His Greatness as a Marine Painter.—"There is no question that Willemvan de Veldethe younger is the greatest marine painter of the whole Dutch school. His untiring study of nature of which his numerous sepia drawings are the best evidence, his perfect knowledge of lineal and aërial perspective and the incomparable technical process which he inherited from his school,—all these qualifications enabled him to represent the great element under every form, whether that of the raging storm, the gentlest crisping wind, or of the profoundest calm, with the utmost truth of form and color. Nor are his skies, with their transparent ether and light and airy clouds, less entitled to admiration than his seas; the surface of which he diversified, with the purest feeling for the picturesque, by various vessels, near and distant, which are drawn with a knowledge that extends to every rope. Finally his various lightnings create the most charming effect of light and shade. With this combination of qualities, so calculated to please aseafaring nation, it is no wonder that he should have become the most popular painter with the Dutch and English."[8]
His Greatness as a Marine Painter.—"There is no question that Willemvan de Veldethe younger is the greatest marine painter of the whole Dutch school. His untiring study of nature of which his numerous sepia drawings are the best evidence, his perfect knowledge of lineal and aërial perspective and the incomparable technical process which he inherited from his school,—all these qualifications enabled him to represent the great element under every form, whether that of the raging storm, the gentlest crisping wind, or of the profoundest calm, with the utmost truth of form and color. Nor are his skies, with their transparent ether and light and airy clouds, less entitled to admiration than his seas; the surface of which he diversified, with the purest feeling for the picturesque, by various vessels, near and distant, which are drawn with a knowledge that extends to every rope. Finally his various lightnings create the most charming effect of light and shade. With this combination of qualities, so calculated to please aseafaring nation, it is no wonder that he should have become the most popular painter with the Dutch and English."[8]
The Fulness of his Knowledge of the Sea and Ships.—Both England and Holland, the two greatest sea nations, agree that Willemvan de Veldewas the greatest marine painter up to his time. In fact, no one had so well observed the motion of the waters, their breaking, or their repose; and no one knew so well the habits of sailors, the rigging of boats, their behavior and their variety. He knew how to make them picturesque, whether isolated between the sky and the water in the most beautiful lines, or in cleverly foreshortening them while they gently rock on the waves singly, or in picturesque groups. Nobody has better understood the profound calm of the ocean, or better expressed the emotion produced by an infinite horizon.
TheVan de VeldeFamily.—The family was talented. Willem the Elder, born at Leyden in 1611, was a magnificent draughtsman, and taught his sons, Willem and Adriaen, drawing. Willem, however, became a pupil of Simon de Vlieger, and the pictures that he sent to his father, then in the service of the English king, astonished the Court. James II. sent for the young man and offered him a pension. In England he frequently colored his father's drawings; and on the Thames from Greenwich to London he had a great opportunity for the study of shipping.
The Simplicity of W.van de Velde's Pictures.—With very simple details, Willem van de Velde produces marvellous effects. He paints the ocean from the shore to the distant horizon; and this straight line is in beautiful contrast to the rounded clouds, while the severity of the tall masts is relieved by the curves of the puffing sails. Sometimes a group of fishermen on the beach or the end of a wharf of piles is seen in the foreground; but he more frequently begins his picture in the middle distance and givesthe foreground up to waves slightly agitated or with a buoy tossing in the rising tide, in such a way as to suggest that the picture was painted not from the shore but from a vessel at anchor.
W.van de Veldecompared with other Painters.—Sir Joshua Reynolds said: "Another Raphael might be born; but there could never be a second Willem van de Velde"; and Havard calls him "not only the greatest marine painter of the Dutch school, but also one of the greatest in the whole world." Blanc draws the following distinction between Van de Velde and Backhuysen: "Backhuysen makes us fear the sea, whilst Van de Velde makes us love it."
Backhuysen, a Painter of Ships and Shipping.—Backhuysen (1631-1708) probably owed his darker moods to his masterAllartvan Everdingen, who was a pupil of Pieter Molijn (1600-54), whose works are now so rare, and who was also one of the founders of Dutch landscape-painting. Backhuysen was a painter of ships and shipping, as well as of the sea, and had a practical knowledge of nautical matters.
