Nicolas Poussin(French: 1593-1665).See39.
"The work of a really great and intellectual mind, one of the finest landscapes that ancient art has produced"[75](Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. i. § 8),—its excellence consisting in the perfect harmony of the landscape with the subject represented, and thus marking the painter's sense of the dependence of landscape for its greatest impressiveness on human interest. In the foreground to the left is Phocion "the good"—the incorruptible Athenian general and statesman, contemporary with Philip and Alexander the Great, of whom it is recorded that he was "never elated in prosperity nor dejected in adversity," and "never betrayed pusillanimity by a tear nor joy by a smile." He wears an undyed robe, and is washing his feet at a public fountain, the dress and action being thus alike emblematic of the purity and simplicity of his life. In entire keeping with this figure of noble simplicity is the feeling of the landscape in which "all the air a solemn stillness holds." In detail, however, Ruskin finds the picture deficient in truth—false, indeed, both in tone and colour (seeibid., vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. ii. § 5).
Ascribed to Cariani. See under1203.
For the legend, see under 812—a more pleasing version of the same subject. The man was afterwards regarded as a martyr and canonised; and here, too, notice that he is made to see the angels as he dies.
Nicolas Poussin(French: 1593-1665).See39.
A realisation of the classic legends of mirth and jollity, precisely in the spirit of Keats's odeOn a Grecian Urn—
A realisation of the classic legends of mirth and jollity, precisely in the spirit of Keats's odeOn a Grecian Urn—
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shapeOf deities or mortals, or of both,In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?What men or gods are these? What maidens loath?What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shapeOf deities or mortals, or of both,In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?What men or gods are these? What maidens loath?What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
"This masterpiece, conceived in the manner of Titian and imbued with the spirit of the antique, full of life, and incomparable for its qualities of drawing and painting, is perhaps the most beautiful work which Nicolas Poussin ever painted, and, with the 'Bacchanalian Dance' (No. 62), is among the most valued possessions of the National Gallery" (Poynter:The National Gallery, ii. 104).
"This masterpiece, conceived in the manner of Titian and imbued with the spirit of the antique, full of life, and incomparable for its qualities of drawing and painting, is perhaps the most beautiful work which Nicolas Poussin ever painted, and, with the 'Bacchanalian Dance' (No. 62), is among the most valued possessions of the National Gallery" (Poynter:The National Gallery, ii. 104).
Rembrandt(Dutch: 1606-1669).See45.
A sketch for a composition which Rembrandt etched and also drew. The drawing is in the British Museum. This sketch was formerly in the possession of Sir Joshua Reynolds, at whose sale it was bought by Sir George Beaumont.
J. van Ruysdael(Dutch: 1628-1682).See627.
This little picture, which dates from the earliest days of the National Gallery, was for many years obscured with dirt and not exhibited to the public. It has recently been cleaned, and shows one of the painter's favourite subjects—the bleaching grounds in the neighbourhood of Haarlem. Before the discovery of chemical means of bleaching linen, these were a great source of income to the town. Linen was brought here from all parts of the continent to be bleached, and then went back as Dutch linen or Holland.
Rembrandt(Dutch: 1606-1669).
Rembrandt Harmensz—called also Van Rhyn, "of the Rhine," from having been born on the banks of that river—has a place apart by himself in the history of painting. He is the greatest genius of the Dutch School, and one of the six supreme masters of the world. He is also one of the most distinctive and individual of them all. In what, let us ask, do the genius and the individuality of Rembrandt consist? In the first place, his mastery of the resources of painting, within the sphere and for the ideals he chose for himself, is surpassed by no other artist. "It will be remembered," said Millais, "that Rembrandt in his first period was very careful and minute in detail, and there is evidence of stippling in his flesh-painting; but when he grew older, and in the fulness of his power, all appearance of such manipulation and minuteness vanished in the breadth and facility of his brush, though the advantage of his early manner remained. The latter manner is, of course, much the finer and really the more finished of the two.[76]I have closely examined his pictures at the National Gallery, and have actuallyseen, beneath that grand veil of breadth, the early work that his art conceals from untrained eyes—the whole science of painting. And herein lies his superiority to Velazquez, who, with all his mighty power and magnificent execution, never rose to the perfection which, above all with painters, consists inars celare artem" (Magazine of Art, 1888, p. 291). "Rembrandt," says Sir Frederic Burton, "would have been unparalleled had he treated nothing but frivolous subjects"; but, in the second place, "the artist was a poet and a seer." He was a seer in his penetration into the mind of man; a poet in his perception of a special kind of beauty. His portraits have "an inward life that belongs to no others in a like degree." It is as a painter of character that he shows himself supreme, bringing out the personality of his sitters in their gestures and attitudes, and in the peculiarity of bearing and expression stamped upon them by temperament and habits. From his dramatic action and mastery of expression, Rembrandt has been called "the Shakespeare of Holland." In his religious subjects, the originality of his mind and power of his imagination are also conspicuous. "He gives," says Ruskin, "pathetic or powerful fancies, founded on real Scripture reading, and on his interest in the picturesque character of the Jew." In all subjects alike, "he moves us by his profound sympathy with his kind, by his tragic power, by his deep pathos, by his humour, which is thoroughly human and seldom cynical." What he held up to nature—and herein is Rembrandt's individualitymost marked—was the dark mirror. "He was," says Leighton, "the supreme painter who revealed to the world the poetry of twilight and all the magic mystery of gloom." "He was in the mystery," says Burton, "that underlies the surface of things." "He accosts with his dark lantern," says Fromentin, "the world of the marvellous, of conscience, and the ideal; he has no master in the art of painting, because he has no equal in the power of showing the invisible." "It was his function," says another critic, "to introduce mystery as an element of effect in the imitative arts." "As by a stroke of enchantment Rembrandt brought down a cloud over the face of nature, and beneath it, half-revealed, half-hidden, her shapes met the eye in aspects full of new suggestion."[77]In the technical method by which Rembrandt worked out his ideal he is the great master of the school of chiaroscuro—of those, that is, who strive at representing not so much the colours of objects, as the contrasts of light and shade upon them. "If it were possible for art to give all the truths of nature it ought to do it. But this is not possible. Choice must always be made of some facts whichcanbe represented from among others which must be passed by in silence, or even, in some respects, misrepresented.... Rembrandt always chooses to represent the exact force with which the light on the most illumined part of an object is opposed to its obscurer portions. In order to obtain this, in most cases, not very important truth, he sacrifices the light and colour of five-sixths of his picture; and theexpression of every character of objects which depends on tenderness of shape or tint. But he obtains his single truth, and what picturesque and forcible expression is dependent upon it, with magnificent skill and subtlety."[78]Rembrandt "sacrifices the light and colour of five-sixths of his picture." This is inevitable. For both the light and the darkness of nature are inimitable by art. "The whole question, therefore, is simply whether you will be false at one end of the scale or at the other—that is, whether you will lose yourself in light or in darkness.... What Veronese does is to make his colours true to nature as far as he can. What Rembrandt does is to make his contrasts true, never minding his colours—with the result that in most cases not one colour is absolutely true."[79]An exception, however, must be made. For he often "chose subjects in which the real colours were very nearly imitable,—as single heads with dark backgrounds, in which nature's highest light was little above his own." He was particularly fond also of dark scenes lighted only by some small spot of light; as, for instance, in this picture and in No. 47.The technical skill and sense of power which distinguish Rembrandt's work are reflected in his life—a life of hard labour, sinking towards its close into deep gloom, and a life at all times of a certain aloofness and of restricted vision. He was born at Leyden, being the fifth child of a miller, and from a very early age set himself to etch and sketch the common things about the mill. "His father's mill was, doubtless, Rembrandt's school; the strong and solitary light, with its impenetrable obscurity around, the characteristic feature of many of Rembrandt's best works, is just such an effect as would be produced by the one ray admitted into the lofty chamber of a mill from the small window, its ventilator" (Wornum). He never went to Italy or cultivated the grand style. He studied the life and manner of his own time and people. His models were not conspicuous for elegance; beauty of form was not within the compass of his art. He was indefatigable in making studies both of himself and of his mother. Among the things he studied were, it must be admitted, the lowest functions of humanity and often obscenities of a rollicking kind; coarseness of manner and conversation was common at that time. Rembrandt studied for a short period under a well-known painter, Pieter Lastman, at Amsterdam, where he had for a fellow-pupil a fellow-townsman, Jan Lievens (see 1095), but returned to Leyden in1624, determined "to study and practise in his