PLATE XXVII.—REMBRANDT PORTRAIT OF AN OLD LADY National Gallery, LondonPLATE XXVII.—REMBRANDTPORTRAIT OF AN OLD LADYNational Gallery, London
The one at Hertford House, already mentioned, and two in the National Gallery, fall between these extremes. Of other portraits we have already mentioned the two Pellicorne groups in the Wallace Collection; and another of this earliest period, the very popularOld Woman, in the National Gallery, dated 1634. This is of greater interest as showing, if anything does, whether it is fair to attribute any of his training to the influence of Hals. At any rate this picture is a highly important proof that at the early age of twenty-six, the painter was already in the full possession of that energy and animation of conception, and of that decision of the "broad and marrowy touch" which are so characteristic of him. Of his later period—probably about 1657—a fine example isThe Jewish Rabbi, and of his latest theOld Man, both in the National Gallery.
PAINTERS OF GENRE
Thepainters ofgenre, by the number, quality, and diversity of whose pictures the Dutch School is specially distinguished, may be roughly divided into three classes; namely, those who studied the upper, the middle, and the lower classes respectively. But as Holland was a republic, and the great stream of its art welled up from the earth and was not showered upon it from above, it will be found convenient to reverse the social order in considering them, and begin with the immediate successors of Frans Hals, whose influence was without doubt a very considerable factor in the development of Adrian Brouwer and Adrian and Isaac Ostade.
Adrian Brouwer, now generally classed underthe Flemish School, was born at Oudenarde in 1606. But he went early to Haarlem, and it was not until about 1630 that he settled at Antwerp, where he died in 1641. He was a pupil of Frans Hals, and acquired from him not only his spirited and free touch, but also a similar mode of life. His pictures, which for the most part represent the lower orders eating and drinking, often in furious strife, are extraordinary true and life-like in character, and display a singularly delicate and harmonious colouring, which inclines to the cool scale, an admirable individuality, and asfumatoof surface in which he is unrivalled; so that we can well understand the high esteem in which Rubens held them. Owing to his mode of life, and to its early close, the number of his works is not large, and they are now seldom met with. No gallery is so rich in them as Munich, which possesses nine, six of which are masterpieces.A Party of Peasants at a Game of Cards, affords an example of the brightness and clearness of those cool tones in which he evidently became the model of Teniers.Spanish Soldiers Throwing Dice, is equally harmonious, in a subdued brownish tone.A Surgeon Removing the Plaster from the Arm of a Peasantis not only most masterly and animated in expression, but is a type of his bright, clear, and golden tone, and is singularly free and light in touch.Card-players Fighting, is in every respect one of his best pictures. The momentary action in each figure, all of them being individualized with singular accuracy even as regards the kind of complexion, is incomparable, the tenderness of the harmony astonishing, and the execution of extraordinary delicacy. The only example in the National Gallery is theThree Boors Drinking, bequeathed by George Salting in 1910; and at HertfordHouse theBoor Asleep, though of this we may without hesitation accept the description in the catalogue, "our painting is of the highest quality, and in the audacity of its realism rises almost to grandeur."
Adrian van Ostade, said to have been born at Lubeck, was baptized in 1610 at Haarlem, where he studied under Frans Hals, and he formed a very good taste in colouring. Nature guided his brush in everything he undertook; he devoted himself almost entirely to painting peasants and drunkards, whose gestures and most trifling actions were the subject of his most serious meditation. The subjects of his little pictures are not more elevated than those of Brouwer, and considerably less than those of Teniers—they are nearly always alehouses or kitchens. He is perhaps one of the Dutch masters who best understood chiaroscuro. His figures are very lively, and he sometimes put them into the pictures of the best painters among his countrymen. Nothing can excel his pictures of stables, in which the light is spread so judiciously that all one could wish is a lighter touch in his drawing, and a little more height in his figures. Many of his brother Isaak's pictures are improperly attributed to him, which, though painted in the same manner, are never of the real excellence of Adrian's.
TheInterior with Peasantsat Hertford House, andThe Alchymistat the National Gallery are a characteristic pair of his pictures, which were sold in the collection of M. de Jully in 1769 for £164, the former being purchased by the third Marquess of Hertford and the latter passing into the Peel Collection.Buying Fish, at Hertford House, dated 1669—when the artist was nearly sixty years old, is remarkable for its breadth of effect and brilliancy of colour.
Jan Steen, born at Leyden about the year 1626, died 1679. He first received instruction under Nicolas Knupler; and afterwards it is said worked with Jan van Goyen, whose daughter he married. An extraordinary genius for painting was unfortunately co-existent in Jan Steen with jovial habits of no moderate kind. The position of tavern-keeper in which he was placed by his family, gave both the opportunity of indulging his propensities and also that of depicting the pleasures of eating and drinking, of song, card-playing and love-making directly from nature. He must have worked with amazing facility, for in spite of the time consumed in this mode of life, to which his comparatively early death may be attributed, the number of his pictures is very great. His favourite subjects were groups like theFamily Jollification; theFeast of the Bean King; and that form of diversion illustrating the proverb, "So wie die Alten sungen, so pfeifen auch die Jungen"; fairs, weddings, etc.; he also treated other scenes, such as the Doctor's Visit, the Schoolmaster with a generally very unmanageable set of boys—of which is a charming example at Dublin. The ludicrous ways of children seem especially to have attracted him; accordingly, he depicts with great zest the old Dutch custom on St. Nicholas's Day, September 3rd, of rewarding the good, and punishing the naughty child; or shows a mischievous little urchin teasing the cat, or stealing money from the pockets of their, alas!—drunken progenitors.
