FIG. 75.—MEMLING (?). ST. LAWRENCE (DETAIL). NAT. GAL., LONDON.FIG. 75.—MEMLING (?). ST. LAWRENCE (DETAIL).NAT. GAL., LONDON.
Little is known of the personal history of either of the Van Eycks. They left an influence and had many followers, but whether these were direct pupils or not is an open question.Peter Cristus(1400?-1472) was perhaps a pupil of Jan, though more likely a follower of his methods in color and general technic.Roger van der Weyden(1400?-1464), whether a pupil of the Van Eycks or a rival, produced a similar style of art. His first master was an obscure Robert Campin. He was afterward at Bruges, and from there went to Brussels and founded a school of his own called the
SCHOOL OF BRABANT:He was more emotional and dramatic than Jan van Eyck, giving much excited action andpathetic expression to his figures in scenes from the passion of Christ. He had not Van Eyck's skill, nor his detail, nor his color. More of a draughtsman than a colorist, he was angular in figure and drapery, but had honesty, pathos, and sincerity, and was very charming in bright background landscapes. Though spending some time in Italy, he was never influenced by Italian art. He was always Flemish in type, subject, and method, a trifle repulsive at first through angularity and emotional exaggeration, but a man to be studied.
ByVan der Goes(1430?-1482) there are but few good examples, the chief one being an altar-piece in the Uffizi at Florence. It is angular in drawing but full of character, and in beauty of detail and ornamentation is a remarkable picture. He probably followed Van der Weyden, as did alsoJustus van Ghent(last half of fifteenth century). Contemporary with these menDierick Bouts(1410-1475) established a school at Haarlem. He was Dutch by birth, but after 1450 settled in Louvain, and in his art belongs to the Flemish school. He was influenced by Van der Weyden, and shows it in his detail of hands and melancholy face, though he differed from him in dramatic action and in type. His figure was awkward, his color warm and rich, and in landscape backgrounds he greatly advanced the painting of the time.
Memling(1425?-1495?), one of the greatest of the school, is another man about whose life little is known. He was probably associated with Van der Weyden in some way. His art is founded on the Van Eyck school, and is remarkable for sincerity, purity, and frankness of attitude. As a religious painter, he was perhaps beyond all his contemporaries in tenderness and pathos. In portraiture he was exceedingly strong in characterization, and in his figures very graceful. His flesh painting was excellent, but in textures or landscape work he was not remarkable. His best followers wereVan der Meire(1427?-1474?) andGheeraertDavid(1450?-1523). The latter was famous for the fine, broad landscapes in the backgrounds of his pictures, said, however, by critics to have been painted by Joachim Patinir. He was realistically horrible in many subjects, and though a close recorder of detail he was much broader than any of his predecessors.
FLEMISH SCHOOLS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY:In this century Flemish painting became rather widely diffused. The schools of Bruges and Ghent gave place to the schools in the large commercial cities like Antwerp and Brussels, and the commercial relations between the Low Countries and Italy finally led to the dissipation of national characteristics in art and the imitation of the Italian Renaissance painters. There is no sharp line of demarcation between those painters who clung to Flemish methods and those who adopted Italian methods. The change was gradual.
FIG. 76.—MASSYS. HEAD OF VIRGIN. ANTWERP.FIG. 76.—MASSYS. HEAD OF VIRGIN. ANTWERP.
Quentin Massys(1460?-1530) andMostert(1474-1556?), a Dutchman by birth, but, like Bouts, Flemish by influence, were among the last of the Gothic painters in Flanders, and yet they began the introduction of Italian features in their painting. Massys led in architectural backgrounds, and from that the Italian example spread to subjects, figures, methods, until the indigenous Flemish art became a thing of the past. Massys was, at Antwerp, the most important painter of his day, following the old Flemish methods with many improvements. His work was detailed, and yet executed with a broader, freer brush than formerly, and with more variety in color, modelling, expression of character. He increased figures to almost life-size, giving them greater importance than landscape or architecture. The type wasstill lean and angular, and often contorted with emotion. His Money-Changers and Misers (many of them painted by his son) were agenreof his own. With him closed the Gothic school, and with him began the
ANTWERP SCHOOL, the pupils of which went to Italy, and eventually became Italianized.Mabuse(1470?-1541) was the first to go. His early work shows the influence of Massys and David. He was good in composition, color, and brush-work, but lacked in originality, as did all the imitators of Italy.Franz Floris(1518?-1570) was a man of talent, much admired in his time, because he brought back reminiscences of Michael Angelo to Antwerp. His influence was fatal upon his followers, of whom there were many, like theFranckensandDe Vos. Italy and Roman methods, models, architecture, subjects, began to rule everywhere.
From BrusselsBarent van Orley(1491?-1542) left early for Italy, and became essentially Italian, though retaining some Flemish color. He painted in oil, tempera, and for glass, and is supposed to have gained his brilliant colors by using a gilt ground. His early works remind one of David.Cocxie(1499-1592), the Flemish Raphael, was but an indifferent imitator of the Italian Raphael. At Liége the Romanists, so called, began withLambert Lombard(1505-1566), of whose work nothing authentic remains except drawings. At BrugesPeeter Pourbus(1510?-1584) was about the last one of the good portrait-painters of the time. Another excellent portrait-painter, a pupil of Scorel, wasAntonio Moro(1512?-1578?). He had much dignity, force, and elaborateness of costume, and stood quite by himself. There were other painters of the time who were born or trained in Flanders, and yet became so naturalized in other countries that in their work they do not belong to Flanders.Neuchatel(1527?-1590?),Geldorp(1553-1616?),Calvaert(1540?-1619),Spranger(1546-1627?), and others, were of this group.
