum at Munich, and represents "A Tempest at Sea." De Vlieger, as far as is known, died in 1660. Salomon van Ruysdael, whose family name was subsequently immortalised by his nephew, Jacob van Ruysdael, was born in 1600 ; twenty-three years later he was admitted to the Guild of St. Luke at Haarlem; in 1648 he was elected Dean, and he died in 1670. Though he was not a pupil of Van Goyen, he never- theless singularly resembled him both in his excel- lencies and in his defects. His colour has the same soberness, and his touch, though facile as Van Goyen's, is sometimes hasty and even negligent. His foliage especially is monotonous in tone as well as execution, but his drawing is spirited and full of life. The Museum of Amsterdam possesses a very fine picture of his entitled " The Halt at an Inn," representing two coaches at the door of an inn beside a canal. Several other of his works are also to be seen at the museums of Berlin and Munich. Pieter Molyn and Wynantsz, the other two artists who gave an impetus to landscape painting in Holland, were both born in 1600. This is about all we know of their lives. PlETER MoLYN did much by his representations of flat and undulating country to start Dutch landscape painters on that independent path in which they were destined to achieve such brilliant results. His drawing of men and animals is good, his colour is warm and powerful, and his touch light, Pieter M'olyn.] LANDSCAPE PAINTERS. 197 if sometimes careless. His works are rather rare. Among those which are known is " A Cavalry Charge," in the Louvre, and another is to be seen in the Museum of Berlin; in the Dutch galleries his works are rarely to be found. According to Balkema he died in 1654. He is now described as Pieter Molyn Fig. 61. — THE HALT AT AN INN. — Salomon van Ruysdael. (Museum of Amsterdam.) the elder, to distinguish him from his son PlETER MoLYN, otherwise " Tempesta," who was born in 1637, and who died in 1701. This younger Molyn, after receiving instruction from his father, travelled much ; as a young man he left his native land to visit Italy, where he became a clever painter in various styles, and made himself celebrated mainly by his igS DUTCH PAINTING. [Jan Wynantsz. representations of the chase. Having renounced Pro- testantism in Rome, young Peter received patronage and protection at the hands of a certain number of Italian prelates, but this protection did not save him from imprisonment, for whilst at Genoa he was accused of having caused his wife to be assassinated in order that he might marry his mistress, and he was con- demned to perpetual imprisonment. He obtained his release in 1684, when Louis XIV. bombarded and took the town. He then returned to Piacenza, where he died in 1701. Jan Wynantsz has a greater claim than either Pieter Molyn or Van Goyen to the honour of having opened up a new and true path to modern landscape painting. It would be interesting to see. how the talent of Wynantsz was formed, how his faculties were developed, and who was his master ; but, unfortu- nately, nothing is known of the commencement of his artistic career ; all we do know is that he was excep- tionally talented. Although there is not much variety in his subjects, they are always chosen with taste. Moreover, we find in his works an aerial perspective, a truthfulness of execution, anda faithfulness of rendering, which we seek in vain amongst his predecessors. It is evident, in looking at his pictures, that he was absolute master of the subject which he had taken in hand. The manner in which he finishes his foregrounds in itself shows astonishing ability, while the details of trees and plants, and the differences in soil, are rendered with a precision and accuracy unknown before him. Jan Wynantsz.] LANDSCAPE PAINTERS. 199 All that was wanting for Wynantsz to have been a master of the first order, was the ability to paint the human figure and to portray animal life. In this he could never succeed, and for the filling in of his land- scapes he was compelled to have recourse to others. Fig. 62. — AN OLD OAK. — Jan Wynantsz. (The Wilson Collection.) among them Lingelbach, Adriaen van der Velde, and Helt Stokade. In spite of his long and laborious life as a land- scape painter, Wynantsz did not produce much so far as number is concerned ; Smith, who catalogued his works, could not find more than 214 of them ; this is 200 DUTCH PAINTING. [ Aart van dw Neer. probably to be explained by the extreme care which the painter took in all his studies, and in the merely technical execution of his work. The comparative scarcity of his paintings, however, has not prevented Wynantsz from figuring honourably in almost all the public collections.