Jan Steen is the most genial painter of the whole Dutch School. His humour has made him so popular with the English, that at least two-thirds of his pictures are in their possession.
A peculiar cluster of masters, belonging to the Dutch
PLATE XXVIII.—TERBORCH THE CONCERT Louvre, ParisPLATE XXVIII.—TERBORCHTHE CONCERTLouvre, Paris
School, was formed by Gerard Dou. However careful in execution were such painters as Terburg, Metsu, and Netscher, yet Gerard Dou and his scholars and imitators surpassed them in the development of that technical finish with which they rendered the smallest detail with meticulous exactitude.
Gerard Douwas born at Leyden on the 7th April 1613, died there 1680. He entered Rembrandt's school at fifteen years of age, and in three years had attained the position of an independent artist. He devoted himself at first to portraiture, and, like his master, made his own face frequently his subject. Afterwards he treated scenes from the life chiefly of the middle classes. He took particular pleasure in the representation of hermits; he also painted scriptural events and occasionally still life. His lighting is frequently that of lanterns and candles. Most of his pictures contain only from one to three figures, and do not exceed about 2 ft. high and 1 ft. 3 in. wide, being often smaller. His pictures seldom attain even an animated moral import, and may be said to be limited usually to a certain kindliness of sentiment. On the other hand, he possessed a trace of his master's feeling for the picturesque, and for chiaroscuro. Notwithstanding the incalculable minuteness of his execution, the touch of his brush is free and soft, and his best pictures look like Nature seen through the camera-obscura. His works were so highly estimated in his own time, that the President van Spiring, at the Hague, offered him 1000 florins a year for the right of pre-emption of his pictures. Considering the time which such finish required, and the early age at which he died, the number of his pictures—Smith enumerates about 200—is remarkable. In the Louvre are the following:—An old woman seated at a window, readingthe Bible to her husband; this is one of the best among the many representations by Dou of a similar kind, being of warm sunny effect, and marvellous finish. Also theWoman with the Dropsy, which is accounted hischef-d'œuvre.
Among the scholars of Gerard Dou,Frans van Mieris, born at Leyden 1635, died 1681, takes the first place. In chiaroscuro, and in delicacy of execution he is not inferior to his master. Although his pictures are generally very small, yet with their extraordinary minuteness of execution it is surprising that, in a life extended only to forty-six years, he should have produced so many. The Munich Gallery has most, then Dresden, Vienna, Florence, and St. Petersburg. The date, 1656, on a picture in the Vienna Gallery,The Doctor, shows the painter to have attained the summit of his art at twenty-one years of age. Another dated 1660, in the same gallery, executed for the Archduke Leopold, is one of his best. The scene is a shop with a young woman showing a gentleman, who has taken her by the chin, various handkerchiefs and stuffs. In the Munich Gallery isA Soldier, dated 1662, of admirable transparency and softness. AlsoA Ladyin a yellow satin dress fainting in the presence of the doctor. In the Hague Gallery isA Boy Blowing Soap-bubbles, dated 1663. This is a charming little picture of great depth of the brownish tone. AlsoThe Painter and His Wife, whose little shock dog he is teasing; very naïve and lively in the heads, and most delicately treated in a subdued but clear tone. In the Dresden Gallery are Mieris again and his wife before her portrait. This is one of his most successful pictures for chiaroscuro, tone, and spirited handling.
Nicolas Maes, already mentioned, born at
PLATE XXIX.—GABRIEL METSU THE MUSIC LESSON National Gallery, LondonPLATE XXIX.—GABRIEL METSUTHE MUSIC LESSONNational Gallery, London
Dordrecht 1632, died 1693, was actually a pupil of Rembrandt. His much prized and raregenrepictures treat very simple subjects, and consist seldom of more than two or three figures, generally of women. The naïvete and homeliness of his feeling, with the addition sometimes of a trait of kindly humour; the admirable lighting, and a touch resembling Rembrandt in impasto and vigour, render his pictures very attractive. In the National Gallery, besidesThe Card Players, areThe Cradle,The Dutch Ménage, dated 1655; andThe Idle Servant: all these are admirable, and the last-named achef-d'œuvre.
Peter de Hoogh(1629-1677) decidedly belongs to the numerous artistic posterity of Rembrandt, possibly through Karel Fabritius, and stands nearer to Vermeer and to Maes, than to any other painter. His biography can only be gathered from the occasional dates on his pictures, extending from 1658 to 1670. Although he impresses the eye by the same effects as Maes, yet he is also very different from him. He has not his humour, and seldom his kindliness, and his figures, which are either playing cards, smoking or drinking, or engaged in the transaction of some household duty,—with faces that say but little—have generally only the interest of a peaceful or jovial existence. If Maes takes the lead in warm lighting, Peter de Hoogh may be consideredpar excellencethe painter of full and clear sunlight. If, again, Maes shows us his figures almost exclusively in interiors, Peter de Hoogh places them most frequently in the open air—in courtyards. In the representation of the poetry of light, and in that marvellous brilliancy and clearness with which he calls it forth in various distances till the background is reached, which is generally illuminedby a fresh beam, no other master can compare with him. His prevailing local colour is red, repeated with greater delicacy in various planes of distance. This colour fixes the rest of the scale. His touch is of great delicacy; his impasto admirable.