Among all the strugglers in Italian imitation only a few landscapists held out for the Flemish view.Paul Bril(1554-1626) was the first of them. He went to Italy, but instead of following the methods taught there, he taught Italians his own view of landscape. His work was a little dry and formal, but graceful in composition, and good in light and color. TheBrueghels—there were three of them—also stood out for Flemish landscape, introducing it nominally as a background for small figures, but in reality for the beauty of the landscape itself.
FIG. 77.—RUBENS. PORTRAIT OF YOUNG WOMAN. HERMITAGE, ST. PETERSBURGH.FIG. 77.—RUBENS. PORTRAIT OF YOUNG WOMAN.HERMITAGE, ST. PETERSBURGH.Please click here for a modern color image
Please click here for a modern color image
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING:This was the great century of Flemish painting, though the painting was not entirely Flemish in method or thought. The influence of Italy had done away with the early simplicity, purity, and religious pathos of the Van Eycks. During the sixteenth century everything had run to bald imitation of Renaissance methods. Then came a new master-genius,Rubens(1577-1640), who formed a new art founded in method upon Italy, yet distinctly northern in character. Rubens chose all subjects for his brush, but the religious altar-piece probablyoccupied him as much as any. To this he gave little of Gothic sentiment, but everything of Renaissance splendor. His art was more material than spiritual, more brilliant and startling in sensuous qualities, such as line and color, than charming by facial expression or tender feeling. Something of the Paolo Veronese cast of mind, he conceived things largely, and painted them proportionately—large Titanic types, broad schemes and masses of color, great sweeping lines of beauty. One value of this largeness was its ability to hold at a distance upon wall or altar. Hence, when seen to-day, close at hand, in museums, people are apt to think Rubens's art coarse and gross.
There is no prettiness about his type. It is not effeminate or sentimental, but rather robust, full of life and animal spirits, full of blood, bone, and muscle—of majestic dignity, grace, and power, and glowing with splendor of color. In imagination, in conception of art purely as art, and not as a mere vehicle to convey religious or mythological ideas, in mental grasp of the pictorial world, Rubens stands with Titian and Velasquez in the very front rank of painters. As a technician, he was unexcelled. A master of composition, modelling, and drawing, a master of light, and a color-harmonist of the rarest ability, he, in addition, possessed the most certain, adroit, and facile hand that ever handled a paint-brush. Nothing could be more sure than the touch of Rubens, nothing more easy and masterful. He was trained in both mind and eye, a genius by birth and by education, a painter who saw keenly, and was able to realize what he saw with certainty.
Well-born, ennobled by royalty, successful in both court and studio, Rubens lived brilliantly and his life was a series of triumphs. He painted enormous canvases, and the number of pictures, altar-pieces, mythological decorations, landscapes, portraits scattered throughout the galleries of Europe, and attributed to him, is simply amazing. He wasundoubtedly helped in many of his canvases by his pupils, but the works painted by his own hand make a world of art in themselves. He was the greatest painter of the North, a full-rounded, complete genius, comparable to Titian in his universality. His precursors and masters,Van Noort(1562-1641) andVaenius(1558-1629), gave no strong indication of the greatness of Ruben's art, and his many pupils, though echoing his methods, never rose to his height in mental or artistic grasp.
FIG. 78.—VAN DYCK. PORTRAIT OF CORNELIUS VAN DER GEEST. NAT. GAL. LONDON.FIG. 78.—VAN DYCK. PORTRAIT OF CORNELIUS VAN DER GEEST.NAT. GAL. LONDON.Please click here for a modern color image
Please click here for a modern color image
Van Dyck(1599-1641) was his principal pupil. He followed Rubens closely at first, though in a slighter manner technically, and with a cooler coloring. After visiting Italy he took up with the warmth of Titian. Later, in England,he became careless and less certain. His rank is given him not for his figure-pieces. They were not always successful, lacking as they did in imagination and originality, though done with force. His best work was his portraiture, for which he became famous, painting nobility in every country of Europe in which he visited. At his best he was a portrait-painter of great power, but not to be placed in the same rank with Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt, and Velasquez. His characters are gracefully posed, and appear to be aristocratic. There is a noble distinction about them, and yet even this has the feeling of being somewhat affected. The serene complacency of his lords and ladies finally became almost a mannerism with him, though never a disagreeable one. He died early, a painter of mark, but not the greatest portrait-painter of the world, as is sometimes said of him.
There were a number of Rubens's pupils, likeDiepenbeeck(1596-1675), who learned from their master a certain brush facility, but were not sufficiently original to make deep impressions. When Rubens died the best painter left in Belgium wasJordaens(1593-1678). He was a pupil of Van Noort, but submitted to the Rubens influence and followed in Rubens's style, though more florid in coloring and grosser in types. He painted all sorts of subjects, but was seen at his best in mythological scenes with groups of drunken satyrs and bacchants, surrounded by a close-placed landscape. He was the most independent and original of the followers, of whom there was a host.Crayer(1582-1669),Janssens(1575-1632),Zegers(1591-1651),Rombouts(1597-1637), were the prominent ones. They all took an influence more or less pronounced from Rubens.Cornelius de Vos(1585-1651) was a more independent man—a realistic portrait-painter of much ability.Snyders(1579-1657), andFyt(1609?-1661), devoted their brushes to the painting of still-life, game, fruits, flowers, landscape—Snyders often in collaboration with Rubens himself.