Examples showing his Style.—Three pictures in The Hague Gallery afford good examples for study of his style. One, Entrance to a Dutch Port, dated 1693, shows an agitated sea, very remarkable for the happy distribution of sunlight and shadows of clouds upon the water, and broad yet delicate treatment; another is a View of the Wharf Belonging to the Dutch East India Company, and is dated 1696; and the third has for its subject The Landing of William III. of England in the Oranje Polder in 1692.
Imitators of Backhuysen.—Pictures by Jan van de Capelle and Jan Dubbels often pass for Backhuysen's; and another imitator is Abraham Storck, who is greatly inferior in elegance of touch. Good examples of Storck's style—a Marine and a Shore—hang in The Hague Gallery. Storck was much influenced by Lingelbach. The latterwas also quite successful with his harbors and quays, with their shipping and human figures.
Simon de Vlieger as a Painter of the Ocean.—A greater painter, however, is Simon de Vlieger (1601-59), who is supposed to have studied under Jan van Goyen, and painted landscapes in the style of that master; he is famous for his marines. He frequently painted sea pieces which included the coast. He was the first to represent the ocean in its varying moods. His execution is free and soft, and his aërial perspective very fine. Like the majority of the Dutch painters he loved to paint Scheveningen. His Beach at Scheveningen, signed and dated 1643, is a fine example of his work.
The Diversity of his Subjects.—"De Vlieger often paints birds of the farmyard, which, both in truth and delicacy, are equal to anything produced either byHondecoeteror Flamen. His horses, hares, and sheep may certainly pair with those of Van der Hecke, Jouckeer, or Jean Leducq; his pigs are observed differently from those of Karel Dujardin, but perhaps they are more true to nature because he has not put any malice or irony into his representation of them. The diversity of his subjects, the talent he displays in grouping figures and animals in an extensive landscape, or in a boat passing along a canal, or on the beach of Scheveningen where, in The Hague picture, we see them huddling together as if the ocean had just cast them ashore with its shells and fishes; the art of lighting them so as to delight the eyes without too greatly distracting the mind from the spectacle of vast nature and the infinite ocean—all that makes Simon de Vlieger one of the most remarkable Dutch masters."[9]
The Diversity of his Subjects.—"De Vlieger often paints birds of the farmyard, which, both in truth and delicacy, are equal to anything produced either byHondecoeteror Flamen. His horses, hares, and sheep may certainly pair with those of Van der Hecke, Jouckeer, or Jean Leducq; his pigs are observed differently from those of Karel Dujardin, but perhaps they are more true to nature because he has not put any malice or irony into his representation of them. The diversity of his subjects, the talent he displays in grouping figures and animals in an extensive landscape, or in a boat passing along a canal, or on the beach of Scheveningen where, in The Hague picture, we see them huddling together as if the ocean had just cast them ashore with its shells and fishes; the art of lighting them so as to delight the eyes without too greatly distracting the mind from the spectacle of vast nature and the infinite ocean—all that makes Simon de Vlieger one of the most remarkable Dutch masters."[9]
De Vlieger was as eminent in interiors, ruins, and processions as in marines and landscapes. He loved to frame familiar and rustic scenes in beautiful landscapes; and he had no need to call upon others, such as Barent Gael, Schellinkx orVan de Velde, for his figures, as so many of his contemporaries did.
Painters of Architectural Pictures: De Vries.—Pictures in which architecture forms the chief interest had their beginning with Jan Vriedeman de Vries, who devoted himself to the study of Vitruvius and Serlio. His works were very successful, though in the mannered taste of his time.
Hendrik van Steenwyck and his Son.—A scholar of his, Hendrik van Steenwyck (1550-1604), who became a master in Antwerp in 1577, painted chiefly interiors of Gothic churches of fine perspective, both lineal and aërial, and was the first to represent the light of torches and tapers on architectural forms. One of the very numerous Francken family usually added the human figures. His son Hendrik van Steenwyck was his pupil and follower, though he painted in a cooler tone and was inferior in all respects.
Pieter Neeffs and his Son.—Pieter Neeffs (1620-75), however, was the elder Steenwyck's best pupil. He followed him in style but excelled him in warmth of tone, power, and truthfulness in expressing torchlight effects. Many of his pictures contain figures by Frans Francken the younger, Jan Breughel, and David Teniers the elder. In the Mauritshuis we find a good example of Pieter Neeffs,—The Interior of a Church, with figures by Frans Francken III.