Gerard Terburg, born at Zwol 1608, died 1681, learned painting under his father, and when still young visited Germany and Italy, painting numerous portraits on a small scale, and occasionally the size of life. But his place in the history of art is owing principally to a number of pictures, seldom representing more than three, and often only one figure, taken from the wealthier classes, in which great elegance of costume, and of all accompanying circumstances, is rendered with the finest keeping, and with a highly delicate but by no means over-smooth execution. He may be considered as the originator of this class of pictures, in which, after his example, several other Dutch painters distinguished themselves. With him the chief mass of light is generally formed by the white satin dress of a lady, which gives the tone for the prevailing cool harmony of the picture. Among his pictures we occasionally find some which, taken successively, represent several different moments of one scene. Thus in the Dresden Gallery, there are two good pictures: the one of an officer writing a letter, while a trumpter waits for it; the other of a girl in white satin washing her hands in a basin held before her by a maid-servant; while at Munich, is another fine work, in which the trumpeter is offering the young lady the letter, who owing to the presence of the maid, who evidently disapproves, is uncertain whether to take the missive. Finally, in the Amsterdam Gallery, the celebrated picture known by the title ofConseil paternel, furnishes
PLATE XXX.—PIETER DE HOOCH INTERIOR OF A DUTCH HOUSE National Gallery, LondonPLATE XXX.—PIETER DE HOOCHINTERIOR OF A DUTCH HOUSENational Gallery, London
the closing scene. The maid has betrayed the affair to the father, and he is delivering a lecture to the young lady, in whom by turning her back on the spectator, the painter has happily expressed the feeling of shame; good repetitions are in the Berlin Museum, and in the Bridgewater Gallery. But Terburg's perfection as regards the clearness and harmony of his silvery tone is shown in a picture at Cassel, representing a young lady in white satin sitting playing the lute at a table.
Jan Vermeer of Delft(1632-1675) was certainly a pupil of Fabritius, and thus "grandson" of Rembrandt. To class him with painters ofgenreseems almost a profanation of the exquisite sense of beauty with which, almost alone among the Dutch painters, he seems to have been endowed. It is like classing Walter Pater with art critics. But as Vermeer had to express himself in some form, it is perhaps fortunate that the school had developed this kind of poetic portraiture, under Terburg, Metsu and others, to a point where a genius like Vermeer could use it as the vehicle of his fascinating self-revelations. In landscape we have theView of Delft, at the Hague, which has shown the nineteenth century painters more than they could ever see in their more famous predecessors; but it is in the simple compositions likeThe Letter Readerat Amsterdam,The Proposal, at Dresden, or theLady at the Virginals, in the National Gallery, that he displays his greatest power and charm.
PAINTERS OF ANIMALS
Asa link between the painters ofgenreand the landscapists, we may here mention some of the numerousartists who either made landscape the background for groups of figures and animals, or peopled their landscapes with groups—it matters not which way we put it. Among these we shall find several of the most famous, or at any rate the most popular artists of the Dutch School.
Philips Wouverman(1619-1668), whose reputation during the last century was greater than that of almost any of the Dutch painters except Rembrandt and Dou, is said to have studied under Hals, but it is more certain that the master from whom he learnt most, if not all, was Jan Wynants at Haarlem, whose whole manner in landscape he quickly succeeded in acquiring, and surpassed him in his facility with horsemen and other figures.
Wouverman's works have all the excellences that may be expected from high finishing, correctness, agreeable composition and colouring. It does not appear that he was ever in Italy, or even quitted the city of Haarlem, though it would seem probable that his more elaborate compositions owed something to other influences than those of Hals or Wynants. In his earlier pictures there are no horses, but later in his career he generally subordinated his landscapes to the groups or subjects for which he is most famous. In the National Gallery, among eleven examples, are aHalt of Officers,Interior of a Stable,A Battle,The Bohemians, andShoeing a Horse, all of which contain numerous figures, mounted and unmounted—and there is nearly always a white horse.
With all his success, he died a poor man, and it is related that in his last hours he burned a box filled with his studies and drawings, saying, "I have been so ill repaid for all my labours, that I would not have
LATE XXXI.—JAN VERMEER THE LACE MAKER Louvre, ParisLATE XXXI.—JAN VERMEERTHE LACE MAKERLouvre, Paris
those designs engage my son to embrace so miserable a profession as mine." This son followed his advice, and became a Chartreux friar. Peter and Jan Wouverman were his brothers. The former painted hawking scenes, and his horses, though well designed, were not equal to those of Philips. The latter is represented in the National Gallery by a landscape in which the spirit of Wynant's, rather than that of Philips's, is discernible.