FIG. 79.—TENIERS THE YOUNGER. PRODIGAL SON. LOUVRE.FIG. 79.—TENIERS THE YOUNGER. PRODIGAL SON. LOUVRE.Please click here for a modern color image
Please click here for a modern color image
Living at the same time with these half-Italianized painters, and continuing later in the century, there was another group of painters in the Low Countries who were emphatically of the soil, believing in themselves and their own country and picturing scenes from commonplace life in a manner quite their own. These were the "Little Masters," thegenrepainters, of whom there was even a stronger representation appearing contemporaneously in Holland. In Belgium there were not so many nor such talented men, but some of them were very interesting in their work as in their subjects.Teniers the Younger(1610-1690) was among the first of them to picture peasant, burgher, alewife, and nobleman in all scenes and places. Nothing escaped him as a subject, and yet his best work was shown in the handling of low life in taverns. There is coarse wit in his work, butit is atoned for by good color and easy handling. He was influenced by Rubens, though decidedly different from him in many respects.Brouwer(1606?-1638) has often been catalogued with the Holland school, but he really belongs with Teniers, in Belgium. He died early, but left a number of pictures remarkable for their fine "fat" quality and their beautiful color. He was not a man of Italian imagination, but a painter of low life, with coarse humor and not too much good taste, yet a superb technician and vastly beyond many of his little Dutch contemporaries at the North. Teniers and Brouwer led a school and had many followers.
In a slightly different vein wasGonzales Coques(1618-1684), who is generally seen to advantage in pictures of interiors with family groups. In subject he was more refined than the othergenrepainters, and was influenced to some extent by Van Dyck. As a colorist he held rank, and his portraiture (rarely seen) was excellent. At this time there were also many painters of landscape, marine, battles, still-life—in fact Belgium was alive with painters—but none of them was sufficiently great to call for individual mention. Most of them were followers of either Holland or Italy, and the gist of their work will be spoken of hereafter under Dutch painting.
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING IN BELGIUM:Decline had set in before the seventeenth century ended. Belgium was torn by wars, her commerce flagged, her art-spirit seemed burned out. A long line of petty painters followed whose works call for silence. One man alone seemed to stand out like a star by comparison with his contemporaries,Verhagen(1728-1811), a portrait-painter of talent.
NINETEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING IN BELGIUM:During this century Belgium has been so closely related to France that the influence of the larger country has been quite apparent upon the art of the smaller. In 1816 David, the leader of the French classic school, sent into exile by the Restoration,settled at Brussels, and immediately drew around him many pupils. His influence was felt at once, andFrancois Navez(1787-1869) was the chief one among his pupils to establish the revived classic art in Belgium. In 1830, with Belgian independence and almost concurrently with the romantic movement in France, there began a romantic movement in Belgium withWappers(1803-1874). His art was founded substantially on Rubens; but, like the Paris romanticists, he chose the dramatic subject of the times and treated it more for color than for line. He drew a number of followers to himself, but the movement was not more lasting than in France.
Wiertz(1806-1865), whose collection of works is to be seen in Brussels, was a partial exposition of romanticism mixed with a what-not of eccentricity entirely his own. Later on came a comparatively new man,Louis Gallait(1810-?), who held in Brussels substantially the same position that Delaroche did in Paris. His art was eclectic and never strong, though he had many pupils at Brussels, and started there a rivalry to Wappers at Antwerp.Leys(1815-1869) holds a rather unique position in Belgian art by reason of his affectation. He at first followed Pieter de Hooghe and other early painters. Then, after a study of the old German painters like Cranach, he developed an archaic style, producing a Gothic quaintness of line and composition, mingled with old Flemish coloring. The result was something popular, but not original or far-reaching, though technically well done. His chief pupil wasAlma Tadema(1836-), alive to-day in London, and belonging to no school in particular. He is a technician of ability, mannered in composition and subject, and somewhat perfunctory in execution. His work is very popular with those who enjoy minute detail and smooth texture-painting.
In 1851 the influence of the French realism of Courbet began to be felt at Brussels, and since then Belgian art hasfollowed closely the art movements at Paris. Men likeAlfred Stevens(1828-), a pupil of Navez, are really more French than Belgian. Stevens is one of the best of the moderns, a painter of power in fashionable or high-lifegenre, and a colorist of the first rank in modern art. Among the recent painters but a few can be mentioned.Willems(1823-), a weak painter of fashionablegenre;Verboeckhoven(1799-1881), a vastly over-estimated animal painter;Clays(1819-), an excellent marine painter;Boulanger, a landscapist;Wauters(1846-), a history, and portrait-painter;Jan van BeersandRobie. The new men areClaus,Buysse,Frederic,Khnopff,Lempoels.
FIG. 80.—ALFRED STEVENS. ON THE BEACH.FIG. 80.—ALFRED STEVENS. ON THE BEACH.