* Two other landscape painters, also among the innovators of the school, Aart van der Neer, and Aalbert Everdingen, deserve to be placed imme- diately after the masters of whom we have just spoken. Aart van der Neer, father of that Eglon van der Neer of whom we have already spoken in con- nection with certain paintings of interiors, was born at Amsterdam in 1619, is almost unknown to us outside of his works ; biographers say nothing of him, but his pictures are sufficiently eloquent without either dates or facts. Whilst Van Goyen revels in cloudy and uncertain twilights, whilst it was the custom of Wynantsz to paint landscapes bathed in the liinpid light and warmth of day. Van der Neer delighted in the gentle light of the pale moon, in which he depicted rivers, canals, cottages, and village scenes ; no mere words can describe the penetrating melancholy of his country scenes. Sometimes also, but this only in few instances, he represents day, and then the vigorous light of the sun replaces the vaporous reflections of the moon. He has, in fact, depicted Nature in all her aspects, but in none has he succeeded so well as in his * Nos. II and 12 in the Diilwich Gallery are fairly characteristic of the master. He was born probably about 1615, and died after 1679. Van Everdingen.] LANDSCAPE PAINTERS. 20 1 moonlight pictures. His works, carefully selected and enshrined in the most celebrated galleries, are among the most exquisite of the school which he adorned.* Aalbert, or Allard van Everdingen, was born in 162 1, at Alkmaar, and he died in his native ^^^m^^m^m^^ Fig. 63. — DIOGENES LOOKING FOR AN HONEST MAN. — Aalbert Van Everdivgen, (Museum of The Hague.) town in 1675. He belonged to a family of artists, for his brothers Cesar and Jan were also painters of some note. Cesar (1606 — 1679) acquired a certain reputa- tion as a figure and portrait painter, and practised * No. 112 in the Dulwich Gallery is fairly representative of the painter. 202 DUTCH PAINTING. [Van Everdingen. also landscape art, of which a specimen is to be found in the gallery at The Hague. Aalbert travelled much in Norway, and made a special study of the rocks and cascades in that country. On returning to his native land he re- produced the scenes among which he had dwelt, torrents edged around by huge firs springing out from the sombre masses of rock, and throwing their spray into large stretches of transparent water. His execution of these tumultuous subjects is marked by an extraordinary facility ; his skies are notable for their clearness, and his colouring, though occasionally heavy and even monotonous, sometimes manifests . considerable power. The examples of this master, which are to be found in the Louvre, in the Museum of Amsterdam, and in the Museum Van der Hoop, show clearly that the painter was possessed of great talents. But had he been less talented, his name would not have become less famous, because he was the precursor, and perhaps the master, of Jacob van Ruysdacl. Jacob or Jacques van Ruysuael was not only the most famous of Dptch landscape painters, but it may be said of him that he was the greatest " land- scape" painter that modern art has ever produced. No other painter has ever been able to express with greater power the poetry of Northern lands. A draughtsman of the first order, he was also a most finished harmonist. His colour, warm and soft, exhibits in the half-tints of light and shade varia- tions of exquisite sweetness. His brush, sometimes JacobvanRuysdael. I LANDSCAPE PAINTERS. 203 vigorous, sometimes tender, passes with astonishing flexibility from the mostjfinished, delicate, and glossy Fig. 64.— the cascade.— /a,;?;/ Poltir. (Museum of Aiiisterdani.) In the Museum of The Hague there are three, " The Cow and her Reflection," dated 1648; " The Meadow and Cattle," 1652; and "The Young Bull," 1647. The last-named enormous picture, which has been so much extolled and praised, was sent to Paris, and received at the Napoleon Museum the honours of an apotheosis, although, after all, it is a work more Paul Potter.] LANDSCAPE PAINTERS. 