At Hertford House, out of seven examples, two are of more than usual excellence, and well represent his earlier and later manners.The Afternoon Landscape with a White Horse(No. 226 in Room XIII), which Smith (in his Catalogue Raisonné), characterizes as possessing unusual freedom of pencilling, and powerful effect, dates from the transition from the early to the middle period, and is a very effective picture, as well as being very characteristic. TheHorse Fair(No. 65, in Room XVI), is not only much larger than the other—it measures 25 x 35 inches—but is a really important picture. Lord Hertford paid £3200 for it in 1854. It was engraved by Moyrean, for his series of a hundred prints after Wouverman, under the title ofLe Grand Marché aux Chevaux. It is thus described by Smith:—"This very capital picture exhibits an open country divided in the middle distance by a river whose course is lost among the distant mountains. The principal scene of activity is represented along the front and second grounds, on which may be numbered about twenty-four horses, exhibiting that noble animal in every variety of action, and nearly fifty persons. On the right of the picture is a coach, drawn by four fine grey horses, and in front of this object are a grey and a bay horse, on the latter of which are mounted a manand a boy. In advance of them is a group of four horses and several persons, among whom may be noticed a cavalier and a lady observing the paces of a horse which a jockey and his master are showing off. A gentleman on a black horse seems also to be watching the action of the animal. Near this person is a mare lying down, and a foal standing by it which a boy is approaching. On the opposite side of the picture is a gentleman on a cream-coloured horse, near two spirited greys, one of which is kicking, and a woman, a man and a boy are escaping from its heels. From thence the eye looks over an open space occupied by men and horses, receding in succession to the bank of the river, along which are houses and tents concealed in part by trees. This picture is painted throughout with great care and delicacy in what is termed the last manner of the master, remarkable for the prevalent grey or silvery hues of colouring."
Albert Cuyp, born at Dortrecht 1620, died there about 1672. Of the life of this great painter little more is known with any certainty than that he was the scholar of his father, Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp. Cattle form a prominent feature in many of his works, though never so highly finished as in those of Paul Potter or Adrian van de Velde; indeed, in many of Cuyp's pictures, they are quite subordinate. His favourite subjects, a landscape with a river, with cattle lying or standing on its banks, and landscapes with horsemen in the foreground, were suggested to him no doubt by the country about Dortrecht and the river Maas: but he also painted winter landscapes, and especially views of rivers where the broad extent of water is animated by vessels. Sometimes, too, with great perfection, fowls as large as life, hens, ducks, etc., and still life.He also painted portraits, though less successfully. However great the skill displayed in the composition of his works, their principal charm lies in the beauty and truthfulness of their peculiar lighting. No other painter, with the exception of Claude, has so well understood the cool freshness of morning, the bright but misty light of a hot noon, or the warm glow of a clear sunset. The effect of his pictures is further enhanced by the skill with which he avails himself of the aid of contrasts; as for example, dark, rich colours of the reposing cattle as seen against the bright sky. In his own country no picture of his, till the year 1750, ever sold for more than thirty florins. Indeed, Kugler was informed by a Dutch friend, that in past times, when a picture found no bidder, the auctioneer would offer to throw in "a little Cuyp" in order to induce a sale. The merit of having first given him his due rank belongs to the English, who as early as 1785, gave at the sale of Linden van Slingelandt's collection at Dortrecht high prices for Cuyp's works; About nine-tenths of his pictures are consequently to be found in England.
One of his finest works is the landscape, in bright, warm, morning light, with two cows reposing in the foreground, and a woman conversing with a horseman, in the National Gallery (No. 53). The whole picture breathes a cheerful and rural tranquillity. In his mature time, these admirable qualities are seen in higher development. In the Louvre (No. 104), is another fine example—a scene with six cows, a shepherd blowing the horn, and two children listening to him. This is admirably arranged, of greater truthfulness as regards the form and colouring of the cattle than usual, and with the warm lighting of the skyexecuted with equal decision and softness. This picture is one of the master's chief productions, being also about 4 ft. high by 6 ft. wide. Another with three horsemen, and a servant carrying partridges, and in the centre a meadow with cattle, is also in the Louvre. This is less attractive in subject, but ranks equally high as a work of art. In Buckingham Palace are two pictures, one with three cows reposing, and one standing by a clear stream, near them a herdsman and a woman; other cows are in water near the ruins of a castle. In this picture, we see Cuyp in every respect at his culminating point of excellence. Not less fine, and of singular force of colour, is the landscape, with a broad river running through it, and a horseman under a tree in conversation with a countryman.
Paul Potter, born at Enckhuysen 1625, died at Amsterdam 1654. Although the scholar of his father, Pieter Potter, who was but a mediocre painter, he made such astonishing progress as to rank at the age of 15 as a finished artist. He removed very early to the Hague, where his talents met with universal recognition, including that of Prince Maurice of Orange, and where he married. In the year 1652, however, he removed to Amsterdam at the instance of one of his chief patrons, the Burgomaster Tulp. Of the masters who have striven pre-eminently after truth he is, beyond all question, one of the greatest that ever lived. In order to succeed in this aim, he acquired a correctness of drawing, a kind of modelling which imparts an almost plastic effect to his animals, an extraordinary execution of detail in the most solid impasto, and a truth of colouring which harmonises astonishingly with the time of day. In his landscapes, which generally consist of a few willows in the foreground, and of a wide view overmeadows, the most delicate graduation of aërial perspective is seen. With few exceptions, his animals are small, and his pictures proportionately moderate in size. By the year 1647 he had attained his full perfection. Of this date is the celebrated group calledThe Young Bull, in the Hague Gallery. All the figures in this are as large as life, and so extraordinarily true to nature as not only to appear real at a certain distance, but even to keep up the illusion when seen near.