own fashion." He soon acquired a considerable reputation; a Dutch poet, in a book published in 1630, refers to him as an instance of precocity, and in disproof of the doctrine of heredity. Rembrandt, "beardless, yet already famous," was the son of a miller, "made of other flour than his father's." As most of his sitters lived in Amsterdam, then a great centre of wealth and learning, Rembrandt moved to that city in 1631. The famous "Anatomy Lesson," now in the Museum at the Hague, was produced in the following year. "He lived very simply," we are told, "and when at work contented himself with a herring or a piece of cheese and bread; his only extravagance was a passion for collecting." In 1634 he married Saskia Uilenburg, a lady of a good Frisian family, and possessed of some fortune. Her features may be recognised in a large number of the painter's pictures; in none more attractively rendered than in the famous picture of the Dresden Gallery, in which she is sitting on her husband's knee. During this period of Rembrandt's life all went well with him. Commissions poured in; his studio was crowded with scholars, and his etchings spread his fame far beyond his native land. He lived for his art and his home, mixing little in society. "When I want to give my wits a rest," he said, "I do not look for honour, but for liberty." "When he was painting," said one of his biographers, "he would not have given audience to the greatest monarch on earth, but would have compelled even such an one to wait or to come again when he was more at leisure." He never travelled, even in Holland, and he dwelt apart. He had few books, but his taste in art was catholic. To his passion for collecting we have already referred. His house, which still stands in the Breedstraat, was a museum of curiosities, containing costly materials, stuffed animals, richly ornamented weapons, casts, engravings, and pictures (including works by Palma Vecchio and Giorgione). The pearls, precious stones, rich necklaces, clasps and bracelets of every kind that Saskia wears in her portraits were not gems of the painter's imagination, but actual objects from the jewel-cases which he filled for his wife. "When Rembrandt was present at a sale," says Baldinucci, "it was his habit, especially when pictures drawn by great masters were put up, to make an enormous advance on the first bid, which generally silenced all competition. To those who expressed their surprise at such a proceeding, he replied that by this means he hoped to raise the status of his profession." This lordly buying was the undoing of Rembrandt's worldly fortunes. In 1642 Saskia died, and his financial embarrassments, which had already begun, went from worse to worse. In 1656 he was declared bankrupt; his house and collections were sold, and at the age of fifty-one he found himself homeless and penniless. He was stripped, we read, even of his household linen, though of this, to be sure, he seems to have had but a meagre store. In his life, as in his art, there were heavy shadows; but the light shines out in his undaunted perseverance. He had lived for some years with hisservant, Hendrickje Stoffels, an uneducated peasant, who served him as a model, and whose homely features appear in many of the pictures of his middle period (see e.g.No. 54). In 1654 Rembrandt had been summoned before the elders of the Church on account of the irregularity of their relationship. But Hendrickje was a good mother to Rembrandt's legitimate children as well as to her own, and in 1660 she and the painter's son, Titus, entered into partnership as art dealers, and supported Rembrandt by the sale of his etchings. His vogue as a painter had by this time been eclipsed by the popularity of painters of less sombre genius. Fallen from his rich estate and frowned upon by the Church, the master found himself in the last period of his life deserted and unhonoured. Yet to this period belong many of his noblest works. "He had never cared," says M. Michel, "for the suffrages of the crowd. He set his face more steadily than ever towards the goal he had marked out for himself. Within the walls of his makeshift studios, seeking solace in work and meditation, he lived for his art more absolutely than before; and some of his creations of this period have a poetry and a depth of expression such as he had never hitherto achieved." But fresh sorrows descended upon the master as the end drew near. Hendrickje died about 1664, and this blow was followed in 1668 by the death of Titus. Crushed in spirit and broken by poverty, the old painter did not long survive his son. He died in 1669—unknown, unrecorded, and dishonoured. Gerard de Lairesse, then at the height of his reputation, said of him only that he was a master "who merely achieved an effect of rottenness," and was "capable of nothing but vulgar and prosaic subjects." Now, two centuries and a quarter after his death, Rembrandt's fame stands higher than even in the heyday of his success. His work as a painter is represented in the National Gallery by several masterpieces. Of his drawings and etchings the British Museum possesses a splendid collection; an exhibition of these (illustrated by an admirable Catalogue) was arranged in 1899.
Rembrandt Harmensz—called also Van Rhyn, "of the Rhine," from having been born on the banks of that river—has a place apart by himself in the history of painting. He is the greatest genius of the Dutch School, and one of the six supreme masters of the world. He is also one of the most distinctive and individual of them all. In what, let us ask, do the genius and the individuality of Rembrandt consist? In the first place, his mastery of the resources of painting, within the sphere and for the ideals he chose for himself, is surpassed by no other artist. "It will be remembered," said Millais, "that Rembrandt in his first period was very careful and minute in detail, and there is evidence of stippling in his flesh-painting; but when he grew older, and in the fulness of his power, all appearance of such manipulation and minuteness vanished in the breadth and facility of his brush, though the advantage of his early manner remained. The latter manner is, of course, much the finer and really the more finished of the two.[76]I have closely examined his pictures at the National Gallery, and have actuallyseen, beneath that grand veil of breadth, the early work that his art conceals from untrained eyes—the whole science of painting. And herein lies his superiority to Velazquez, who, with all his mighty power and magnificent execution, never rose to the perfection which, above all with painters, consists inars celare artem" (Magazine of Art, 1888, p. 291). "Rembrandt," says Sir Frederic Burton, "would have been unparalleled had he treated nothing but frivolous subjects"; but, in the second place, "the artist was a poet and a seer." He was a seer in his penetration into the mind of man; a poet in his perception of a special kind of beauty. His portraits have "an inward life that belongs to no others in a like degree." It is as a painter of character that he shows himself supreme, bringing out the personality of his sitters in their gestures and attitudes, and in the peculiarity of bearing and expression stamped upon them by temperament and habits. From his dramatic action and mastery of expression, Rembrandt has been called "the Shakespeare of Holland." In his religious subjects, the originality of his mind and power of his imagination are also conspicuous. "He gives," says Ruskin, "pathetic or powerful fancies, founded on real Scripture reading, and on his interest in the picturesque character of the Jew." In all subjects alike, "he moves us by his profound sympathy with his kind, by his tragic power, by his deep pathos, by his humour, which is thoroughly human and seldom cynical." What he held up to nature—and herein is Rembrandt's individualitymost marked—was the dark mirror. "He was," says Leighton, "the supreme painter who revealed to the world the poetry of twilight and all the magic mystery of gloom." "He was in the mystery," says Burton, "that underlies the surface of things." "He accosts with his dark lantern," says Fromentin, "the world of the marvellous, of conscience, and the ideal; he has no master in the art of painting, because he has no equal in the power of showing the invisible." "It was his function," says another critic, "to introduce mystery as an element of effect in the imitative arts." "As by a stroke of enchantment Rembrandt brought down a cloud over the face of nature, and beneath it, half-revealed, half-hidden, her shapes met the eye in aspects full of new suggestion."[77]In the technical method by which Rembrandt worked out his ideal he is the great master of the school of chiaroscuro—of those, that is, who strive at representing not so much the colours of objects, as the contrasts of light and shade upon them. "If it were possible for art to give all the truths of nature it ought to do it. But this is not possible. Choice must always be made of some facts whichcanbe represented from among others which must be passed by in silence, or even, in some respects, misrepresented.... Rembrandt always chooses to represent the exact force with which the light on the most illumined part of an object is opposed to its obscurer portions. In order to obtain this, in most cases, not very important truth, he sacrifices the light and colour of five-sixths of his picture; and theexpression of every character of objects which depends on tenderness of shape or tint. But he obtains his single truth, and what picturesque and forcible expression is dependent upon it, with magnificent skill and subtlety."[78]Rembrandt "sacrifices the light and colour of five-sixths of his picture." This is inevitable. For both the light and the darkness of nature are inimitable by art. "The whole question, therefore, is simply whether you will be false at one end of the scale or at the other—that is, whether you will lose yourself in light or in darkness.... What Veronese does is to make his colours true to nature as far as he can. What Rembrandt does is to make his contrasts true, never minding his colours—with the result that in most cases not one colour is absolutely true."[79]An exception, however, must be made. For he often "chose subjects in which the real colours were very nearly imitable,—as single heads with dark backgrounds, in which nature's highest light was little above his own." He was particularly fond also of dark scenes lighted only by some small spot of light; as, for instance, in this picture and in No. 47.