215 strange than beautiful, and of decidedly questionable taste. Finally, in the Museum of Amsterdam are .five paintings of this master : " The Shepherd's Hut,'' dated 1645; the great " Bear Hunt," already men- tioned, dated 1646; "Orpheus Charming the Ani- FlC. 70.— MEADOW WITH CATTLE.— /Vza/ Po/Zer. (Museum of The Hague.) mals,"of 1650; "The Shepherds and their Flocks," 1651; and the " Straw Cutters," without date. In spite of his great success, Paul Potter founded no school and had no imitators. The artists who painted in his style are even rare in Holland. GOVERT Gamp- IIUYSEN, who, born at Gorcum in 1624, obtained in 2l6 DUTCH PAINTING. [Adriaen Pynacker. 1650 the right of citizenship at Amsterdam, also painted floclts, meadows, and stables, but his squatty peasants and thick-set animals have nothing in common with the splendid subjects of Paul Potter. Aalbert Klomp gives evidence of a.little closer resemblance to him, but his composition, although clever, is heavier, and his colour less varied. Abraham Hondius (1638 — 1695), who also painted bear and boar hunts, is too vigorous and not sufficiently correct to be seriously compared with his master, besides which his principal effect is decoration, a point which Paul Potter regarded as' of little importance. We have still to mention WiLLEM ROMEYN* (bom before 1630, died after 1693) and Adriaen Pynacker (1621— i673)_both clever and delicate artists, who never strove after grand effects ; the latter employed more rapidity of execution, and affected more colour, whilst the former has more delicacy of tone and concentration. They both frequently devoted their talent to verdant pas- turage and horned cattle. But both distinguished themselves by their Italian landscapes, dotted with ruins, such as Nicolaas Berchem and Karel du Jardin had brought into fashion on their return from Rome ; and they are rather the followers of those artists than of the simple and touching master of Enkhuyzen. f Amongst all these painters, so interesting in many respects, only Adriaen VAN DER Velde can be compared to Paul Potter. Like him he was the * Nos. 8 and lo in the Dulwich Gallery, painted under the influ- ence of Karel du Jardin. + See No. 130 in the Dulwich Gallery, a first-rate work of Pynacker. Admen van der Velde.] LANDSCAPE PAINTERS. 217 son of a painter, and he died young, scarcely Fig. 71. — ITALIAN LANOSCAPE. — Adriaet! P)nacker. tl)irty-six years of age ; and, like him, he never quitted his native country. Born in 1636, and the 2l8 DUTCH PAINTING. [Adriaen van der Velde. pupil of Jan Wynantsz, Van der Velde from the first gave proof of such precocious talent that Wynantsz's wife, who witnessed his first efforts, is said to have exclaimed, " Wynantsz, you have found your master." This prediction was soon fulfilled, and the pictures of the young painter were more esteemed than those of his master. More varied than Paul Potter, Adriaen van der Velde, in some of his pictures, was influenced by his Italianising contem- poraries, and in imitation of them he sometimes en- deavoured to idealise his compositions. His shep- herds seem to belong to the pastoral age, his shep- herdesses lose their simple nature, and his country mares assume the airs of noble steeds. But when he confines himself to the representation of Dutch country scenes, he resembles Paul Potter, not in exe- cution, for his touch is softer and more flexible, his colouring is less clear, and his foliage often a sombre green or even blue ; but in composition and in the choice of subjects. Notwithstanding the shortness of his life, and the willingness with which he devoted his time to filling in the landscapes not only of his master Wynantsz, but also of his friends Hobbema, Van der Heyden, Verboom, and Moucheron, the catalogue of the works of Adriaen van der Velde* comprises no less than 187 pictures. Considering the finish of his works, this number shows that he was endowed with prodigious facility, and that he was extremely industrious. His works, esteemed even during his life, have now for a * For an example of this artist, see No. 72, in the Dulwich Gallery. Dirckvan Bergen ] LANDSCAPE PAINTERS. 219 long time had their place in the principal museums of Europe; Berlin, Florence, Cassel, Munich, Brussels, all possessing some of his works. The Louvre alone has six: "The Beach at Schevening," three landscapes with animals, " The Shepherd's Family," and a Fig. 72. — THE YOKV>.