A picture dated 1649, now in Buckingham Palace, of two cows and a young bull in a pasture, combines with his customary fidelity to nature a more than common power of effect, and breadth and freedom of treatment. To the same year belongs also TheFarmyard, formerly in the Cassel Gallery, now in that of S. Petersburg, which, according to Smith, fully deserves its celebrity both for the clearness and warmth of the sunset effect, as well as for its masterly execution. To 1650 belongs the picture ofOrpheus, charming the animal world by the strains of his lyre, in the Amsterdam Museum. Here we see that the master had also studied wild animals. He is most successful in the bear. In the same gallery is anotherchef-d'œuvreof the same year—a hilly landscape with a shepherdess singing to her child, a shepherd playing on the bagpipe, and oxen, sheep, and goats around.
The names of Weenix and Hondecoeter are so inseparably associated in the popular mind as painters of birds, whose respective works are not readily distinguishable moreover by the casual observer, that a short excursion into their family histories is advisable, for the purpose of showing how it was that this particular branch of the art was so successfully practised by the two. Moreover, as there were three Hondecoetersand two Weenixes who were painters, it is necessary to say something about each of them.
Melchior Hondecoeter, the best known, was of an ancient and noble family. He was instructed till the age of seventeen by his father Gysbert, who was a tolerable painter. Giles Hondecoeter, his grandfather, painted live birds admirably, but chiefly cocks and hens in the taste of Savery and Vincaboom. Melchior was born in 1636, and studied for a time with his father; but meantime his aunt Josina had married Jan Baptist Weenix, and a son was born to them, Jan Weenix, who inherited from old Giles Hondecoeter, his grandfather, his talent for painting poultry, and from his father, Jan Baptist Weenix, he acquired the benefit of several influences which were not shared by his cousin Melchior.
Jan Baptist Weenix, who was nicknamed "Rattle," was born at Amsterdam about 1621. His father was an architect, who bred his son up to that profession, but he was afterwards put to study painting under Abraham Bloemart. Soon after his marriage with Josina he was seized with the desire to visit Italy, and he set off alone to Rome, promising to return in four months. In Rome, however, he was so well received that he stayed there four years, and Italianized himself to an extent that may be seen in a picture in the Wallace Collection, aCoast Scene with Classic Ruins, which he signsGio. Batta. Weenix. Though he returned to Holland and settled near Utrecht, his manner was sensibly modified by his sojourn in Rome.
Jan Weenix, who was born at Amsterdam in 1649, though he succeeded in so far assimilating his father's style that his earlier works are often confused with those of "Giovanni Battista," did not acquire the energy or thedramatic force displayed by Melchior Hondecoeter in representing live birds and animals, though he sometimes surpassed him in the finish and the harmony of his decorative arrangements of dead game and still life. Accordingly the one usually painted dead and the latter live birds. In other respects there is not much to distinguish their works.
Nicholas Berchemwas the only other pupil of Jan Baptist Weenix of whom we know anything. Berchem had other masters, beginning with his father, who was a painter of fish and tables covered with plates, china dishes, and such like. Having given his son the first rudiments of his art he found himself unequal to the task of cultivating the excellent disposition he observed in him, and therefore placed him with Van Goyen, Nicholas Moyaert, Peter Grebber, Jan Wils, and lastly with Jan Baptist Weenix, all of whom had the honour of assisting to form so excellent a painter. Indefatigable at his easel, Berchem acquired a manner both easy and expeditious; to see him work, painting appeared a mere diversion to him.
His wife was the daughter of his instructor, Jan Wils, and was so avaricious that she allowed him no rest. Busy as he was by nature, she used to sit under his studio, and when she neither heard him sing nor stir, she struck upon the ceiling to rouse him. She got from him all the money he earned by his labour, so that he was obliged to borrow from his scholars when he wanted money to buy prints that were offered him, which was the only pleasure he had.The Musical Shepherdessat Hertford House is a good example of his style, and the description of it in Smith's catalogue shows in what estimation the artist was held in early Victorian days:—"This beautiful pastoral scenerepresents a bold rocky coast under the appearance of the close of day. The rustics have ended their labours and are recreating with music and dancing. A group composed of two peasants and a like number of women occupies the foreground; one of the latter, attired in a blue mantle, is gaily striking a tambourine, and dancing to the music; her companion in a yellow dress sits near her; the shepherds also are seated, and one of them appears to have just ceased playing a pipe which he holds. The goats are browsing near them. Painted in the artist's most fascinating style."
That Berchem had been to Italy is pretty certain, and though no authentic account of his visit is recorded, there is a story that when Jacob Ruisdael went to Rome as a young man, Nicholas Berchem was the first acquaintance he met, and that their friendship was of long standing. Their frequent walks round about Rome gave them the opportunity of working together from Nature, and one day a cardinal seeing them at work, inquired what they were doing. His eminence was agreeably impressed with their drawings, and invited them to visit him in Rome. The painters returned to their work, where they met with a secondrencontreof a very different nature; a gang of thieves robbed and stripped them of their clothes. They returned in their shirts to the city, and called on the cardinal, who took pity upon them, ordered them clothes, and afterwards employed them in several considerable works in his palace.