PRINCIPAL WORKS:—Hubert van Eyck, Adoration of the Lamb (with Jan van Eyck) St. Bavon Ghent (wings at Brussels and Berlin supposed to be by Jan, the rest by Hubert);Jan van Eyck, as above, also Arnolfini portraits Nat. Gal. Lon., Virgin and Donor Louvre, Madonna Staedel Mus., Man with Pinks Berlin, Triumph of Church Madrid;Van der Weyden, a number of pictures in Brussels and Antwerp Mus., also at Staedel Mus., Berlin, Munich, Vienna;Cristus, Berlin, Staedel Mus., Hermitage, Madrid;Justus van Ghent, Last Supper Urbino Gal.;Bouts, St. Peter Louvain, Munich, Berlin, Brussels, Vienna;Memling, Brussels Mus. and Bruges Acad., and Hospital Antwerp, Turin, Uffizi, Munich, Vienna;Van der Meire, triptych St. Bavon Ghent;Ghaeraert David, Bruges, Berlin, Rouen, Munich.Massys, Brussels, Antwerp, Berlin, St. Petersburg; best works Deposition in Antwerp Gal. and Merchant and Wife Louvre;Mostert, altar-piece Notre Dame Bruges;Mabuse, Madonnas Palermo, Milan Cathedral, Prague, other works Vienna, Berlin, Munich, Antwerp;Floris, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin, Munich, Vienna;Barent van Orley, altar-pieces Church of the Saviour Antwerp, and Brussels Mus.;Cocxie, Antwerp, Brussels, and Madrid Mus.;Pourbus, Bruges, Brussels, Vienna Mus.;Moro, portraits Madrid, Vienna, Hague, Brussels, Cassel, Louvre, St. Petersburg Mus.;Bril, landscapes Madrid, Louvre, Dresden, Berlin Mus.; the landscapes of the threeBreughelsare to be seen in most of the museums of Europe, especially at Munich, Dresden, and Madrid.Rubens, many works, 93 in Munich, 35 in Dresden, 15 at Cassel, 16 at Berlin, 14 in London, 90 in Vienna, 66 in Madrid, 54 in Paris, 63 at St. Petersburg (as given by Wauters), best works at Antwerp, Vienna, Munich, and Madrid;Van Noort, Antwerp, Brussels Mus., Ghent and Antwerp Cathedrals;Van Dyck, Windsor Castle, Nat. Gal. Lon., 41 in Munich, 19 in Dresden, 15 in Cassel, 13 in Berlin, 67 in Vienna, 21 in Madrid, 24 in Paris, and 38 in St. Petersburg (Wauters), best examples in Vienna, Louvre, Nat. Gal. Lon.; and Madrid, good example in Met. Mus. N. Y.;Diepenbeeck, Antwerp Churches and Mus., Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Frankfort;Jordaens, Brussels, Antwerp, Munich, Vienna, Cassel, Madrid, Paris;Crayer, Brussels, Munich, Vienna;Janssens, Antwerp Mus., St. Bavon Ghent, Brussels and Cologne Mus.;Zegers, Cathedral Ghent, Notre Dame Bruges, Antwerp Mus.;Rombouts, Mus. and Cathedral Ghent, Antwerp Mus., Beguin Convent Mechlin, Hospital of St. John Bruges;De Vos, Cathedral and Mus. Antwerp, Munich, Oldenburg, Berlin Mus.;Snyders, Munich, Dresden, Vienna, Madrid, Paris, St. Petersburg;Fyt, Munich, Dresden, Cassel,Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, Paris;Teniers the Younger, 29 pictures in Munich, 24 in Dresden, 8 in Berlin, 19 in Nat. Gal. Lon., 33 in Vienna, 52 in Madrid, 34 in Louvre, 40 in St. Petersburg (Wauters);Brauwer, 19 in Munich, 6 in Dresden, 4 in Berlin, 5 in Paris, 5 in St. Petersburgh (Wauters);Coques, Nat. Gal. Lon., Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich Mus.Verhagen, Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, and Vienna Mus.;Navez, Ghent, Antwerp, and Amsterdam Mus., Nat. Gal. Berlin;Wappers, Amsterdam, Brussels, Versailles Mus.;Wiertz, in Wiertz Gal. Brussels;Gallait, Liége, Versailles, Tournay, Brussels, Nat. Gal. Berlin;Leys, Amsterdam Mus., New Pinacothek, Munich, Brussels, Nat. Gal. Berlin, Antwerp Mus. and City Hall;Alfred Stevens, Marseilles, Brussels, frescos Royal Pal. Brussels;Willems, Brussels Mus. and Foder Mus. Amsterdam, Met. Mus. N. Y.;Verboeckhoven, Amsterdam, Foder, Nat. Gal. Berlin, New Pinacothek, Brussels, Ghent, Met. Mus. N. Y.;Clays, Ghent Mus.;Wauters, Brussels, Liége Mus.;Van Beers, Burial of Charles the Good Amsterdam Mus.
PRINCIPAL WORKS:—Hubert van Eyck, Adoration of the Lamb (with Jan van Eyck) St. Bavon Ghent (wings at Brussels and Berlin supposed to be by Jan, the rest by Hubert);Jan van Eyck, as above, also Arnolfini portraits Nat. Gal. Lon., Virgin and Donor Louvre, Madonna Staedel Mus., Man with Pinks Berlin, Triumph of Church Madrid;Van der Weyden, a number of pictures in Brussels and Antwerp Mus., also at Staedel Mus., Berlin, Munich, Vienna;Cristus, Berlin, Staedel Mus., Hermitage, Madrid;Justus van Ghent, Last Supper Urbino Gal.;Bouts, St. Peter Louvain, Munich, Berlin, Brussels, Vienna;Memling, Brussels Mus. and Bruges Acad., and Hospital Antwerp, Turin, Uffizi, Munich, Vienna;Van der Meire, triptych St. Bavon Ghent;Ghaeraert David, Bruges, Berlin, Rouen, Munich.
Massys, Brussels, Antwerp, Berlin, St. Petersburg; best works Deposition in Antwerp Gal. and Merchant and Wife Louvre;Mostert, altar-piece Notre Dame Bruges;Mabuse, Madonnas Palermo, Milan Cathedral, Prague, other works Vienna, Berlin, Munich, Antwerp;Floris, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin, Munich, Vienna;Barent van Orley, altar-pieces Church of the Saviour Antwerp, and Brussels Mus.;Cocxie, Antwerp, Brussels, and Madrid Mus.;Pourbus, Bruges, Brussels, Vienna Mus.;Moro, portraits Madrid, Vienna, Hague, Brussels, Cassel, Louvre, St. Petersburg Mus.;Bril, landscapes Madrid, Louvre, Dresden, Berlin Mus.; the landscapes of the threeBreughelsare to be seen in most of the museums of Europe, especially at Munich, Dresden, and Madrid.