The technical skill and sense of power which distinguish Rembrandt's work are reflected in his life—a life of hard labour, sinking towards its close into deep gloom, and a life at all times of a certain aloofness and of restricted vision. He was born at Leyden, being the fifth child of a miller, and from a very early age set himself to etch and sketch the common things about the mill. "His father's mill was, doubtless, Rembrandt's school; the strong and solitary light, with its impenetrable obscurity around, the characteristic feature of many of Rembrandt's best works, is just such an effect as would be produced by the one ray admitted into the lofty chamber of a mill from the small window, its ventilator" (Wornum). He never went to Italy or cultivated the grand style. He studied the life and manner of his own time and people. His models were not conspicuous for elegance; beauty of form was not within the compass of his art. He was indefatigable in making studies both of himself and of his mother. Among the things he studied were, it must be admitted, the lowest functions of humanity and often obscenities of a rollicking kind; coarseness of manner and conversation was common at that time. Rembrandt studied for a short period under a well-known painter, Pieter Lastman, at Amsterdam, where he had for a fellow-pupil a fellow-townsman, Jan Lievens (see 1095), but returned to Leyden in1624, determined "to study and practise in his own fashion." He soon acquired a considerable reputation; a Dutch poet, in a book published in 1630, refers to him as an instance of precocity, and in disproof of the doctrine of heredity. Rembrandt, "beardless, yet already famous," was the son of a miller, "made of other flour than his father's." As most of his sitters lived in Amsterdam, then a great centre of wealth and learning, Rembrandt moved to that city in 1631. The famous "Anatomy Lesson," now in the Museum at the Hague, was produced in the following year. "He lived very simply," we are told, "and when at work contented himself with a herring or a piece of cheese and bread; his only extravagance was a passion for collecting." In 1634 he married Saskia Uilenburg, a lady of a good Frisian family, and possessed of some fortune. Her features may be recognised in a large number of the painter's pictures; in none more attractively rendered than in the famous picture of the Dresden Gallery, in which she is sitting on her husband's knee. During this period of Rembrandt's life all went well with him. Commissions poured in; his studio was crowded with scholars, and his etchings spread his fame far beyond his native land. He lived for his art and his home, mixing little in society. "When I want to give my wits a rest," he said, "I do not look for honour, but for liberty." "When he was painting," said one of his biographers, "he would not have given audience to the greatest monarch on earth, but would have compelled even such an one to wait or to come again when he was more at leisure." He never travelled, even in Holland, and he dwelt apart. He had few books, but his taste in art was catholic. To his passion for collecting we have already referred. His house, which still stands in the Breedstraat, was a museum of curiosities, containing costly materials, stuffed animals, richly ornamented weapons, casts, engravings, and pictures (including works by Palma Vecchio and Giorgione). The pearls, precious stones, rich necklaces, clasps and bracelets of every kind that Saskia wears in her portraits were not gems of the painter's imagination, but actual objects from the jewel-cases which he filled for his wife. "When Rembrandt was present at a sale," says Baldinucci, "it was his habit, especially when pictures drawn by great masters were put up, to make an enormous advance on the first bid, which generally silenced all competition. To those who expressed their surprise at such a proceeding, he replied that by this means he hoped to raise the status of his profession." This lordly buying was the undoing of Rembrandt's worldly fortunes. In 1642 Saskia died, and his financial embarrassments, which had already begun, went from worse to worse. In 1656 he was declared bankrupt; his house and collections were sold, and at the age of fifty-one he found himself homeless and penniless. He was stripped, we read, even of his household linen, though of this, to be sure, he seems to have had but a meagre store. In his life, as in his art, there were heavy shadows; but the light shines out in his undaunted perseverance. He had lived for some years with hisservant, Hendrickje Stoffels, an uneducated peasant, who served him as a model, and whose homely features appear in many of the pictures of his middle period (see e.g.No. 54). In 1654 Rembrandt had been summoned before the elders of the Church on account of the irregularity of their relationship. But Hendrickje was a good mother to Rembrandt's legitimate children as well as to her own, and in 1660 she and the painter's son, Titus, entered into partnership as art dealers, and supported Rembrandt by the sale of his etchings. His vogue as a painter had by this time been eclipsed by the popularity of painters of less sombre genius. Fallen from his rich estate and frowned upon by the Church, the master found himself in the last period of his life deserted and unhonoured. Yet to this period belong many of his noblest works. "He had never cared," says M. Michel, "for the suffrages of the crowd. He set his face more steadily than ever towards the goal he had marked out for himself. Within the walls of his makeshift studios, seeking solace in work and meditation, he lived for his art more absolutely than before; and some of his creations of this period have a poetry and a depth of expression such as he had never hitherto achieved." But fresh sorrows descended upon the master as the end drew near. Hendrickje died about 1664, and this blow was followed in 1668 by the death of Titus. Crushed in spirit and broken by poverty, the old painter did not long survive his son. He died in 1669—unknown, unrecorded, and dishonoured. Gerard de Lairesse, then at the height of his reputation, said of him only that he was a master "who merely achieved an effect of rottenness," and was "capable of nothing but vulgar and prosaic subjects." Now, two centuries and a quarter after his death, Rembrandt's fame stands higher than even in the heyday of his success. His work as a painter is represented in the National Gallery by several masterpieces. Of his drawings and etchings the British Museum possesses a splendid collection; an exhibition of these (illustrated by an admirable Catalogue) was arranged in 1899.
Atour de forcein the artist's speciality of contrasts of light and shade. Notice how a succession of these contrasts gradually renders the subject intelligible. "The eye falls at once upon the woman, who is dressed in white, passes then to the figure of Christ, which next to her is the most strongly lighted—and so on to Peter, to the Pharisees, to the soldiers, till at length it perceives in the mysterious gloom of the Temple the High Altar, with the worshippers on the steps" (Waagen:Treasures of Art in Great Britain, i. 353). "Beyond the ordinary claims of art, this picture commands our attention from the grand conception of the painter, who here, as in other pictures and etchings, has invested Christ with a majestic dignity which recalls Leonardo and no other" (J. F. White).