—Adriaen van der I'clde. (Museum of Amsterdam.) " Frozen Canal." In the Museum of The Hague there are only two, "Cattle" and a "Dutch Beach"; and at Amsterdam there are three, " The Passage of the Ford," "The Flut," and a "Landscape." With Adriacn van der Velde is generally connected his pupil Dirk van Bergen (1645 — 1689), as well 220 DUTCH PAINTING. [Aalbert Cuyp. as PlETER VAN PER Leuw (1704), who endeavoured to imitate him. But both arc heavier in tone, harder in outline, ruder in execution, and of less pleasing taste, and so far inferior to him. It was also from among the peaceful inhabitants ■-N. ._J Fig. 73. — SALMON fishing. — Aalbert Cuyp. (Museum of The Hague.) of the Dutch Polders and their superb cattle that Aalbert Cuyp took a great number of the subjects for his pictures ; but with his solid, powerful, and robust painting, his contempt for details, and his preference for subjects of broader compass, we enter a different sphere. Although cattle occupy an important place in the works of Cuyp, there is really no comparison Anlbert Cuyp.] LANDSCAPE PAINTERS. 221 between his cows and those of Paul Potter or of Adriaen van der Velde. His cattle are not so carefully finished nor so well studied, and, in spite of their apparent importance, it is not in them that the interest on Cuyp's works is concentrated. The charm of his compositions is centred entirely in the splendour of the light which illumines them. '^c^^'-; Fig 74. — DEPARTURE FOR A RIDE. — Aalbert Cuyp. (The Louvre.) In this respect he emulated Pieter de Hooch, but Cuyp possessed the conception of light to a higher degree than any other landscape painter, and no one, with the exception of Claude Lorraine, has ever been better able to render the burning heat of midday, or the warm and vibrating rays of the setting sun. Cuyp, however, did not confine himself to repre- 222 DUTCH PAINTING. [Aalbert Cuyp. senting cattle and peaceful groups of herdsmen in broad meadows on the banks of the Meuse. Some- times, as in his " Departure for a Ride," in the Louvre, he became the aristocratic painter of his day. Sometimes he painted marine subjects, and then shows us the Meuse covered with vessels, some of them laden with travellers, as in the beautiful picture in the Six Gallery ; or a stormy sea, as in his sea- scape in the Louvre. He also painted moonlight scenes (Six Gallery) and portraits.* But in these latter subjects he appears to have preserved too much of his original rusticity. His figures are heavy, thick-set, and dumpy, and his colour, profuse and solidly laid on, does not lend itself kindly to representing fresh faces and delicate drapery. Smith has mentioned 335 of his pictures, and yet there are not many of his works on the Continent. . There are some at The Hague, Munich, Antwerp, and Berlin, but everywhere in small number. This cir- cumstance is explained by the fact that Cuyp was for a long time unknown in his own country, and it was in England that justice was first rendered to his talent. Born at Dordrecht in 1605, he died in the same town in 1691. Aalbert Cuyp is unknown to biographers, and the only two circumstances that are recorded about him are that he was the pUpil of his father, Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp (whoui we have already mentioned), and also that he was not only a painter, but a brewer as well. * See in the Dulwich Gallery 192, 114, 83, 141, and 169, as first-rate examples of this painter ; others in his earlier style are in the Gallery. Jan and Andries Both.] LANDSCAPE PAINTERS. 223 In speaking of Aalbert Cuyp and his manner of distributing light, we have mentioned Claude Lorraine. It was he, also, who formed jAN BOTH, not indirectly by a sort of intuition, but directly, by immediate initiation, for Both knew the great Claude at Rome, and took his works as models. Jan Both was born in Fig. 75.— ITALIAN LANDSCAPE.