Rubens, many works, 93 in Munich, 35 in Dresden, 15 at Cassel, 16 at Berlin, 14 in London, 90 in Vienna, 66 in Madrid, 54 in Paris, 63 at St. Petersburg (as given by Wauters), best works at Antwerp, Vienna, Munich, and Madrid;Van Noort, Antwerp, Brussels Mus., Ghent and Antwerp Cathedrals;Van Dyck, Windsor Castle, Nat. Gal. Lon., 41 in Munich, 19 in Dresden, 15 in Cassel, 13 in Berlin, 67 in Vienna, 21 in Madrid, 24 in Paris, and 38 in St. Petersburg (Wauters), best examples in Vienna, Louvre, Nat. Gal. Lon.; and Madrid, good example in Met. Mus. N. Y.;Diepenbeeck, Antwerp Churches and Mus., Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Frankfort;Jordaens, Brussels, Antwerp, Munich, Vienna, Cassel, Madrid, Paris;Crayer, Brussels, Munich, Vienna;Janssens, Antwerp Mus., St. Bavon Ghent, Brussels and Cologne Mus.;Zegers, Cathedral Ghent, Notre Dame Bruges, Antwerp Mus.;Rombouts, Mus. and Cathedral Ghent, Antwerp Mus., Beguin Convent Mechlin, Hospital of St. John Bruges;De Vos, Cathedral and Mus. Antwerp, Munich, Oldenburg, Berlin Mus.;Snyders, Munich, Dresden, Vienna, Madrid, Paris, St. Petersburg;Fyt, Munich, Dresden, Cassel,Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, Paris;Teniers the Younger, 29 pictures in Munich, 24 in Dresden, 8 in Berlin, 19 in Nat. Gal. Lon., 33 in Vienna, 52 in Madrid, 34 in Louvre, 40 in St. Petersburg (Wauters);Brauwer, 19 in Munich, 6 in Dresden, 4 in Berlin, 5 in Paris, 5 in St. Petersburgh (Wauters);Coques, Nat. Gal. Lon., Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich Mus.
Verhagen, Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, and Vienna Mus.;Navez, Ghent, Antwerp, and Amsterdam Mus., Nat. Gal. Berlin;Wappers, Amsterdam, Brussels, Versailles Mus.;Wiertz, in Wiertz Gal. Brussels;Gallait, Liége, Versailles, Tournay, Brussels, Nat. Gal. Berlin;Leys, Amsterdam Mus., New Pinacothek, Munich, Brussels, Nat. Gal. Berlin, Antwerp Mus. and City Hall;Alfred Stevens, Marseilles, Brussels, frescos Royal Pal. Brussels;Willems, Brussels Mus. and Foder Mus. Amsterdam, Met. Mus. N. Y.;Verboeckhoven, Amsterdam, Foder, Nat. Gal. Berlin, New Pinacothek, Brussels, Ghent, Met. Mus. N. Y.;Clays, Ghent Mus.;Wauters, Brussels, Liége Mus.;Van Beers, Burial of Charles the Good Amsterdam Mus.
Books Recommended: As before Fromentin, (Waagen's) Kügler; Amand-Durand,Œuvre de Rembrandt;Archief voor Nederlandsche Kunst-geschiedenis; Blanc,Œuvre de Rembrandt; Bode,Franz Hals und seine Schule; Bode,Studien zur Geschichte der Hollandischen Malerei; Bode,Adriaan van Ostade; Brown,Rembrandt; Burger (Th. Thoré),Les Musées de la Hollande; Havard,La Peinture Hollandaise; Michel,Rembrandt; Michel,Gerard Terburg et sa Famille; Mantz,Adrien Brouwer; Rooses,Dutch Painters of the Nineteenth Century; Rooses,Rubens; Schmidt,Das Leben des Malers Adriaen Brouwer; Van der Willigen,Les Artistes de Harlem; Van Mander,Leven der Nederlandsche en Hoogduitsche Schilders; Vosmaer,Rembrandt, sa Vie et ses Œuvres; Westrheene,Jan Steen, Étude sur l'Art en Hollande; Van Dyke,Old Dutch and Flemish Masters.
Books Recommended: As before Fromentin, (Waagen's) Kügler; Amand-Durand,Œuvre de Rembrandt;Archief voor Nederlandsche Kunst-geschiedenis; Blanc,Œuvre de Rembrandt; Bode,Franz Hals und seine Schule; Bode,Studien zur Geschichte der Hollandischen Malerei; Bode,Adriaan van Ostade; Brown,Rembrandt; Burger (Th. Thoré),Les Musées de la Hollande; Havard,La Peinture Hollandaise; Michel,Rembrandt; Michel,Gerard Terburg et sa Famille; Mantz,Adrien Brouwer; Rooses,Dutch Painters of the Nineteenth Century; Rooses,Rubens; Schmidt,Das Leben des Malers Adriaen Brouwer; Van der Willigen,Les Artistes de Harlem; Van Mander,Leven der Nederlandsche en Hoogduitsche Schilders; Vosmaer,Rembrandt, sa Vie et ses Œuvres; Westrheene,Jan Steen, Étude sur l'Art en Hollande; Van Dyke,Old Dutch and Flemish Masters.
THE DUTCH PEOPLE AND THEIR ART:Though Holland produced a somewhat different quality of art from Flanders and Belgium, yet in many respects the people at the north were not very different from those at the south of the Netherlands. They were perhaps less versatile, less volatile, less like the French and more like the Germans. Fond of homely joys and the quiet peace of town and domestic life, the Dutch were matter-of-fact in all things, sturdy, honest, coarse at times, sufficient unto themselves, and caring little for what other people did. Just so with their painters. They were realistic at times to grotesqueness. Little troubled with fine poetic frenzies they painted their own lives in street, town-hall, tavern, and kitchen, conscious that it was good because true to themselves.