This picture, which was painted in 1644 for Jan Six, the well-known patron of Rembrandt, passed eventually into the possession of Mr. Angerstein. The poet Wordsworth, describing a visit he paid to the Angerstein collection, wrote to Sir George Beaumont in 1808: "Coleridge and I availed ourselves of your letters to Lawrence, and saw Mr. Angerstein's pictures. The day was very unfavourable, not a gleam of sun, and the clouds were quite in disgrace. The great picture of Michael Angelo and Sebastian (No. 1) pleased me more than ever. The new Rembrandt has, I think, much, very much, in it to admire, but still more towonder atrather than admire. I have seen many pictures of Rembrandt which I should prefer to it. The light in thedepthof the temple is far the finest part of it: indeed, it is the only part of the picture which gives me veryhighpleasure; but that does highly please me" (Memorials of Coleorton, ii. 49).
Rubens(Flemish: 1577-1640).See38.
This picture was presented in 1630 to King Charles I. by Rubens, when he came to England as accredited ambassador for the purpose of negotiating a peace with Spain. After the death of Charles, the Parliament sold the picture for £100. It passed into the possession of the Doria family at Genoa, where it was known as "The Family of Rubens." It was afterwards bought by the Marquis of Stafford for £3000, and by him presented to the National Gallery.[80]
The circumstances under which the picture was painted gave the clue to its meaning. Rubens came to urge Charles to conclude peace, and here on canvas he sets forth its blessings. In the centre of the picture is the Goddess ofWisdom, with Minerva's helmet on her head, her right hand resting on her spear, now to be used no more. Before her fliesWar, reluctantly, as if he dared not resist Wisdom, yet employing his shield, in order still to shelterDiscord, with her torch now extinguished. Last of all in the hateful train isMalice, whose very breath is fire, and who "endeth foul in many a snaky fold"—in the serpent's folds, which ever attend the hostilities of nations. Beneath Minerva's protection sitsPeaceenthroned, and gives the milk of human kindness for babes to suck. From above, Zephyrus, the soft warm wind, descends with the olive wreath—the emblem in all ages of public peace, whilst at her side stands the "all-bounteous Pan," with Amalthea's storied Horn ofPlenty. A band of happy children, led byLove(whose torch, now that Discord's is gone out, burns aloft), approach to taste the sweets of Peace, and to minister to abundance. In the train of Plenty comesOpulence, bringing goblets, wreaths of pearl, and other treasures; whilst behind isMusic, playing on her tambourine to celebrate the arts of peace. Last of all in the foreground is a leopard, not hurting or destroying any more, but playful as a lamb—
All crimes shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail;Returning Justice lift aloft her scale;Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend,And white-rob'd Innocence from heaven descend....No more shall nation against nation rise,Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes....The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead,And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead.
All crimes shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail;Returning Justice lift aloft her scale;Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend,And white-rob'd Innocence from heaven descend....No more shall nation against nation rise,Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes....The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead,And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead.
Pope:Messiah.
Rembrandt(Dutch: 1606-1669).See45.
A characteristic piece of "Bible by candle-light." There is, however, something spiritually instructive, as well as technically skilful, in the way in which such light there is all proceeds from Him who came to be the light of the world: compared with this divine light that in the lantern of the shepherds pales and is ineffectual. The picture is dated 1646. For the most part, however, the picture is a piece of pure realism, which may be contrasted in an instructive way with the essentially religious art of earlier schools. Here there is little, if any, symbolism, and "the decorative qualities with which a painter like Botticelli appealed to the imagination to heighten the impressiveness of the story have vanished also. In their stead we have pure naturalism,—naturalism of a very refined and cultured order, which appeals to the imagination as powerfully, but in a totally different way. The charm of the picture is independent of any exegetical qualities. Rembrandt treats the Nativity as a natural event, in a scientific spirit. The only connection between this picture and religious art is that it represents certain conventional attributes which are common to both. But just so much as we subtract from it as an exponent of strictly religious thought, just so much must we add to it as appealing to the intellect in general; its impressiveness, its sublimity, and its suggestiveness, and it has all these, are evolved out of the phenomena of natural effects by a poetical process" (J. E. Hodgson, R.A., inMagazine of Art, 1890, p. 42).
Domenichino(Eclectic-Bologna, 1581-1641).
Domenico Zampieri, called Domenichino for his small stature, was born at Bologna, the son of a shoemaker. He entered the school of the Carracci, and afterwards was invited to Rome by Albani, in whose house he lived. Here he soon acquired a great reputation, and was taken by Annibale Carracci as assistant in the execution of the frescoes of the Farnese Palace. The Cardinals Borghese and Aldobrandini were also among his patrons. In 1617 he revisited Bologna, where he married. In 1621 he was recalled to Rome by the Pope Gregory XV., who appointed him principal painter and architect to the pontifical palace.Some of the villas at Frascati were designed by him. In 1630 he was invited to Naples to decorate the Cappella del Tesoro of the Duomo, a commission which Guido Reni sought in vain. Here Domenichino incurred the hostility of the Neapolitan painters, and the machinations of the notorious triumvirate, the "Cabal of Naples," were suspected of causing his death. At Rome also he had been much persecuted by rival artists. Accusations of plagiarism were levelled at him, and his more pushing competitors "decried him to such a degree that he was long destitute of all commissions." It is interesting to contrast the conditions of (literally) "cut-throat competition," under which the Italian painters of the decadence worked, with the Guild System of the Flemish and the honourable time and piece-work of the earlier Italians.The varying fortunes of Domenichino's fame form a curious chapter in the history of taste. In his own time and down to the end of the eighteenth century he was ranked among the greatest masters. Poussin placed him next to Raphael. Bellori attributed to him "the same wand which belongs to the poetical enchanters." Sir Joshua Reynolds speaks of him with high respect, and Lanzi describes him as the admiration of all professors, and records the enormous price which his pictures still fetched (1809). Against these panegyrics we may set Ruskin's invectives. "I once supposed," he says, "that there was some life in the landscape of Domenichino, but in this I must have been wrong. The man who painted the 'Madonna del Rosario' and 'Martyrdom of St. Agnes' in the gallery of Bologna is palpably incapable of doing anything good, great, or right, in any field, way, or kind whatsoever.... Whatever appears good in any of the doings of such a painter must be deceptive, and we may be assured that our taste is corrupted and false whenever we feel disposed to admire him.... I am prepared to support this position, however uncharitable it may seem; a man may be tempted into a gross sin by passion and forgiven, and yet there are some kinds of sins into which only men of a certain kind can be tempted, and which cannot be forgiven. It should be added, however, that the artistical qualities of these pictures are in every way worthy of the conceptions they realise; I do not recollect any instance of colour or execution so coarse and feelingless." Domenichino and the Carraccis were, says Ruskin elsewhere, mere "art-weeds." "Their landscape, which may in few words be accurately described as 'scum of Titian,' possesses no single merit, nor any ground for the forgiveness of demerit." "The flight of Domenichino's angels is a sprawl paralysed." "They are peculiarly offensive, studies of bare-legged children howling and kicking in volumes of smoke" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 13; vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 17; vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. xviii. § 20;Stones of Venice, travellers' edition, vol. ii. ch. vi.;On the Old Road, vol. i. § 91). Ruskin's estimate, "though expressed with such a clangour of emphasis," yet fairly represents, as Mr. Symonds says, the feeling of modern students. Perhaps, however, the reaction against the once worshipped pictures of Domenichino has gone too far.His celebrated "Diana and her Nymphs" in the Borghese Gallery is "a charming picture," says Morelli, "worthy of a purer period of art. Full of cheerful animation and naïve and delightful details, it cannot fail to please" (Roman Galleries, p. 228). Of the moral obliquity which Ruskin seems to impute, Domenichino must be acquitted. He appears to have been a simple, modest, painstaking, and virtuous person. "He was misled by his dramatic bias, and also by the prevalent religious temper of his age. That he belonged to a school which was essentially vulgar in its choice of type, to a city never distinguished for delicacy of taste, and to a generation which was rapidly losing the sense of artistic reserve, suffices to explain the crude brutality of the conceptions which he formed of tragic episodes" (Symonds,Renaissance, vii. 220). Lanzi says with truth that Domenichino's style of painting is "almost theatrical." He tears the passion of his figures to tatters—"exaggerated action destroying," as Ruskin says, "all appearance of intense feeling." An interesting tale is told of the way in which the artist worked himself up. He was engaged on a scene of martyrdom, and "in painting one of the executioners he actually threw himself into a passion, using threatening words and actions. Annibale Carracci, surprising him at that moment, embraced him, exclaiming with joy, 'To-day, my Domenichino, thou art teaching me.'"