^/a« and Andries Both. 1610 at Utrecht, the son of a glass painter, who gave him his first lessons in drawing, and whilst still young, became the pupil of Abraham Bloemaert, then at the height of his fame, and he soon had as a fellow- pupil his younger brother Andrie,S, who was as much infatuated with painting as he himself. As soon as they were old enough to travel, the two brothers set out. 224 DUTCH PAINTING. [Jan and Andries Both. They travelled through France into Italy, and com- menced their work. Nothing is more touching than their constant and assiduous study together. The elder painted landscapes, high mountains, abruptly- rising rocks, forming a huge amphitheatre, with mountain paths fringed with trees, and roaring cas- cades or smooth lakes in the foreground. The younger painted figures, and introduced in these vast and majestic solitudes shepherds and their flocks,- or muleteers with their primitive carts, and their mules with red trappings and tinkling bells. The result of this habit of working together, this close bond of union which existed between them, was that their styles so closely harmonised, that if at the present time we had no knowledge of this brotherly collabo- ration, it would be impossible to guess it. Both were excellent draughtsmen, and although less pa- thetic than Cuyp, they were much more distinguished. They succeeded in representing admirably the declin- ing hours of the day, and whilst the elder gilded the magic reflections and vaporous summits of his rocks and his beeches, the other dotted the foregrounds with the lengthening and fleeting shadows of figures, the outlines of which were visible in a golden dust. In 1650 Andries died at Venice, his death being the result of imprudence. On leaving a dinner-party one evening, where he had indulged too much in his devotions to Bacchus, he fell from his gondola into the water and was drowned. This was a terrible blow to Jan, who returned to Utrecht in despair, where he survived Andries some years, during which DeHeusch.] LANDSCAPE PAINTERS. 225 time Poelemburg took the lost brother's place, and painted the figures in his large landscapes. The known works of Jan Both number 150. They are unequal in merit, and many of them are of con- siderable dimensions. They all represent Italian scenes. The Louvre possesses two, the Museum of Amsterdam four, that of The Hague two, whilst Brussels has only one. There are some also to be found at Dresden, Berlin, and Munich, but the greater number are in England.* Amongst the pupils of Jan Both was one named Henri Verschuring (1627 — 1690), who, after having travelled much, returned in 1655 to his native town, where he held the position of Burgomaster. His favourite subjects are scenes of military life, of bri- gandage, and adventure. His execution is extremely careful, and his imagination is fertile. There is a certain talent shown in his compositions, but his colour is dull and lacks transparency. Another imi- tator of Jan Both was WiLLEM DE Heusch, his con- temporary and countryman, who, it is said, was also his pupil. De Heusch copied with some truthfulness the effects of the setting sun, but he completely failed in the attempt which he made to transmit to his nephew, JACOB DE Heusch (1657 — 1701) the talent and methods which he himself only received at second-hand. With Jan Both and his pupils we meet with a new * See No. 36 in the Dulwich Gallery for an excellent example of these brothers. Four others, with evidence of the influence of Claude are also in the Gallery. P 226 DUTCH PAINTING. [Herman SaftUven. class of landscape painters. We have no longer to do with earnest interpreters of Dutch country scenes, but are in the presence of " Merry Deserters," who travelled far beyond rivers and mountains in the pursuit of subjects more in harmony with the new notions which had taken root in their country. Before commencing to follow this path, it would be well, perhaps, to say a few words about a group of painters. Philips de Koning, Jan van der Meer (the younger), Herman Saftleven, and Jan Hackaert, who belong to the preceding class, or mark the point of transition. Philips de Koning (1619 — 1689) was the pupil of Rembrandt, and he and his brother-in-law, Fur- nerius, are almost the only disciples of the master who devoted themselves specially to landscape. Philips de Koning delighted in the production of those enormous panoramic views invented by Rem- brandt, and in this somewhat special style he re- sembles his illustrious master so nearly, that a con- fusion has frequently arisen between them. Jan VAN DER Meer (the younger) also followed this distin- guished example. In order to enliven his pictures with flocks of sheep, of which he had made a special study, he chose extended views taken from a height. The banks of the Rhine, where the stream becomes irregular and picturesque, had great attraction for him, and he represented them with the greatest truthfulness. • It was also on the banks of the Rhine and of the Moselle that Herman Saftleven found the subjects Jan Hackacrt.] LANDSCAPE PAINTERS. 