His son of the same name was his pupil and follower, but produced pictures of inferior merit. To this group belongsBartholomewvan Bassen, who painted interiors of the Renaissance churches and halls.
Van der Heyden's Architectural Paintings.—Jan van der Heyden (1637-1712) is "the Gerrit Dou of architectural painters." His subjects chiefly are well-known buildings, palaces, churches, etc., in Holland and Belgium, canals in Dutch towns with houses on their banks, fine perspective, the views selected with great taste. The trees are rather minute in foliage. The figures in many of his works were supplied by A.van de Velde, and after his death by Eglon van der Neer and Lingelbach. A View of theChurch of the Jesuits at Düsseldorf, signed and dated 1667, is a valuable work. The figures are by A. van de Velde. "The warm, clear chiaroscuro in which the whole foreground is kept is admirable, while the sunlight falling on the middle distance has a peculiar charm."[10]He is also represented in The Hague Gallery by a still life.
Other Architectural Painters.—Other architectural painters are Gerrit Berckheyde, who painted exteriors of buildings in his own country, and occasionally interiors of churches; Jacob van der Ulft (1627-90), whose large picture in the Mauritshuis of troops marching has already been mentioned; Pieter Saenredam, whose works form a transition from the earliest architectural painters like Pieter Neeffs to the maturest expression of this class; Dirck van Deelen, a pupil of Frans Hals, who has a view of the Binnenhof with the last great Meeting of the States General; Emanuel de Witte, who, strange to say, was a pupil of Evert van Aelst, the painter of dead game and still life; Hendrik van Vliet, pupil of his father, Willem, who has an interior of part of the Old Church at Delft in the Mauritshuis, of peculiar warmth, brilliancy of effect, and delicate treatment of reflected lights; and last of all, Gerard Houckgeest (?-1655), who is represented by the Interior of the New Church at Delft and Tomb of William I. in the New Church at Delft.
The Excellence of Houckgeest's two Paintings.—"This almost unknown artist is a new proof of the astonishing efflorescence of excellent painters in Holland about the middle of the seventeenth century. Two views of the Interior of the New Church at Delft, in The Hague Museum, are on a level with the highest development of the school. It would be difficult to render the brilliancy and transparency of full sunlight more completely than in the one which contains the monuments of the Princes of the House of Orange. The other picture also, inscribed with the master's monogram, and 1631, is in every respect, and especially in the soft and full treatment, of the utmost excellence."[11]
The Excellence of Houckgeest's two Paintings.—"This almost unknown artist is a new proof of the astonishing efflorescence of excellent painters in Holland about the middle of the seventeenth century. Two views of the Interior of the New Church at Delft, in The Hague Museum, are on a level with the highest development of the school. It would be difficult to render the brilliancy and transparency of full sunlight more completely than in the one which contains the monuments of the Princes of the House of Orange. The other picture also, inscribed with the master's monogram, and 1631, is in every respect, and especially in the soft and full treatment, of the utmost excellence."[11]
Dou, Founder of the Leyden School.—The founder of the Leyden school of painters, Gerrit Dou (1613-75), is represented in the Mauritshuis by a masterpiece of the first rank, which is considered one of the gems of the gallery. It is known as The Good Housekeeper, The Household, and The Young Mother.
Description of The Good Housekeeper.—In a large room that serves as hall, dining-room, and sitting-room, as well as kitchen, is seated a lady, handsomely dressed in a morning costume. She has evidently just returned from market; for there is a plucked fowl in a basket on the window seat and an unplucked bird on the table, where a cabbage also lies. A hare hangs on the wall above, and below the table one notes a fish on a platter, and near a pot a bunch of carrots. A lantern has fallen on the floor in the foreground. The lady is sewing, with a basket beside her and a sewing-pillow on her knee; while a little servant watches the baby in its basket cradle. The pillar that supports the roof is carved, the brass chandelier is of splendid design, the draperies are heavy, and a coat-of-arms is painted on the windows. Everything betokens wealth and comfort.