Domenico Zampieri, called Domenichino for his small stature, was born at Bologna, the son of a shoemaker. He entered the school of the Carracci, and afterwards was invited to Rome by Albani, in whose house he lived. Here he soon acquired a great reputation, and was taken by Annibale Carracci as assistant in the execution of the frescoes of the Farnese Palace. The Cardinals Borghese and Aldobrandini were also among his patrons. In 1617 he revisited Bologna, where he married. In 1621 he was recalled to Rome by the Pope Gregory XV., who appointed him principal painter and architect to the pontifical palace.Some of the villas at Frascati were designed by him. In 1630 he was invited to Naples to decorate the Cappella del Tesoro of the Duomo, a commission which Guido Reni sought in vain. Here Domenichino incurred the hostility of the Neapolitan painters, and the machinations of the notorious triumvirate, the "Cabal of Naples," were suspected of causing his death. At Rome also he had been much persecuted by rival artists. Accusations of plagiarism were levelled at him, and his more pushing competitors "decried him to such a degree that he was long destitute of all commissions." It is interesting to contrast the conditions of (literally) "cut-throat competition," under which the Italian painters of the decadence worked, with the Guild System of the Flemish and the honourable time and piece-work of the earlier Italians.
The varying fortunes of Domenichino's fame form a curious chapter in the history of taste. In his own time and down to the end of the eighteenth century he was ranked among the greatest masters. Poussin placed him next to Raphael. Bellori attributed to him "the same wand which belongs to the poetical enchanters." Sir Joshua Reynolds speaks of him with high respect, and Lanzi describes him as the admiration of all professors, and records the enormous price which his pictures still fetched (1809). Against these panegyrics we may set Ruskin's invectives. "I once supposed," he says, "that there was some life in the landscape of Domenichino, but in this I must have been wrong. The man who painted the 'Madonna del Rosario' and 'Martyrdom of St. Agnes' in the gallery of Bologna is palpably incapable of doing anything good, great, or right, in any field, way, or kind whatsoever.... Whatever appears good in any of the doings of such a painter must be deceptive, and we may be assured that our taste is corrupted and false whenever we feel disposed to admire him.... I am prepared to support this position, however uncharitable it may seem; a man may be tempted into a gross sin by passion and forgiven, and yet there are some kinds of sins into which only men of a certain kind can be tempted, and which cannot be forgiven. It should be added, however, that the artistical qualities of these pictures are in every way worthy of the conceptions they realise; I do not recollect any instance of colour or execution so coarse and feelingless." Domenichino and the Carraccis were, says Ruskin elsewhere, mere "art-weeds." "Their landscape, which may in few words be accurately described as 'scum of Titian,' possesses no single merit, nor any ground for the forgiveness of demerit." "The flight of Domenichino's angels is a sprawl paralysed." "They are peculiarly offensive, studies of bare-legged children howling and kicking in volumes of smoke" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 13; vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 17; vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. xviii. § 20;Stones of Venice, travellers' edition, vol. ii. ch. vi.;On the Old Road, vol. i. § 91). Ruskin's estimate, "though expressed with such a clangour of emphasis," yet fairly represents, as Mr. Symonds says, the feeling of modern students. Perhaps, however, the reaction against the once worshipped pictures of Domenichino has gone too far.His celebrated "Diana and her Nymphs" in the Borghese Gallery is "a charming picture," says Morelli, "worthy of a purer period of art. Full of cheerful animation and naïve and delightful details, it cannot fail to please" (Roman Galleries, p. 228). Of the moral obliquity which Ruskin seems to impute, Domenichino must be acquitted. He appears to have been a simple, modest, painstaking, and virtuous person. "He was misled by his dramatic bias, and also by the prevalent religious temper of his age. That he belonged to a school which was essentially vulgar in its choice of type, to a city never distinguished for delicacy of taste, and to a generation which was rapidly losing the sense of artistic reserve, suffices to explain the crude brutality of the conceptions which he formed of tragic episodes" (Symonds,Renaissance, vii. 220). Lanzi says with truth that Domenichino's style of painting is "almost theatrical." He tears the passion of his figures to tatters—"exaggerated action destroying," as Ruskin says, "all appearance of intense feeling." An interesting tale is told of the way in which the artist worked himself up. He was engaged on a scene of martyrdom, and "in painting one of the executioners he actually threw himself into a passion, using threatening words and actions. Annibale Carracci, surprising him at that moment, embraced him, exclaiming with joy, 'To-day, my Domenichino, thou art teaching me.'"
Tobias, directed by the angel, is drawing out of the water the fish that attacked him.Seethe Book of Tobit, ch. vi. 4, 5, and the note on No. 781.
Van Dyck(Flemish: 1599-1641).
Sir Anthony Van Dyck, the prince of court portrait-painters and the most famous of Rubens's pupils, is one of the many great artists whose gifts showed themselves almost from birth. He was born at Antwerp, the seventh child of a tradesman in good circumstances. His mother was a woman of taste, who attained considerable skill in art-needlework, and from her he doubtless derived many of the qualities for which his works are conspicuous. At the age of ten the boy had already begun to paint. His admission at the age of thirteen to the crowded studio of Rubens is a proof of his precocious talent. Documents recently discovered show that Van Dyck when seventeen had already pupils of his own, and that his independent work was sought after by artists and amateurs. At nineteen he was admitted to the painters' Guild of St. Luke. For five years (1620-25) he was for the most part travelling and painting in Italy, with introductions from Rubens. Many of his best works are still to be seen in Genoa and Turin. He also visited Venice, where the spell of Titian's genius enchanted him. Severalsketches in the British Museum testify to his devout study of the great Venetian. On his return to Antwerp at the end of 1625, Van Dyck soon became the great court-painter of his time. Queens visited him in his studio, and the nobility of three nations considered it an honour to be painted by him. Religious pictures were also produced by him at this time with amazing rapidity. In 1632 he came to England. He had already paid a short visit in 1620-21, when he had painted James I., and was in receipt of a grant from the Exchequer "for special service performed for His Majesty." This first visit to England seems to have been due to the initiative of the celebrated connoisseur, the Earl of Arundel. At the court of Charles I. Van Dyck came at once into the highest favour. Sir Kenelm Digby, a gentleman of the bedchamber, was his bosom friend, and on his first presentation to Charles I. he obtained permission to paint the king and queen. He was appointed painter to the court, was knighted, and received a pension of £200. A town-house was given him at Blackfriars, and a country-house at Eltham. He "always went magnificently dressed, had a numerous and gallant equipage, and kept so good a table in his apartment that few princes were more visited or better served." In England alone there are said to be twenty-four portraits of the king by Van Dyck, and twenty-five of Queen Henrietta Maria. Every one of distinction desired to have his or her features immortalised by the court-painter, and for seven years he worked at the portraits of the English aristocracy with indefatigable industry. Some 300 of these portraits exist in this country. The painter's health gradually began to fail, from the constant drain upon his strength caused by the incessant labour necessary to procure the means of gratifying his luxurious tastes, and also by his irregular mode of life. Van Dyck, says Mr. Law in his Catalogue of the Hampton Court Gallery, "loved beauty in every form, and found the seduction of female charms altogether irresistible." In 1639 he married Mary Ruthven, grand-daughter of the unfortunate Lord Ruthven, Earl of Gowrie—a marriage promoted by the king, who hoped thereby to effect a change in the painter's habits of