227 for his principal compositions. His well-chosen sub- jects, his correct drawing, and his careful execution would make his pictures very valuable if they were not uniformly marred by an antiquated manner, by the rude style in which the objects in his foregrounds are executed, and the over-coloured bluish tint of the backgrounds. One of the best pictures of Saftleven is in the Louvre, No. 583, which gives us an exact view of the talent and defects of this artist.* In spite of his de- fects, however, Saftleven exercised a certain influence over his contemporaries, and several painters, amongst others jAN Griffier f (1656 — 1720), followed his example. Jan Hackaert in some sort marks the transition between the painters who followed the traditions of the North, and those who succumbed to the seduc- tion of the Southern sun. Who his master was is not known, but we do know that while still young he travelled in Germany and Switzerland, and became devoted to the mountains which presented their majestic summits to his view. He subsequently re- turned to The Hague, where he also painted land- scapes of his own country. He formed for himself a second style, and his woodland views, with figures * In the Dulvvich Gallery, No. loi, is a picture in tliis i^rtist's finest style. t Jan Griffier had a son who was born during his visit to England (1688), and christened Robert. This son painted exactly in the same style as his father, whose pupil he was, and confusion has occurred in distinguishing their respective pictures. P 2 228 DUTCH PAINTING. [J. B.Weenix. painted by Adriaen van der Velde or J, Lingelbach, are quite equal to his correctly-drawn and firmly- painted mountain scenery. The Museum of Amster- dam possesses some of his works ; others are to be seen at Dresden, Munich, and the Hermitage. By the side of Hackaert we must also place Anthoni Waterloo, who was born at Lille about 1630, and whom we find at Leeuwarden in 1653, and at Amsterdam in 1661. Somewhat rare as a painter, and better known as an engraver, Waterloo also forms one of the connecting links between the two tendencies, whilst with Jan Baptista Weenix, Nicolaas Berchem, and Karel du Jardin, we find ourselves amongst the Italianising group. III. In order of date, the first of these roving artists is J. B. Weenix. He was born in 161 8, whilst Berchem was born in 1620, and Du Jardin in 1625. His master was Abraham Bloemaert. Early in life he married the daughter of Gilles de Honde- koeter, but his desire to see Italy caused him to leave his young wife and to carry his palette and brushes beyond the Alps. He promised to be absent only four months, but he remained in Rome several years. The choice of his subjects was affected by this long sojourn. The greater part of his pictures represent ruins, amongst which are quietly browsing sheep or goats tended by a shepherd, or badly guarded by a sleeping shepherdess. His colouring is fine and his touch powerful, his painting solid and Nioolaas Bsrchem.] LANDSCAPE PAINTERS. 229 his light superb, approaching that of Pieter de Hooch. His execution, however, is dry, and sometimes even hard, and his style has a certain monotony. His best works are at Munich. Jan Baptista also painted a few seaports, and his " Pirates Re- pulsed " in the Louvre is, perhaps, his best production in this style. On his return to Holland .he estab- FlG. 76.— THE BOAR UVUT .—Nicolaas Berchem. (Museum of The Hague.) lished himself in the neighbourhood of Utrecht, where he died in 1660. If Weenix is the first in order of date of this group of Italianisers, NicoLAAS Berchem, or Berghem, is the most talented. His compositions are noted for their correct drawing and agreeable colour. His bril- liant but somewhat decorative style, marked often by an absence of glazing, his great freedom in the use of 230 DUTCH PAINTING. [Nicolaas Berchem. the brush, together with his poetical sentiment, caused his works even during his life to be much appreciated, and at the present time they have an honourable place in the museums of the Louvre, the Hermitage, Amsterdam, The Hague, Munich, Dresden, and Berlin. Nevertheless, in the end, his shepherds and shepherdesses