The young mother looks at us in a very friendly way with her attractive little face. Our attention is first attracted to the group in theforeground; but gradually we admire the complete representation of all the little things around; the wonderful, finely expressed chiaroscuro, the beautiful stream of light, and the boldness of the shadowed yet plainly visible group in the background. The picture belongs to the artist's middle period and is dated 1658; and although it has darkened, it is still full of rich color.
GERRIT DOU The Good HousekeeperGERRIT DOUThe Good Housekeeper
The Good Housekeeper presented to Charles II.—When Charles II. left Holland for his Restoration in England, the directors of the East India Company could think of no finer present to offer him than a picture by Gerrit Dou, which they bought for 4,000 florins from M. de Bie. It was this very picture of The Good Housekeeper, whichwas afterwards brought back to Holland by William III. and hung in his castle at Loo.
Dou's Style imitated by his Pupils.—It is by such pictures that we test the numerous works of his pupils, which are now, and have been from the end of the seventeenth century, offered for sale as Dou's. Very early in life Dou made use of magnifying glasses, and with great care he ground his own colors. Sandart relates that he once went with Pieter de Laer to pay a visit to Dou, who was painting a broomstick "which was slightly longer than a finger-nail." When Sandart praised his great industry, he answered that he "had to work about three days longer on it."
His Devotedness to his Work.—When the weather was not fine, he stopped his work. He devoted his whole life to work. His palette, colors, and brushes he carefully protected from dust, which gave him much trouble; he put them away with the utmost care, and when he sat down to paint he would wait a long time until the dust had entirely settled. His studio was a large one with high lights, facing the north and looking out on the still waters of the canal.
His Fondness for Domestic Subjects.—He almost always depicts a view of the interior of a burgher's dwelling. He is the painter of nice, quiet domesticity, and his people almost invariably look gay and happy. When he attempts to portray strong emotions, his people do not look as if they felt them; even his Dropsical Woman in the Louvre is dying peacefully and with resignation. Dou was an excellent observer of all surroundings, and the slightest objects in his pictures are represented with the utmost completeness. Dou could readily please, and form a school, in a Northern and Protestant country, where people lead an indoor life, a silent, concentrated family life, where man is attached to his dwelling, adorns it with care, and closes it in, with the feeling of a sanctuary. In fact, Dou painted only familiar subjects on canvases or panels of small size, such as are suited to the small cabinet of acurieux, and he was one of the first to set in honor the mostrecherchéstyle of painting in Holland,—thatof little pictures executed in that precious manner which the French of the eighteenth century called thebeau fini.
Dou and Rembrandt contrasted.—Dou differed greatly from his master, Rembrandt. The one had the fire of genius; the other had patience. Even when Rembrandt highly finished his pictures, he knew when to neglect some accessory, to sacrifice some detail to the expression of the essential parts, and thus to give full value to everything in the picture that could appeal to the heart or interest the mind. Dou, on the contrary, applying himself to what he considered the last word of painting, tried to give equal importance to everything that entered into his composition, without admitting any of those negligences that are often such happy artifices, and taking as much care in the finish of a pewter pot as in expressing the feeling in a woman's features, or the thought in a man's physiognomy. Therefore, Dou's natural tendency, instead of being modified by Rembrandt, became only more pronounced. As his master broadened, his manner grew more smooth and polished.
The Fruit of Dou's Precautions.—His care in making his own brushes, colors, and varnishes, and his precautions to keep his wet canvases free from dust (he chose a studio overlooking stagnant water) have been rewarded by the present condition of admirable preservation of his pictures. His minuteness wearied his sitters and he soon failed as a portrait-painter. It is related that he made a distinguished Dutch lady, Madame Spiering, pose five days for her hand alone.