At first Dutch art was influenced, even confounded, with that of Flanders. The Van Eycks led the way, and painters like Bouts and others, though Dutch by birth, became Flemish by adoption in their art at least. When the Flemish painters fell to copying Italy some of the Dutch followed them, but with no great enthusiasm. Suddenly, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, when Holland had gained political independence, Dutch art struck off by itself, became original, became famous. It pictured native life with verve, skill, keenness of insight, and fine pictorial view. Limited it was; it never soared like Italian art, never became universal or world-embracing. It was distinct, individual, national, something that spoke for Holland, but little beyond it.
In subject there were few historical canvases such as the Italians and French produced. The nearest approach to them were the paintings of shooting companies, or groups of burghers and syndics, and these were merely elaborations and enlargements of the portrait which the Dutch loved best of all. As a whole their subjects were single figures or small groups in interiors, quiet scenes, family conferences, smokers, card-players, drinkers, landscapes, still-life, architectural pieces. When they undertook the large canvas with many figures, they were often unsatisfactory. Even Rembrandt was so. The chief medium was oil, used upon panel or canvas. Fresco was probably used in the early days, but the climate was too damp for it and it was abandoned. It was perhaps the dampness of the northern climate that led to the adaptation of the oil medium, something the Van Eycks are credited with inaugurating.
FIG. 81.—HALS. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.FIG. 81.—HALS. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.
THE EARLY PAINTING:The early work has, for the great part, perished through time and the fierceness with which the Iconoclastic warfare was waged. That which remains to-day is closely allied in method and style to Flemish painting under the Van Eycks.Ouwateris one of theearliest names that appears, and perhaps for that reason he has been called the founder of the school. He was remarked in his time for the excellent painting of background landscapes; but there is little authentic by him left to us from which we may form an opinion.[17]Geertjen van St. Jan(about 1475) was evidently a pupil of his, and from him there are two wings of an altar in the Vienna Gallery, supposed to be genuine. Bouts and Mostert have been spoken of under the Flemish school.Bosch(1460?-1516) was a man of some individuality who produced fantastic purgatories that were popular in their time and are known to-day through engravings.Engelbrechsten(1468-1533) was Dutch by birth and in his art, and yet probably got his inspiration from the Van Eyck school. The works attributed to him are doubtful, though two in the Leyden Gallery seem to be authentic. He was the master ofLucas van Leyden(1494-1533), the leading artist of the early period. Lucas van Leyden was a personal friend of Albrecht Dürer, the German painter, and in his art he was not unlikehim. A man with a singularly lean type, a little awkward in composition, brilliant in color, and warm in tone, he was, despite his archaic-looking work, an artist of much ability and originality. At first he was inclined toward Flemish methods, with an exaggerated realism in facial expression. In his middle period he was distinctly Dutch, but in his later days he came under Italian influence, and with a weakening effect upon his art. Taking his work as a whole, it was the strongest of all the early Dutch painters.
[17]A Raising of Lazarus is in the Berlin Gallery.
[17]A Raising of Lazarus is in the Berlin Gallery.
SIXTEENTH CENTURY:This century was a period of Italian imitation, probably superinduced by the action of the Flemings at Antwerp. The movement was somewhat like the Flemish one, but not so extensive or so productive. There was hardly a painter of rank in Holland during the whole century.Scorel(1495-1562) was the leader, and he probably got his first liking for Italian art through Mabuse at Antwerp. He afterward went to Italy, studied Raphael and Michael Angelo, and returned to Utrecht to open a school and introduce Italian art into Holland. A large number of pupils followed him, but their work was lacking in true originality.Heemskerck(1498-1574) andCornelis van Haarlem(1562-1638), withSteenwyck(1550?-1604), were some of the more important men of the century, but none of them was above a common average.
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY:Beginning with the first quarter of this century came the great art of the Dutch people, founded on themselves and rooted in their native character. Italian methods were abandoned, and the Dutch told the story of their own lives in their own manner, with truth, vigor, and skill. There were so many painters in Holland during this period that it will be necessary to divide them into groups and mention only the prominent names.
PORTRAIT AND FIGURE PAINTERS:The real inaugurators of Dutch portraiture were Mierevelt, Hals, Ravesteyn, and De Keyser.Mierevelt(1567-1641) was one of the earliest,a prolific painter, fond of the aristocratic sitter, and indulging in a great deal of elegance in his accessories of dress and the like. He had a slight, smooth brush, much detail, and a profusion of color. Quite the reverse of him wasFranz Hals(1584?-1666), one of the most remarkable painters of portraits with which history acquaints us. In giving the sense of life and personal physical presence, he was unexcelled by any one. What he saw he could portray with the most telling reality. In drawing and modelling he was usually good; in coloring he was excellent, though in his late work sombre; in brush-handling he was one of the great masters. Strong, virile, yet easy and facile, he seemed to produce without effort. His brush was very broad in its sweep, very sure, very true. Occasionally in his late painting facility ran to the ineffectual, but usually he was certainty itself. His best work was in portraiture, and the most important of this is to be seen at Haarlem, where he died after a rather careless life. As a painter, pure and simple, he is almost to be ranked beside Velasquez; as a poet, a thinker, a man of lofty imagination, his work gives us little enlightenment except in so far as it shows a fine feeling for masses of color and problems of light. Though excellent portrait-painters,Ravesteyn(1572?-1657) andDe Keyser(1596?-1679) do not provoke enthusiasm. They were quiet, conservative, dignified, painting civic guards and societies with a knowing brush and lively color, giving the truth of physiognomy, but not with that verve of the artist so conspicuous in Hals, nor with that unity of the group so essential in the making of a picture.
FIG. 82.—REMBRANDT. HEAD OF WOMAN. NAT. GAL. LONDON.FIG. 82.—REMBRANDT. HEAD OF WOMAN. NAT. GAL. LONDON.