become monotonous, and the uni- formity of his animals showed that he worked upon a very small number of studies without much refer- ence to nature. Besides this, as is the case with the greater number of painters who have produced numerous and hasty works, he often repeats the same subjects, and there is scarcely a well-furnished gallery in Europe that has not a " Passing the Ford " or a " Woman upon an Ass in Conversation with Another Person," by Berchem. We have to notice in his productions three different and separate styles. In the first — still imbued with the precepts of Van Goyen and N. Moyaert, who were his masters — we find the sentiment inspired by Dutch scenery; then he becomes Italian, but he paints his pictures in warm sun, and preserves his vibrating colour. In his third style he remains Italian, but his lights become silvery and his painting dry, hard, and much more de- corative. Many anecdotes are related of the life of Berchem. It is said that the avarice of his wife left him not a moment's rest, and that she forced him to work unceasingly. It is difficult to say how much of truth there is in these stories, but, if well founded, they would explain the prodigious fecun- Nicolaas Berchem.] LANDSCAPE PAINTERS. 231 dity of a painter relatively careful, whose works, nevertheless, are counted by hundreds. Berchem* died in 1683, rich and honoured. In spite of his success, Berchem had few pupils. Three or four are mentioned, but not more. It is. Fig. 77. — AN ITALIAN FORD.-^Nuolaas Berchem. (Museum of The Hague.) perhaps, rather from a similarity of processes and ideas than on serioiis grounds that a connection is sought to be established between Abraham Begeyn, J. F. Soolmaker, Jan Glauber, Aalbert Meyering, and their alleged master. * See in the Dulwich Gallery, Nos. 160, 209, 200, 132, and 17. 232 DUTCH PAINTING. [Jan Glauber. Jan Glauber (1646 — 1726) was born at Utrecht, of German parents, and is perhaps the only one who, as his pupil, merits our attention ; and he, as soon as he became independent of his master, hastened to set out for Italy. Aalbert Meyer- ING (164s — 1714), his fellow-pupil ^and friend, accompanied him in his journey, but this did not suffice to make our two artists painters of the first order. The works of Glauber, although notable for warm colouririg and extreme care, are far inferior to the works of Berghem, whilst Meyering is still less successful. As to Begeyn and Soolmaker, whose acknowledged works are very few in number (the Museum of Brussels possessing only one picture of each painter), nothing is known of their lives, and their cold talent and opaque colouring are not calcu- lated to raise a feeling of much regret at the obscurity in which their lives are hidden. Karel du Jardin, born, as we have already said, about 1625, died at Venice in 1678. It is stated that he also frequented the studio of Berchem,- but there is nothing to prove this, and we may add that, if he resembles that painter in the choice of his subjects and the brilliancy of his touch, he resembles Paul Potter almost as much by the care and truthfulness with which he represents animals. They are, in fact, more life-like, more varied in pose and bearing, and more faithfully rendered, than those of Berchem. He was a draughtsman far above the average, and all that Karel touched became, under his brush, graceful and distinguished. His fancy has no limits but those Karel du Jardin.] LANDSCAPE PAINTERS. 233 of good taste, his execution is vivid, his colouring rich, and his light harmonious and clear. His smallest compositions are original, ingenious,' and intelligent. His little peasant scenes are almost idylls, while such Fig. 78. — THE REST. — Karel du Jardin. pictures as " The Charlatan '' indicate observation and humour of the first order. Karel du Jardin also painted portraits, and, what is more, life-sized portraits, as, for instance, that of G. Reynst, which measures about fifty inches by forty, in the Amsterdam Museum. He has even painted large pictures representing meetings of the Regents, 234 DUTCH PAINTING. Qan Lingelbach. such as his " Syndics of the House of Correction," a picture which measures about 6ft. 8ih. by about 12ft. 6in., in the same museum ; but in these pictures of vast dimensions the talent of the artist is less apparent. It is impossible, however, to ignore an extraordinary learning in the drawing, remarkable composition, and a profound knowledge of perspective, but their dry, cold, and even wan colouring, their stiff- ness of execution, detract from these works the charm which is to be found in the small pictures of the master, his cascades, and his flocks, all charming works, such as the nine in the very best style by which Karel du Jardin is represented in the Louvre.