Berchem at one time took up his abode in the Castle of Bentheim, and as both he and Ruisdael have left several pictures of this castle it may be inferred that they worked there together, as at Rome.
Apart from personal friendship there is nothing toconnect Berchem with Ruisdael, the popularity of the former being derived from qualities of a totally different nature from those which raise Ruisdael far above any of his contemporaries as a landscape painter.
Jan Van Huysumwas born at Amsterdam in 1682. His father, Justus Van Huysum, who dealt in pictures, was himself a middling painter in most kinds of painting. He taught his son to paint screens, figures and vases on wood, landscape, and sometimes flowers; but the son being arrived at a reasoning age perceived that to work in every branch of his art was the way to excel in none, therefore he confined himself to flowers, fruit, and landscape, and quitting his father's school set up for himself.
No one before Van Huysum attained so perfect a manner of representing the beauty of flowers and the down and bloom of fruit; for he painted with greater freedom than Velvet Breughel and Mignon, with more tenderness and nature than Mario di Fiori, Andrea Belvedere, Michel de Campidoglio or Daniel Seghers; with more mellowness than de Heem, and with more vigour of colouring than Baptist Monoyer.
His pictures of flowers and fruit pleasing an English gentleman, he introduced them into his own country, where they came into vogue and yielded a high price. To express the motions of the smallest insects with justice he used to contemplate them through the microscope with great attention. At the times of the year when the flowers were in bloom, and the fruit in perfection, he used to design them in his own garden, and the Sieur Gulet and Voorhelm sent him the most beautiful productions in those kinds they could pick up.
His reputation rose to such a height that all the curious in painting sought his works with great eagerness, which encouraged him to raise his prices so high that his pictures at last grew out of the reach of any but princes and men of the greatest fortune. He was the first flower painter that ever thought of laying them on light grounds, which requires much greater art than to paint them on dark ones.
Van Huysum died at Amsterdam in 1749. He never had any pupil but a young woman named Haverman, and his brother Michael. Two other brothers have distinguished themselves in painting, one named Justus, who painted battles, and died at twenty-two years old, the other named James, who ended his days in England in 1740. He copied the pictures of his brother John so well as to deceive the connoisseurs: he had usually £20 for each copy. For the originals, it may be noted, from a thousand to fourteen hundred florins was paid.
PAINTERS OF LANDSCAPE
Comingnow to the landscape painters we find thatJan Van Goyen, born at Leyden in 1596, was destined to exert a really powerful influence, inasmuch as he was the founder, as is generally acknowledged, of the Dutch school of homely native landscape. Beginning with figure subjects, he discovered in their landscape backgrounds his realmétier, and seems only to have realized his great gifts when he looked further into nature than was possible when painting a foregroundpicture. He appears to have been by nature or by inclination long-sighted, and he is never so happy as when painting distance, either along the banks of a river or looking out to sea. This extended gaze taught him something of atmosphere that few painters beside himself ever acquired, and helped him to the mastery of tone which appears to have influenced so many of his followers, as for example Van de Velde in the painting of sea-pieces.
Jan Wynants, born at Haarlem about 1620, and still living in 1677, was the first master who applied all the developed qualities of the Dutch School to the treatment of landscape painting. In general his prevailing tone is clear and bright, more especially in the green of his trees and plants, which in many cases, merges into blue. One of his characteristics is a fallen tree trunk in the foreground, as may be seen in three out of the six examples in the National Gallery. The carefulness of his execution explains how it was that in so long a life he only produced a moderate number of pictures. Smith's catalogue contains about 214. These differ much according to their different periods. In his first manner peasants' cottages or ruins play an important part, and the view is more or less shut in by trees of a heavy dark green, the execution solid and careful. In his middle time he generally paints open views of a rather uneven country, diversified by wood and water. That Wynants retained his full skill even in advanced life is proved by a picture dated 1672, in the Munich Gallery, representing a road leading to a fenced wood and a sandhill, near which in the foreground are some cows (by Lingelbach) being driven along. In his last manner a heavy uniformly brown tone is often observable.
It is his genuine feeling for nature that makes Wynant's pictures so popular in England, where we meet with a considerable number of his best works.
Jacob Ruisdael(born at Haarlem 1628, died there 1682) is supposed to have developed under the influence of a school there that was opposing Van Goyen's tone treatment by local colour. Though not always the most charming, Ruisdael is certainly the greatest and the most profound of the Dutch landscape painters. His wide expanses of sky, earth or sea, with their tender gradations of aërial perspective, diversified here and there by alternations of sunshine and shadow, attract us as much by the pathos as by the picturesqueness of their character. His scenes of mountainous districts with foaming waterfalls; or bare piles of rock and sombre lakes are imbued with a feeling of melancholy. Ruisdael's work may be well studied in the six examples at Hertford House, and the fourteen in the National Gallery. Among his finer works in Continental collections the following are some of those selected by Kugler for description. At the Hague is one of his wide expanses—a view of the country around Haarlem, the town itself looking small on the horizon, under a lofty expanse of cloudy sky in the foreground a bleaching-ground and some houses reminding us, by the manner in which they are introduced, of Hobbema. The prevailing tone is cool, the sky singularly beautiful, and the execution wonderfully delicate. A flat country with a road leading to a village, and fields with wheatsheaves, is in the Dresden Gallery. This is temperate in colouring and beautifully lighted. Equally fine is an extensive view over a hilly but bare country, through which a river runs; in the Louvre. The horseman and beggaron a bridge are by Wouvermans: here the grey-greenish harmony of the tone is in fine accordance with the poetic grandeur of the subject. A hill covered with oak woods, with a peasant hastening to a hut to escape the gathering shower, is in the Munich Gallery. The golden warmth of the trees and ground, and the contrast between the deep clear chiaroscuro and soft rain-clouds, and the bright gleam of sunshine, render this picture one of the finest by this master.