The next man in chronological order isRembrandt(1607?-1669), the greatest painter in Dutch art. He was a pupil of Swanenburch and Lastman, but his great knowledge of nature and his craft came largely from the direct study of the model. Settled at Amsterdam, he quickly rose to fame, had a large following of pupils, and his influence was feltthrough all Dutch painting. The portrait was emphatically his strongest work. The many-figured group he was not always successful in composing or lighting. His method of work rather fitted him for the portrait and unfitted him for the large historical piece. He built up the importance of certain features by dragging down all other features. This was largely shown in his handling of illumination. Strong in a few high lights on cheek, chin, or white linen, the rest of the picture was submerged in shadow, under which color was unmercifully sacrificed. This was not the best method for a large, many-figured piece, but was singularly well suited to the portrait. It produced strength by contrast. "Forced" it was undoubtedly, and not always true to nature, yet nevertheless most potent in Rembrandt's hands. He was an arbitrary though perfect master of light-and-shade, and unusually effective in luminous and transparent shadows. In color he was again arbitrary but forcible and harmonious. In brush-work he was at times labored, but almost always effective.
Mentally he was a man keen to observe, assimilate, and express his impressions in a few simple truths. His conception was localized with his own people and time (he never built up the imaginary or followed Italy), and yet into types taken from the streets and shops of Amsterdam he infused the very largest humanity through his inherent sympathy with man. Dramatic, even tragic, he was; yet this was not so apparent in vehement action as in passionate expression. He had a powerful way of striking universal truths through the human face, the turned head, bent body, or outstretched hand. His people have character, dignity, and a pervading feeling that they are the great types of the Dutch race—people of substantial physique, slow in thought and impulse, yet capable of feeling, comprehending, enjoying, suffering.
His landscapes, again, were a synthesis of all landscapes, a grouping of the great truths of light, air, shadow, space. Whatever he turned his hand to was treated with that breadth of view that overlooked the little and grasped the great. He painted many subjects. His earliest work dates from 1627, and is a little hard and sharp in detail and cold in coloring. After 1654 he grew broader in handling and warmer in tone, running to golden browns, and, toward the end of his career, to rather hot tones. His life was embittered by many misfortunes, but these never seem to have affected his art except to deepen it. He painted on to the last, convinced that his own view was the true one, and producing works that rank second to none in the history of painting.
Rembrandt's influence upon Dutch art was far-reaching, and appeared immediately in the works of his many pupils. They all followed his methods of handling light-and-shade, but no one of them ever equalled him, though they produced work of much merit.Bol(1611-1680) was chiefly a portrait-painter, with a pervading yellow tone and some pallor of flesh-coloring—a man of ability who mistakenly followed Rubens in the latter part of his life.Flinck(1615-1660) at one time followed Rembrandt so closely that his work has passed for that of the master; but latterly he, too, came under Flemish influence. Next to Eeckhout he was probably the nearest to Rembrandt in methods of all the pupils.Eeckhout(1621-1674) was really a Rembrandt imitator, but his hand was weak and his color hot.Maes(1632-1693) was the most successful manager of light after the school formula, and succeeded very well with warmth and richness of color, especially with his reds. The other Rembrandt pupils and followers werePoorter(fl. 1635-1643),Victoors(1620?-1672?),Koninck(1619-1688),Fabritius(1624-1654), andBacker(1608?-1651).
Van der Helst(1612?-1670) stands apart from this school, and seems to have followed more the portrait style of De Keyser. He was a realistic, precise painter, with much excellence of modelling in head and hands, and with fine carriage and dignity in the figure. In composition he hardly held his characters in group owing to a sacrifice of values, and in color he was often "spotty," and lacking in the unity of mass.
THE GENRE PAINTERS:This heading embraces those who may be called the "Little Dutchmen," because of the small scale of their pictures and theirgenresubjects.Gerard Dou(1613-1675) is indicative of the class without fully representing it. He was a pupil of Rembrandt, but his work gave little report of this. It was smaller, more delicate in detail, more petty in conception. He was a man great inlittle things, one who wasted strength on the minutiæ of dress, or table-cloth, or the texture of furniture without grasping the mass or color significance of the whole scene. There was infinite detail about his work, and that gave it popularity; but as art it held, and holds to-day, little higher place than the work ofMetsu(1630-1667),Van Mieris(1635-1681),Netscher(1639-1684), orSchalcken(1643-1706), all of whom produced the interior piece with figures elaborate in accidental effects.Van Ostade(1610-1685), though dealing with the small canvas, and portraying peasant life with perhaps unnecessary coarseness, was a much stronger painter than the men just mentioned. He was the favorite pupil of Hals and the master of Jan Steen. With little delicacy in choice of subject he had much delicacy in color, taste in arrangement, and skill in handling. His brush was precise but not finical.
FIG. 83.—J. VAN RUISDAEL. LANDSCAPE.FIG. 83.—J. VAN RUISDAEL. LANDSCAPE.
By far the best painter among all the "Little Dutchmen" wasTerburg(1617?-1681), a painter of interiors, small portraits, conversation pictures, and the like. Though of diminutive scale his work has the largeness of view characteristic of genius, and the skilled technic of a thorough craftsman. Terburg was a travelled man, visiting Italy, where he studied Titian, returning to Holland to study Rembrandt, finally at Madrid studying Velasquez. He was a painter of much culture, and the keynote of his art is refinement. Quiet and dignified he carried taste through all branches of his art. In subject he was rather elevated, in color subdued with broken tones, in composition simple, in brush-work sure, vivacious, and yet unobtrusive. Selection in his characters was followed by reserve in using them. Detail was not very apparent. A few people with some accessory objects were all that he required to make a picture. Perhaps his best qualities appear in a number of small portraits remarkable for their distinction and aristocratic grace.