He forsakes Portraits for Scenes in Common Life.—As his sitters left him one after another, Dou devoted himself entirely to represent the scenes of common life without giving himself any trouble in selection, being sure that in them he would find opportunities to display his veritable genius, that of detail. He was content to take what first offered as a subject, and the circle of his invention did not go beyond that. He simply observed life in the neighboring shops: the pepper-seller, when she is dangling the scaleswith the tips of her fingers; the marketwoman verifying the transparence of her eggs by the light of a candle, and the mysterious interior of the barber-surgeon. If he sees in the street a servant coming home from market loaded with vegetables, counting what she has spent and what she is going to steal from the change, there is a picture already made. In the public square he stops to study the faces of the simple dupes gathered around a charlatan vaunting his elixir, teaching the practice of love-philtres, and drawing teeth painlessly. His artist's eye finds motives readily at hand; sometimes in the room of the embroiderer, absorbed in her needlework; sometimes in the juvenile schoolroom, where the martinet overawes his frolicsome pupils. He also delights in representing the joys of the domestic hearth, that ever simple and ever charming picture of themater familiasbusy with household cares, while the children are rolling about on the floor at their grandmother's feet. Finally, he sometimes goes so far as to be malicious and to complicate the picturesque accidents of a winding staircase which a woman descends softly to surprise her husband in the kitchen with the servant.
The simplicity of trivialities Dou made the subject of the finest and most precious pictures in the world. The Herring Seller is as finely and minutely painted as The Philosopher in Meditation.
He preferred Interiors to Open-Air Scenes.—Dou seldom painted open-air pictures. Interior light suited him better; and moreover he had learned chiaroscuro from Rembrandt. However, one of his most famous pictures, The Charlatan (in the Old Pinakothek, Munich), is an exception.
"Upon the whole, the single figure of the Woman Holding a Hare, in Mr. Hope's collection, is worth more than this large picture, in which perhaps there is ten times the quantity of work."[12]
"Upon the whole, the single figure of the Woman Holding a Hare, in Mr. Hope's collection, is worth more than this large picture, in which perhaps there is ten times the quantity of work."[12]
His Foreground in Many Cases bordered by a Window.—His small pictures of one or two figures were usually framed by a window. He has often painted his own portrait thus, sometimes holding a trumpet, and sometimes playing a violin. Having once found this natural border, the painter framed all his models with it. To-day we see the girl with beautiful blond hair blowing soap bubbles and smilingly watching the prismatic globes rise in the air; to-morrow, the pretty girl who is not sorry to have on her window-sill more than one pretext for showing herself,—the canary-cage, hanging outside; a letter to read; a pot of geraniums to water, and what not. And this fresh face, which has for a background the transparent shadow of a room wherein a group of people are conversing, comes forward to be gracefully framed by the vine that runs along the sash, and with its contours relieves the cold regularity of the architecture.
It is certain that this patient imitator of nature must have been very industrious, if we may judge from the number of his pictures and the time he devoted to each. His pupil, Karel de Moor, says so. The pronounced liking of his countrymen for his pictures left him no repose.
The Best Example of his Candle-light Scenes.—He frequently painted by the aid of a concave mirror, and to obtain exactness, looked at his subject through a frame crossed with squares of silk thread. The Evening School, in the Amsterdam Gallery, is the best example of the candle-light scenes in which he excelled. President van Spiering of The Hague paid him 1,000 florins a year simply for the right of preëmption.
Godfried Schalcken, Pupil and Imitator of Dou.—The other picture credited to Dou, A Young Woman Holding a Lamp in her Hand, and which was so greatly admired by Sir Joshua Reynolds, is thought to be by Godfried Schalcken (1643-1706). Those who are curious on this question may turn to a picture by Schalcken called a Lady at her Toilette, by candle-light, an effect which he was so fond of painting.
His Device for securing Candle-light Effects.—Schalcken was a pupil of Dou, under whom he acquired delicacy of finish and skill in the treatment of light and shade. He gained a reputation for his small domestic scenes, chiefly with candle-light effects; and, to treat these accurately, he is said to have placed the object he intended to paint in a dark room with a lighted candle and peeping through a small hole painted by daylight the effects he saw. A pupil of Samuel vanHoogstraatenand Gerrit Dou (who were pupils of Rembrandt), he became an imitator of the latter, following him in his depth of tone, extreme finish, and preference for night scenes.
Schalcken's Weakness in Drawing.—Blanc says he was aware of his weakness in drawing, particularly the extremities of the human body, and this was one reason he liked partly to conceal his subjects in shadows and half-lights. His master, Dou, had made a sensation with his Evening School (in the Rijks) in which the effect of candle-light is treated with such skill; but what was a caprice with Dou, Schalcken made a habit. His pictures are a series of fantastic scenes and illusions. This painter saw the night only; his pictures whether mythological, historical, religious, or commonplace scenes, are always nocturnal ones. Blanc says: "His brush was a permanent candle."