The peculiar charm which is seen in Holland by the combination of lofty trees and calm water is fully represented in the following works:—The Chase; in the Dresden Gallery. Here in the still water in the foreground—through which a stag-hunt (by Adrian van de Velde) is passing—clouds, warm with morning sunlight, appear reflected. In this picture, remarkable as it is for size, being 3 ft. 10½ in. high, by 5 ft. 2 in. wide, the sense even of the fresh morning is not without a tinge of gentle melancholy. A noble wood of oaks, beeches and elms, about the size of the last-mentioned picture, is in the Louvre. In the centre, through an opening in the woods, are seen distant hills. The cattle and figures upon a flooded road are by Berchem. In power, warmth, and treatment, this is also nearly allied to the preceding work. Of his waterfalls, the most remarkable are—A picture at the Hague, which is particularly striking for its warm lighting, and careful execution. Another with Bentheim Castle, so often repeated by Ruisdael, is at Amsterdam. In the same collection is a landscape, with rocks, woods, and a larger waterfall. This has a grandly poetic character which, with the broad and solid handling, plainly shows the influence of Everdingen. The same remark may be applied to thewaterfall, No. 328, in the Munich Gallery. Here the dark, rainy sky, enhances the sublime impression made by the foaming torrent that rushes down the rocky masses. Another work worthy to rank with the fore-going isThe Jewish Cemetry, in the Dresden Gallery: a pallid sunbeam lights up some of the tombstones, between which a torrent impetuously flows.
TheLandscape with Waterfallat Hertford House is a good example; theLandscape with a Farmin the same collection is another, though in this the figures and cattle are by Adrian Van der Velde. Ostade and Wouverman are also said to have helped him with his figures, and it is possible that one or other of them ought to have some of the credit for the beautifulView on the Shore at Scheveningenin the National Gallery (No. 1390). TheLandscape with Ruins(No. 746) is perhaps the finest of the others there.
Willem van de Velde, the younger, born at Amsterdam 1633, died at Greenwich 1707. His first master was his father, Willem van de Velde the elder, but his principal instructor was Simon de Vlieger. The earlier part of his professional life was spent in Holland, where, besides numerous pictures of the various aspects of marine scenery, he painted several well-known sea-fights in which the Dutch had obtained the victory over the English. He afterwards followed his father to England, where he was greatly patronized by Charles II. and James II. for whom, in turn, he painted the naval victories of the English over the Dutch. He was also much employed by amateurs of art among the English nobility and gentry. There is no question that Willem van de Velde the younger is the greatest marine painter of the whole Dutch School. His perfect knowledge of lineal and aërial perspective,and the incomparable technique which he inherited from his school, enabled him to represent the sea and the sky with the utmost truth of form, atmosphere and colour, and to enliven the scene with the purest feeling for the picturesque, with the most natural incidents of sea-faring life.
Two of his pictures at Amsterdam are particularly remarkable; representing the English flagshipThe Prince Royalstriking her colours in the fight with the Dutch fleet of 1666; and its companion, four English men-of-war brought in as prizes at the same fight. Here the painter has represented himself in a small boat, from which he actually witnessed the battle. This accounts for the extraordinary truth with which every particular of the scene is rendered in such small pictures, which, combined with their delicate greyish tone, and the mastery of the execution, render them two of his finest works. A view of the city of Amsterdam, dated 1686, taken from the river, is an especially good specimen of his large pictures. It is about 5 ft. high by 10 ft. wide. The vessels in the river are arranged with great feeling for the picturesque, and the treatment of details is admirable. His greatest successes, however, are in the representation of calm seas, as may be seen in a small picture at Munich. In the centre of the middle distance is a frigate, and in the foreground smaller vessels. The fine silvery tone in which the whole is kept finds a sufficient counter-balance of colour in the yellowish sun-lit clouds, and in the brownish vessels and their sails. Nothing can be more exquisite than the tender reflections of these in the water. Of almost similar beauty is a picture of about the same size, with four vessels, in the Cassel Gallery, which is signed and dated 1653. As acontrast to this class of works, may be mentionedThe Gathering Tempest, in the Munich Gallery. This is brilliantly lighted, and of great delicacy of tone in the distance, though the foreground has somewhat darkened.