life. Margaret Lemon, the celebrated beauty, who lived with Van Dyck for some time at Blackfriars, resented the marriage most bitterly, and tried to maim the painter's right hand. In 1640-41 he travelled abroad with his wife, but returned to this country a dying man. The king offered a special reward to any doctor who could save the painter's life; but he expired in his house at Blackfriars on December 9, 1641, at the early age of forty-two. Two days afterwards he was buried in the old cathedral of St. Paul's, and the king erected a monument to record the death of one "who in life had conferred immortality on many." A magnificent collection of his works was shown at the Royal Academy in the winter exhibition of 1900.The characteristics of Van Dyck's art may in large measure be gathered from the circumstances of his life. He is essentially the painter of princes. His sacred and other subject pictures are often remarkable for force and vigour of handling. "Van Dyck," saysRuskin, "often gives a graceful dramatic rendering of received Scriptural legends." But it is not in these subjects that Van Dyck is seen in his most interesting and most characteristic manner. "Rubens is only to be seen in the Battle of the Amazons, and Van Dyck only at court." No more in him than in the other later Flemish artists is there anything spiritual. The difference between him and Teniers, for instance, is accidental rather than essential. "They lived," says Ruskin, "the gentle at court, the simple in the pot-house; and could indeed paint, according to their habitation, a nobleman or a boor, but were not only incapable of conceiving, but wholly unwishful to conceive, anything, natural or supernatural, beyond the precincts of the Presence and the tavern." What distinguishes Van Dyck is the indelible mark of courtly grace and refinement which he gives to all his sitters. Nowhere clearer than in his portraits does one see the better side of the "Cavalier" ideal. In this connection we may note Van Dyck's feeling for the nobility of the horse (seenote on No. 156). One thing "that gives nobleness to the Van Dyck," says Ruskin in describing one of his "cavalier" portraits, "is its feminineness; the rich, light silken scarf, the flowing hair, the delicate, sharp, though sunburnt features, and the lace collar, do not in the least diminish the manliness, but add feminineness. One sees that the knight is indeed a soldier, but not a soldier only; that he is accomplished in all ways, and tender in all thoughts." The reader who remembers any large collection of Van Dycks will feel that the spirit of Ruskin's description is true to a very large number of them. One may forget the individual sitter; the impression left by the Van Dyck type is indelible. Charles I. and his Queen, though painted by several other painters, are known to posterity exclusively through Van Dyck—not (says M. Hymans) from a greater closeness of resemblance to the original, but from a particular power of expression and bearing, which, once seen, it is impossible to forget. The same may be said of Van Dyck's portraits generally. He endowed all his sitters alike with the same distinction of feature and elegance in bearing. He excelled in giving delicacy to the hands, and is said to have kept special models for this part of his work. He is not what is called an "intimate" portrait painter. He does not startle us with penetration in seizing points of individual character; he charms us with the refinement of his type. "In Titian," says Ruskin, "it is always the Man whom we see first; in Van Dyck the Prince or the Sir." With regard to Van Dyck's technique, his earlier productions (says Sir F. Burton) "are scarcely to be distinguished from those of Rubens, and there are cases in which dogmatism as to authorship would be hazardous.[81]Differentiation is first visible in a greater precision, a slenderer, it might be said, a more wiry touch, and a cooler colouring, on the part of the pupil." At its worst, Van Dyck's touch is distinguished by what Ruskin calls a certain "flightiness and flimsiness"; at its best, bygreat refinement: "there is not a touch of Van Dyck's pencil but he seems to have revelled in—not grossly, but delicately—tasting the colour in every touch as an epicure would wine." His output was prodigious; in spite of his early death more than 1000 works are attributed to him. A considerable portion of many of these was done by assistants, and his later works are often hasty and careless. The references to Van Dyck in Ruskin's books are numerous. (The most interesting areModern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. §§ 5, 10, 22; ch. vii. § 23;Elements of Drawing, appendix ii.;On the Old Road, i. § 154;Art of England, 1884, pp. 43, 83, 138, 212.)
Sir Anthony Van Dyck, the prince of court portrait-painters and the most famous of Rubens's pupils, is one of the many great artists whose gifts showed themselves almost from birth. He was born at Antwerp, the seventh child of a tradesman in good circumstances. His mother was a woman of taste, who attained considerable skill in art-needlework, and from her he doubtless derived many of the qualities for which his works are conspicuous. At the age of ten the boy had already begun to paint. His admission at the age of thirteen to the crowded studio of Rubens is a proof of his precocious talent. Documents recently discovered show that Van Dyck when seventeen had already pupils of his own, and that his independent work was sought after by artists and amateurs. At nineteen he was admitted to the painters' Guild of St. Luke. For five years (1620-25) he was for the most part travelling and painting in Italy, with introductions from Rubens. Many of his best works are still to be seen in Genoa and Turin. He also visited Venice, where the spell of Titian's genius enchanted him. Severalsketches in the British Museum testify to his devout study of the great Venetian. On his return to Antwerp at the end of 1625, Van Dyck soon became the great court-painter of his time. Queens visited him in his studio, and the nobility of three nations considered it an honour to be painted by him. Religious pictures were also produced by him at this time with amazing rapidity. In 1632 he came to England. He had already paid a short visit in 1620-21, when he had painted James I., and was in receipt of a grant from the Exchequer "for special service performed for His Majesty." This first visit to England seems to have been due to the initiative of the celebrated connoisseur, the Earl of Arundel. At the court of Charles I. Van Dyck came at once into the highest favour. Sir Kenelm Digby, a gentleman of the bedchamber, was his bosom friend, and on his first presentation to Charles I. he obtained permission to paint the king and queen. He was appointed painter to the court, was knighted, and received a pension of £200. A town-house was given him at Blackfriars, and a country-house at Eltham. He "always went magnificently dressed, had a numerous and gallant equipage, and kept so good a table in his apartment that few princes were more visited or better served." In England alone there are said to be twenty-four portraits of the king by Van Dyck, and twenty-five of Queen Henrietta Maria. Every one of distinction desired to have his or her features immortalised by the court-painter, and for seven years he worked at the portraits of the English aristocracy with indefatigable industry. Some 300 of these portraits exist in this country. The painter's health gradually began to fail, from the constant drain upon his strength caused by the incessant labour necessary to procure the means of gratifying his luxurious tastes, and also by his irregular mode of life. Van Dyck, says Mr. Law in his Catalogue of the Hampton Court Gallery, "loved beauty in every form, and found the seduction of female charms altogether irresistible." In 1639 he married Mary Ruthven, grand-daughter of the unfortunate Lord Ruthven, Earl of Gowrie—a marriage promoted by the king, who hoped thereby to effect a change in the painter's habits of life. Margaret Lemon, the celebrated beauty, who lived with Van Dyck for some time at Blackfriars, resented the marriage most bitterly, and tried to maim the painter's right hand. In 1640-41 he travelled abroad with his wife, but returned to this country a dying man. The king offered a special reward to any doctor who could save the painter's life; but he expired in his house at Blackfriars on December 9, 1641, at the early age of forty-two. Two days afterwards he was buried in the old cathedral of St. Paul's, and the king erected a monument to record the death of one "who in life had conferred immortality on many." A magnificent collection of his works was shown at the Royal Academy in the winter exhibition of 1900.