* It has been stated that Jan Lingelbach was the pupil of Karel du Jardin. We do not know what ground there is for the statement, but it may be that of similarity of talents, although Lingelbach, a painter of German extraction, is heavier and less elegant. Born in 1625 at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, Lingel- bach, whilst still young, removed with his family to Amsterdam. In 1642 he left his adopted country for France, where he remained two years. Then he went to Rome, and returning to Holland eight years after, established himself in Amsterdam, where he died in 1687. The facility with which he posed and draped his little figures caused him to be sought after by the landscape painters of his time for filling in their * See in the Dulwich Gallery, Nos. 229 and 62, for two excellent examples of this artist. Jan Lingelbach ] LANDSCAPE PAINTERS. 235 landscapes and views of towns. This was his prin- cipal occupation. He painted, however, a great number of pictures, principally Italian views, mar- kets, ruined fountains, with a troop of horsemen and muleteers or shepherds. In his large compositions his colouring, remarkable for its silvery tone, be- Fig. 7g. — the hay waggon. — /an Lingeliach. (Museum of The Hague.) comes cold and wan. It is seldom that he escapes this defect. His masterpiece is preserved in the Hotel de Ville of Amsterdam. It represents the Stathuis of that grand and noble city during its construction.* * Nos. 77 "" . 157 Saenredam (Pieter) .... 244 Saftleven (Herman) . . . 226 Schalken (Godfried) . . . 177 Schilderpoort 192 Schlichten (Jan Philips) . . 281 Schoorl (Jan) 43 Sint Jan, see Geertjen van Sint Jan 24 125 91 179 2S8 258 .278 272 39 156 116 272 91 210 210 216 283 48 70 72 91 257 262 267 272 156 216 210 "3 267 202 1 96 72 90 290 INDEX. Slingeland (Pieter van) Soolmaker (j. F. ) . Sorgh, see Rokes Sprang (Gerard). . Staveren (Johannes) Steen (Jan) . . . Steenwick (Hendrick van) Stokade (Nicolaas de Halt) Stoop (Dirck). . . . Stork (Abraham) . . Spilberg (Johannes). Stuerbout, see Bouts . Swanenburgh (Jacob van) Swart (Jan) Tempesta, see Pieter Molyn Tempel (Abraham van den) Terburg (Gerard) . . . Tol (Dominique van) . . Toorenburg (Gerrit) . . Troost (Cornehs). . . . Uchterveld (Jacob) . Ulenburg (Gerard) . Ulft (Jacob van der) the Vecq (Jacob la) . . Veen (Maarlen van), see Maar- ten van Ileemskerck Velde (Adriaen van der) Velde (Esaias van der) . Velde (Jan van der), , Velde (Willem van der elder) Velde (Willem van der younger). . . . Venne (Adriaen van der) Verbeck (Pieter C. ) . . Verboom (Abraham) , Verelst (Pieter) . . . the PAGE 178 231 156 112 179 ISO S3 116 127 257 107 25 89 40 196 107 160 178 258 282 189 91 243 91 46 216 121 250 251 25" 122 135 210 103 Verkolje (Johannes) . . Verkoljc (Nicolaas) . Venneer (Johannes) , Verschuring (Henri) Verschuur (Lieve) . Verspronck (Cornelis) Victoor (Johannes) . Vlieger (Simon de) . Vliet (Hendrick van) Vois (Ary de) . . . Vries (Jan de). . Vries (Jan Vredeman de) Vroom (Hendrick) . . Walkenburg (Theodore) Walscapelle (Jacobus) Waterloo (Anthoni). Weenix (Jan Baptista) Weenix (Jan). . . Werff (Adriaen van der) WerfF (Pieter van der) Wet (Jan de) . . . . Wette (Frans de). . Willemans (Micihiel) Willems (Cornelis) . Withoos (Alida) . . Withoos (Frans). Withoos (Jan).. . . Withoos (Matheus) . Withoos (Pieter). . Witte (Emmanuel de) Wouwerman (Jan) . Wouwerman (Philips) Wouwerman (Pieter) Wulfhagen (Frans) . Wyck (Thomas) . Wynantsz (Jan) . . Zeeman, see Nooms . Zorg, see Rokes . . PAGE ■ 179 180 . 184 . 225 . 258 ■ "3 . 96 • 194 • 247 . 172 . 210 • S3 • 54 . 270 . 262 . 228 . 228 . 269 . 278 . 280 • 91 . 103 • 91 . 48 . 264 . 264 . 264 . 264 . 264 ■ 245 • '35 , 129 ■ 134 . 91 . 236 . 198 • 257 . 156 Printed by Casseu. & Company, Limited, La Bclle Sauvagh, London E.C. This preservation photocopy was made and hand bound at BookLab, Inc., in compliance with copyright law. The paper is Weyerhaeuser Cougar Opaque Natural, which exceeds ANSI Standard Z39.48-1984. 1993