Meindert Hobbema(1638-1709) was a friend as well as a pupil of Jacob Ruisdael. The fact that such distinguished painters as Adrian van de Velde, Wouvermans, Berchem, and Lingelbach, executed the figures and animals in his pictures proves the esteem in which he was held by his contemporaries; nevertheless it is evident that the public was slow in conceding to him the rank which he deserved, for his name is not found for more than a century after his death in any even of the most elaborate dictionaries of art, while the catalogues of the most important picture sales in Holland make no mention of him at all up to the year 1739; when a picture by him, although much extolled, was sold for only 71 florins, and even in 1768 one of his masterpieces only fetched 300 florins. The English were the first to discover his merits.
The peculiar characteristics of this master, who next to Ruisdael, is confessedly at the head of landscape painters of the Dutch School, will be best appreciated by comparing him with his rival. In two most important qualities—fertility of inventive genius, and poetry of feeling—he is decidedly inferior: the range of his subjects being far narrower. His most frequent scenes are villages surrounded by trees, such as are frequently met with in the districts of Guelderland, with winding pathways leading from house to house. A water-mill occasionally forms a prominent feature. Often, too, he represents a slightly uneven country, diversified by groups or rows of trees, wheat-fields,meadows, and small pools. Occasionally he gives us a view of part of a town, with its gates, canals with sluices, and quays with houses; more rarely, the ruins of an old castle, with an extensive view of a flat country, or some stately residence. In the composition of all these pictures, however, we do not find that elevated and picturesque taste which characterises Ruisdael; on the contrary they have a thoroughly portrait-like appearance, decidedly prosaic, but always surprizingly truthful. The greater number of Hobbema's pictures are as much characterized by a warm and golden tone as those of Ruisdael by the reverse; his greens being yellowish in the lights and brownish in the shadows—both of singular transparency. In pictures of this kind the influence of Rembrandt is perhaps perceptible, and they are superior in brilliancy to any work by Ruisdael. While these works chiefly present us with the season of harvest and sunset-light, there are others in a cool, silvery, morning lighting, and with the bright green of spring, that surpass Ruisdael's in clearness. His woods also, owing to the various lights that fall on them, are of greater transparency.
As almost all the galleries on the Continent were formed at a period when the works of Hobbema were little prized (Ticcozzi'sDictionary, in 1818, does not include his name), they either possess no specimens, or some of an inferior class, so that no adequate idea can be formed of him. The most characteristic example to be met with on the Continent is a landscape in the Berlin Museum, No. 886, an oak wood, with scattered lights, a calm piece of water in the foreground, and a sun-lit village in the distance. Of the eight pictures in the National Gallery from his hand, most are good, and one world-famous—The Avenue, Middelharnis,which may be called his masterpiece. This was painted in 1689, when he had reached the age of fifty. His diploma picture, painted in 1663, is at Hertford House, together with four other interesting examples, all of which repay careful study.
The origins of the German Schools of painting are obscure, but it is fairly certain that Cologne was the first place in which the art was soonest established to any considerable extent. Here, as in the Netherlands, we cannot find any traces of immediate Italian influences. The first painter who can be identified with any certainty isWilhelm von Herle, calledMeister Wilhelm, whose activity is not traceable earlier than about 1358. Most of the pictures formerly attributed to him have, however, been assigned to his pupilHermann Wynrich von Wesel, who on the death of his master in 1378 married his widow and continued his practice, until his death somewhere about 1414. His most important works were six panels of the High Altar of the Cathedral, the so-calledMadonna of the Pea Blossomsand twoCrucifixionsat Cologne, and theS. Veronicaat Munich, dated 1410.
More important wasStephen Lochner, who died at Cologne in 1451. His influence was widespread and his school apparently numerous, until, in 1450, Roger van der Weyden, returning from Italy, stopped at Cologne and painted his large triptych, which eclipsed Lochner. From this time onwards the school of Cologne is represented by painters whose names are not known, and who are accordingly distinguished by the subjects of their works; such asThe Master of the Glorificationof the Virgin,The Master of S. Bartholomew, etc., until we come to Bartel Bruyn (c.1493-1553), a portrait painter who is represented at Berlin, and by a picture of Dr Fuchsius bequeathed to the National Gallery by George Salting.
In other parts of Germany, particularly in Nuremberg, Ulm, Augsburg, and Basle, various names of painters of the latter half of the fourteenth century have survived, but their works are of little interest except to the connoisseur as showing the influence under which the two great artists of the sixteenth century, Albert Dürer and Hans Holbein, and one or two lesser lights like Lucas Cranach, Albert Altdorfer, and Adam Elsheimer, were formed.
In Germany the taste for the fantastic in art peculiar to the Middle Ages, though it engendered clever and spirited works such as those of Quentin Massys and Lucas van Leyden, was still unfavourable to the cultivation of pure beauty, scenes from the Apocalypse, Dances of Death, etc., being among the favourite subjects for art. On the other hand, the pictorial treatment of antique literature, a world so suggestive of beautiful forms, was so little comprehended by the German mind that they only sought to express it through the medium of those fantastic ideas with very childish and even tasteless results. We must also remember that that average education of the various classes of society which the fine arts require for their protection stood on a very low footing in Germany. In Italy the favour with which works of art was regarded was far more widely extended. This again gave rise to a more elevated personal position on the part of the artist, which in Italy was not only one of more consideration, but of incomparably greater independence. In this latter respect Germany was so