The characteristics of Van Dyck's art may in large measure be gathered from the circumstances of his life. He is essentially the painter of princes. His sacred and other subject pictures are often remarkable for force and vigour of handling. "Van Dyck," saysRuskin, "often gives a graceful dramatic rendering of received Scriptural legends." But it is not in these subjects that Van Dyck is seen in his most interesting and most characteristic manner. "Rubens is only to be seen in the Battle of the Amazons, and Van Dyck only at court." No more in him than in the other later Flemish artists is there anything spiritual. The difference between him and Teniers, for instance, is accidental rather than essential. "They lived," says Ruskin, "the gentle at court, the simple in the pot-house; and could indeed paint, according to their habitation, a nobleman or a boor, but were not only incapable of conceiving, but wholly unwishful to conceive, anything, natural or supernatural, beyond the precincts of the Presence and the tavern." What distinguishes Van Dyck is the indelible mark of courtly grace and refinement which he gives to all his sitters. Nowhere clearer than in his portraits does one see the better side of the "Cavalier" ideal. In this connection we may note Van Dyck's feeling for the nobility of the horse (seenote on No. 156). One thing "that gives nobleness to the Van Dyck," says Ruskin in describing one of his "cavalier" portraits, "is its feminineness; the rich, light silken scarf, the flowing hair, the delicate, sharp, though sunburnt features, and the lace collar, do not in the least diminish the manliness, but add feminineness. One sees that the knight is indeed a soldier, but not a soldier only; that he is accomplished in all ways, and tender in all thoughts." The reader who remembers any large collection of Van Dycks will feel that the spirit of Ruskin's description is true to a very large number of them. One may forget the individual sitter; the impression left by the Van Dyck type is indelible. Charles I. and his Queen, though painted by several other painters, are known to posterity exclusively through Van Dyck—not (says M. Hymans) from a greater closeness of resemblance to the original, but from a particular power of expression and bearing, which, once seen, it is impossible to forget. The same may be said of Van Dyck's portraits generally. He endowed all his sitters alike with the same distinction of feature and elegance in bearing. He excelled in giving delicacy to the hands, and is said to have kept special models for this part of his work. He is not what is called an "intimate" portrait painter. He does not startle us with penetration in seizing points of individual character; he charms us with the refinement of his type. "In Titian," says Ruskin, "it is always the Man whom we see first; in Van Dyck the Prince or the Sir." With regard to Van Dyck's technique, his earlier productions (says Sir F. Burton) "are scarcely to be distinguished from those of Rubens, and there are cases in which dogmatism as to authorship would be hazardous.[81]Differentiation is first visible in a greater precision, a slenderer, it might be said, a more wiry touch, and a cooler colouring, on the part of the pupil." At its worst, Van Dyck's touch is distinguished by what Ruskin calls a certain "flightiness and flimsiness"; at its best, bygreat refinement: "there is not a touch of Van Dyck's pencil but he seems to have revelled in—not grossly, but delicately—tasting the colour in every touch as an epicure would wine." His output was prodigious; in spite of his early death more than 1000 works are attributed to him. A considerable portion of many of these was done by assistants, and his later works are often hasty and careless. The references to Van Dyck in Ruskin's books are numerous. (The most interesting areModern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. §§ 5, 10, 22; ch. vii. § 23;Elements of Drawing, appendix ii.;On the Old Road, i. § 154;Art of England, 1884, pp. 43, 83, 138, 212.)
A portrait of special interest as having been much prized by Sir Joshua Reynolds, to whom it formerly belonged. When Mr. Angerstein bought it, the great Burke is said to have congratulated him on possessing Sir Joshua's "favourite picture." It is commonly called "The Portrait of Rubens," but the principal figure does not greatly resemble the well-known face of Rubens; it is more probably a portrait of Luke Vostermann, a celebrated engraver of the time. He is discoursing, it would seem, on some point of art, suggested by the little statue which a man behind is holding.
Van Dyck(Flemish: 1599-1641).See under last picture.
A copy, with some variations, of a large picture by Rubens now at Vienna. The subject is that described by Gibbon (ch. xxvii.). The Emperor Theodosius, for a massacre of the inhabitants of Thessalonica, was excommunicated by Ambrose, the Archbishop of Milan.
The emperor was deeply affected by his own reproaches, and by those of his spiritual father; and, after he had bewailed the mischievous and irreparable consequences of his own rash fury, he proceeded, in the accustomed manner, to perform his devotions in the great church of Milan. He was stayed in the porch by the Archbishop; who, in the tone and language of an ambassador of heaven, declared to his sovereign that private contrition was not sufficient to atone for a public fault, or to appease the justice of an offended Deity. Theodosius humbly represented that if he had contracted the guilt of homicide, David, the man after God's own heart, had been guilty not only of murder, but of adultery. "You have imitated David in his crime, imitate then his repentance," was the reply of the undaunted Ambrose.
The emperor was deeply affected by his own reproaches, and by those of his spiritual father; and, after he had bewailed the mischievous and irreparable consequences of his own rash fury, he proceeded, in the accustomed manner, to perform his devotions in the great church of Milan. He was stayed in the porch by the Archbishop; who, in the tone and language of an ambassador of heaven, declared to his sovereign that private contrition was not sufficient to atone for a public fault, or to appease the justice of an offended Deity. Theodosius humbly represented that if he had contracted the guilt of homicide, David, the man after God's own heart, had been guilty not only of murder, but of adultery. "You have imitated David in his crime, imitate then his repentance," was the reply of the undaunted Ambrose.
Observe as an instance of picturesque ornament properlyintroduced in subordination to the figure subject, the robes of St. Ambrose. "Tintoret, Titian, Veronese, Rubens, and Van Dyck would be very sorry to part with their figured stuffs and lustrous silks; and sorry, observe, exactly in the degree of their picturesque feeling. Should notwealso be sorry to have Bishop Ambrose without his vest in that picture of the National Gallery? But I think Van Dyck would not have liked, on the other hand, the vest without the bishop. And I much doubt if Titian or Veronese would have enjoyed going into Waterloo House, and making studies of dresses upon the counters" (Stones of Venice, vol. i. ch. xx. § 13).
Rembrandt(Dutch: 1606-1669).See45.
One of the "heads of the people" whom Rembrandt saw around him; for the street in which he lived at Amsterdam swarmed with Dutch and Portuguese Jews. "In rendering human character, such as he saw about him, Rembrandt is nearly equal to Correggio, Titian, Tintoret, Veronese, or Velazquez; and the real power of him is in his stern and steady touch on lip and brow,—seen best in his lightest etchings,—or in the lightest parts of the handling of his portraits, the head of the Jew in our own Gallery being about as good and thorough work as it is possible to see of his" (Academy Notes, 1859, p. 52).
Van Dyck(Flemish: 1599-1641).See49.
One of the most celebrated pictures in the Gallery. The title by which it is commonly known is incorrect; the sitter being not Gaspar Gevarts or Gevartius, but Cornelius van der Geest, an amateur of the arts and a friend of Rubens and Van Dyck. It is the grave learning of a scholar, the gentle refinement of an artist—notice especially "the liquid, living lustre of the eye"—that Van Dyck here puts before us. In point of execution this picture ranks as one of the finest portraits in the world. "From it," says Mr. Watts, R.A., "the modern student will learn more than from any I am acquainted with.The eyes," he adds, "are miracles of drawing and painting. They are a little tired and overworked, and do not so muchseeanything as indicate the thoughtful brain behind. How wonderful the flexible mouth! with the light shining through the sparse moustache. How tremulously yet firmly painted. The ear: how set on ... so throughout there is no part of this wonderful portrait that might not be examined and enlarged upon; but I would ask my fellow-students to do this for themselves. Not a touch is put in for what is understood by 'effect.' Dexterous in a superlative degree, there is not in the ordinary sense a dexterous dab doing duty for honourable serious work: nothing done to look well at one distance or another, but to be right at every distance" (Magazine of Art, June 1889). Sir Edward Poynter is equally enthusiastic. "This wonderful portrait," he says, "is perhaps the most perfect head ever painted by this consummate painter. Not only for the brilliancy and purity of its flesh tints, the masterly drawing, and the vitality of the expression, does it rank as one of the masterpieces of portraiture existing; but for the brushwork, of which every touch expresses with supreme dexterity all the varieties of form, substance, and texture, it is unsurpassed, perhaps unrivalled, in the history of painting" (National Gallery, i. 152). Another P.R.A., Benjamin West, copied the "Gevartius," and at this day there is no picture in the Gallery more often copied by students.[82]Their preference is justified by that of the painter himself, who "used to consider it his masterpiece, and before he had gained his great reputation carried it about with him from court to court, and patron to patron, to show what he could do as a portrait painter."[83]
Albert Cuyp(Dutch: 1620-1691).