Steen(1626?-1679) was almost the opposite of Terburg, a man of sarcastic flings and coarse humor who satirized his own time with little reserve. He developed under Hals and Van Ostade, favoring the latter in his interiors, family scenes, and drunken debauches. He was a master of physiognomy, and depicted it with rare if rather unpleasant truth. If he had little refinement in his themes he certainly handled them as a painter with delicacy. At his best his many figured groups were exceedingly well composed, his color was of good quality (with a fondness for yellows), and his brush was as limpid and graceful as though painting angels instead of Dutch boors. He was really one of the fine brushmen of Holland, a man greatly admired by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and many an artist since; but not a man of high intellectual pitch as compared with Terburg, for instance.
Pieter de Hooghe(1632?-1681) was a painter of purely pictorial effects, beginning and ending a picture in a scheme of color, atmosphere, clever composition, and above all the play of light-and-shade. He was one of the early masters of full sunlight, painting it falling across a court-yard or streaming through a window with marvellous truth and poetry. His subjects were commonplace enough. An interior with a figure or two in the middle distance, and a passage-way leading into a lighted background were sufficient for him. These formed a skeleton which he clothed in a half-tone shadow, pierced with warm yellow light, enriched with rare colors, usually garnet reds and deep yellows repeated in the different planes, and surrounded with a subtle pervading atmosphere. As a brushman he was easy but not distinguished, and often his drawing was not correct; but in the placing of color masses and in composing by color and light he was a master of the first rank. Little is known about his life. He probably formed himself on Fabritius or Rembrandt at second-hand, but little trace of the latter is apparent in his work. He seems not to have achieved much fame until late years, and then rather in England than in his own country.
Jan van der Meer of Delft(1632-1675), one of the most charming of all thegenrepainters, was allied to De Hooghe in his pictorial point of view and interior subjects. Unfortunately there is little left to us of this master, but the few extant examples serve to show him a painter of rare qualities in light, in color, and in atmosphere. He was a remarkable man for his handling of blues, reds, and yellows; and in the tonic relations of a picture he was a master second to no one. Fabritius is supposed to have influenced him.
THE LANDSCAPE PAINTERS:The painters of the Netherlands were probably the first, beginning with Bril, to paint landscape for its own sake, and as a picture motive in itself. Before them it had been used as a background forthe figure, and was so used by many of the Dutchmen themselves. It has been said that these landscape-painters were also the first ones to paint landscape realistically, but that is true only in part. They studied natural forms, as did, indeed, Bellini in the Venetian school; they learned something of perspective, air, tree anatomy, and the appearance of water; but no Dutch painter of landscape in the seventeenth century grasped the full color of Holland or painted its many varied lights. They indulged in a meagre conventional palette of grays, greens, and browns, whereas Holland is full of brilliant hues.
FIG. 84.—HOBBEMA. THE WATER-WHEEL. AMSTERDAM MUS.FIG. 84.—HOBBEMA. THE WATER-WHEEL. AMSTERDAM MUS.
Van Goyen(1596-1656) was one of the earliest of the seventeenth-century landscapists. In subject he was fond of the Dutch bays, harbors, rivers, and canals with shipping, windmills, and houses. His sky line was generally given low, his water silvery, and his sky misty and luminous with bursts of white light. In color he was subdued, and in perspective quite cunning at times.Salomon van Ruisdael(1600?-1670) was his follower, if not his pupil. He had the same sobriety of color as his master, and was a mannered and prosaic painter in details, such as leaves and tree-branches. In composition he was good, but his art had only a slight basis upon reality, though it looks to be realistic at first sight. He had a formula for doing landscape which he varied only in a slight way, and this conventionality ran through all his work.Molyn(1600?-1661) was a painter who showed limited truth to nature in flat and hilly landscapes, transparent skies, and warm coloring. His extant works are few in number.Wynants(1615?-1679?) was more of a realist in natural appearance than any of the others, a man who evidently studied directly from nature in details of vegetation, plants, trees, roads, grasses, and the like. Most of the figures and animals in his landscapes were painted by other hands. He himself was a pure landscape-painter, excelling in light and aërial perspective, but not remarkable in color.Van der Neer(1603-1677) andEverdingen(1621?-1675) were two other contemporary painters of merit.
The best landscapist following the first men of the century wasJacob van Ruisdael(1625?-1682), the nephew of Salomon van Ruisdael. He is put down, with perhaps unnecessary emphasis, as the greatest landscape-painter of the Dutch school. He was undoubtedly the equal of any of his time, though not so near to nature, perhaps, as Hobbema. He was a man of imagination, who at first pictured the Dutch country about Haarlem, and afterward took up with the romantic landscape of Van Everdingen. This landscape bears a resemblance to the Norwegian country, abounding, as it does, in mountains, heavy dark woods, and rushing torrents. There is considerable poetry in its composition, its gloomy skies, and darkened lights. It ismournful, suggestive, wild, usually unpeopled. There was much of the methodical in its putting together, and in color it was cold, and limited to a few tones. Many of Ruisdael's works have darkened through time. Little is known about the painter's life except that he was not appreciated in his own time and died in the almshouse.
Hobbema(1638?-1709) was probably the pupil of Jacob van Ruisdael, and ranks with him, if not above him, in seventeenth-century landscape painting. Ruisdael hardly ever painted sunlight, whereas Hobbema rather affected it in quiet wood-scenes or roadways with little pools of water and a mill. He was a freer man with the brush than Ruisdael, and knew more about the natural appearance of trees, skies, and lights; but, like his master, his view of nature found no favor in his own land. Most of his work is in England, where it had not a little to do with influencing such painters as Constable and others at the beginning of the nineteenth century.