Cuyp was born at Dort—the son of an artist who was one of the founders of the Painters' Guild in that town. He was a deacon and elder of his church, and was a citizen of importance, holding various municipal and judicial offices. As a painter, however, he had little reputation in his own country, and, as is the case with so many of the Dutch masters, it was in England that he was first appreciated. Even in 1750 one of his pictures sold for thirty florins; in 1876 one fetched at Christie's £5040. The high esteem in which his works are thus held is justified alike by their own merits and by his important position in the history of landscape art. He is, in the first place, the principal master of pastoral landscape, "representing peasant life and its daily work, or such scenery as may naturally be suggestive of it, consisting usually of simple landscape, in part subjected to agriculture, with figures, cattle, and domestic buildings." In this respect Cuyp is an interesting case of the detachment of an artist's life. He was born and lived in troublous times; but in looking at his works one would imagine (it has been said) "that he passed his whole life in Arcadia, untroubled by any more anxious thought than whether the sun would give the effect which he required for his paintings, or the cows stay long enough for him to depict them in their natural attitudes." Dwelling on the banks of the placid Maas, he delighted also to reproduce the warm skies of summer or autumn reflected in an expanse of water overspread with marine craft. Secondly, Cuyp has been called the "Dutch Claude," for he was the first amongst the Dutch to "set the sun in the sky." "For expression of effects of yellow sunlight, parts might be chosen out of the good pictures of Cuyp, which have never been equalled in art." It is sunshine, observe, that Cuyp paints, not suncolour. "Observe this accurately. Those easily understood effects of afternoon light, gracious and sweet so far as they reach, are produced by the softly warm or yellow rays of the sun falling through mist. They are low in tone, even in nature, and disguise the colours of objects. They are imitable even by persons who have little or no gift of colour, if the tones of the picture are kept low and in true harmony, and the reflected lights warm. But they never could be painted by great colourists. The fact of blue and crimson being effaced by yellow and grey puts such effect at once out of the notice or thought of a colourist." The task of painting the suncolourwas reserved for Turner; yet Cuyp's pictures had a great influence over him." He went steadily through the subdued golden chord, and painted Cuyp's favourite effect, 'sun rising through vapour,' for many a weary year. But this was not enough for him. He must paint the sun in his strength, the sun risingnotthrough vapour. If you turn to the Apollo in the 'Ulysses and Polyphemus' (508), his horses are rising beyond the horizon—yousee he is not 'rising through vapour,' but above it;—gaining somewhat of a victory over vapour, it appears. The old Dutch brewer,[84]with his yellow mist, was a great man and a good guide, but he was not Apollo. He and his dray-horses led the way through the flats cheerily, for a little time; we have other horses now flaming out 'beyond the mighty sea'" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. i. § 19; vol. v. pt. ix. ch. xi. §§ 3, 4). Admirers of Cuyp should make a point of visiting the Dulwich Gallery, which is peculiarly rich in works by this master. In the British Museum are several of his drawings and studies.
Cuyp was born at Dort—the son of an artist who was one of the founders of the Painters' Guild in that town. He was a deacon and elder of his church, and was a citizen of importance, holding various municipal and judicial offices. As a painter, however, he had little reputation in his own country, and, as is the case with so many of the Dutch masters, it was in England that he was first appreciated. Even in 1750 one of his pictures sold for thirty florins; in 1876 one fetched at Christie's £5040. The high esteem in which his works are thus held is justified alike by their own merits and by his important position in the history of landscape art. He is, in the first place, the principal master of pastoral landscape, "representing peasant life and its daily work, or such scenery as may naturally be suggestive of it, consisting usually of simple landscape, in part subjected to agriculture, with figures, cattle, and domestic buildings." In this respect Cuyp is an interesting case of the detachment of an artist's life. He was born and lived in troublous times; but in looking at his works one would imagine (it has been said) "that he passed his whole life in Arcadia, untroubled by any more anxious thought than whether the sun would give the effect which he required for his paintings, or the cows stay long enough for him to depict them in their natural attitudes." Dwelling on the banks of the placid Maas, he delighted also to reproduce the warm skies of summer or autumn reflected in an expanse of water overspread with marine craft. Secondly, Cuyp has been called the "Dutch Claude," for he was the first amongst the Dutch to "set the sun in the sky." "For expression of effects of yellow sunlight, parts might be chosen out of the good pictures of Cuyp, which have never been equalled in art." It is sunshine, observe, that Cuyp paints, not suncolour. "Observe this accurately. Those easily understood effects of afternoon light, gracious and sweet so far as they reach, are produced by the softly warm or yellow rays of the sun falling through mist. They are low in tone, even in nature, and disguise the colours of objects. They are imitable even by persons who have little or no gift of colour, if the tones of the picture are kept low and in true harmony, and the reflected lights warm. But they never could be painted by great colourists. The fact of blue and crimson being effaced by yellow and grey puts such effect at once out of the notice or thought of a colourist." The task of painting the suncolourwas reserved for Turner; yet Cuyp's pictures had a great influence over him." He went steadily through the subdued golden chord, and painted Cuyp's favourite effect, 'sun rising through vapour,' for many a weary year. But this was not enough for him. He must paint the sun in his strength, the sun risingnotthrough vapour. If you turn to the Apollo in the 'Ulysses and Polyphemus' (508), his horses are rising beyond the horizon—yousee he is not 'rising through vapour,' but above it;—gaining somewhat of a victory over vapour, it appears. The old Dutch brewer,[84]with his yellow mist, was a great man and a good guide, but he was not Apollo. He and his dray-horses led the way through the flats cheerily, for a little time; we have other horses now flaming out 'beyond the mighty sea'" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. i. § 19; vol. v. pt. ix. ch. xi. §§ 3, 4). Admirers of Cuyp should make a point of visiting the Dulwich Gallery, which is peculiarly rich in works by this master. In the British Museum are several of his drawings and studies.
An interesting study in what is called "truth of tone" may be made with this picture—by which is meant the "exact relation and fitness of shadow and light, and of the hues of all objects under them; and more especially that precious quality of each colour laid on which makes it appear a quiet colour illuminated, not a bright colour in shade." Now with regard to this Ruskin says, "I much doubt if there be a singlebrightCuyp in the world, which, taken as a whole, does not present many glaring solecisms in tone. I have not seen many fine pictures of his which were not utterly spoiled by the vermilion dress of some principal figure—a vermilion totally unaffected and unwarmed by the golden hue of the rest of the picture; and, what is worse, with little distinction between its own illumined and shaded parts, so that it appears altogether out of sunshine—the colour of a bright vermilion in dead, cold daylight.... And these failing parts, though they often escape the eye when we are near the picture and able to dwell upon what is beautiful in it, yet so injure its whole effect that I question if there be many Cuyps in which vivid colours occur, which will not lose their effect and become cold and flat at a distance of ten or twelve paces, retaining their influence only when the eye is close enough to rest on the right parts without including the whole. Take, for instance, the large one in our National Gallery. (Seen at a distance) the black cow appears a great deal nearer than the dogs, and the golden tones of the distance look like a sepia drawing rather than like sunshine, owing chiefly to the utter want of aerial greys indicatedthrough them" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. i. §§ 11, 19).