His Great Popularity.—Schalcken, however, attained an enormous vogue, and many of the wealthy Dutch had their portraits painted by him, pleased with the mysterious or piquant light he threw upon them. He went to London, where he painted William III. with a candle in his hand. This is now in the Rijks. Schalcken found Kneller too strong a rival, and returned to Holland, having, however, acquired a good deal of money. The Mauritshuis also contains four others of his pictures: a Portrait of William III., King of England;La morale inutile; A Visit to the Doctor; and a Venus.
The Best Examples of Ostade's Work.—Among the best recognized examples of Ostade's work are: The Fiddlerand his Audience (1673) and Peasants in an Inn (1662), in The Hague; The Village School (1662), in the Louvre; the Tavern Courtyard (1670), at Cassel; and The Sportsman's Rest (1671), at Amsterdam.
Description of The Fiddler.—One of the gems of The Hague Gallery is The Fiddler by Adriaen van Ostade (1610-85). The old dilapidated inn with its broken casement window is picturesque because of the graceful festoons of vine-leaves that grow above the roof and penthouse. A wandering fiddler is playing to the innkeeper and his wife, who lean over the door, while five children and a dog are variously grouped. A young man with a large tankard in his hand also enjoys the music in his lazy position.
A. VAN OSTADE The FiddlerA. VAN OSTADEThe Fiddler
Description of Peasants in an Inn.—"Peasants in an Inn was painted in 1662; but it exhibits all the qualities of Ostade's best work. The figures are drawn true to life. Very charming is the poodle gazing with great interest at the child, who is eating his bread and butter. By allowing the full daylight to fall from the left through the door while the background is lighted by a high window, Ostade gives himself every opportunity to express his chiaroscuro as beautifully as he desires. The little pot on the tree-trunk and all the other still life of this picture forcibly remind us that Ostade was an unusually great master in this field. His small pictures of still life, principally representing pots and other kitchen stuff, are pearls of the first water; but they are somewhat rare. The coloring of this picture is warm, but it melts into cool tones, which we find still more strongly in The Organ Grinder of the same gallery, which was painted eleven years later."[13]
Description of Peasants in an Inn.—"Peasants in an Inn was painted in 1662; but it exhibits all the qualities of Ostade's best work. The figures are drawn true to life. Very charming is the poodle gazing with great interest at the child, who is eating his bread and butter. By allowing the full daylight to fall from the left through the door while the background is lighted by a high window, Ostade gives himself every opportunity to express his chiaroscuro as beautifully as he desires. The little pot on the tree-trunk and all the other still life of this picture forcibly remind us that Ostade was an unusually great master in this field. His small pictures of still life, principally representing pots and other kitchen stuff, are pearls of the first water; but they are somewhat rare. The coloring of this picture is warm, but it melts into cool tones, which we find still more strongly in The Organ Grinder of the same gallery, which was painted eleven years later."[13]
The Demand in Marriage, painted between 1650 and 1655, also hangs in the Mauritshuis. This picture is owned by Dr. A. Bredius.
Ostade's Pictures Generally taken from Low Life.—The number of Ostade's pictures as given by Smith is 385; but it is thought that he painted even more. About 220 pictures have been traced in public and private collections.
Adriaen Ostade was the contemporary of David Teniers and Adriaen Brouwer, and, like them, chiefly devoted himself to painting rustic and village life, tavern and gambling scenes, brawls and open-air games. Smokers, drinkers,fish-wives, quacks, strolling musicians, itinerant players, wood-cutters, children at play, alehouse-keepers and their wives, all find sympathetic treatment. Like Brouwer, Ostade wandered about the towns and country, finding his models in the taverns and cottages.
Increase in the Value of his Pictures.—He painted with equal vigor at all times; and so highly appreciated is he that pictures worth little in his day now bring large sums. For instance, in 1876 Earl Dudley paid £4,120 for a cottage interior. According to Houbraken, Ostade was a pupil of Frans Hals, while he was also teaching Brouwer.
Crowe's Opinion of Ostade's Style.—"There is less of the style of Hals in Adriaen Ostade than in Brouwer, but a great likeness to Brouwer in Ostade's early works. During the first years of his career, Ostade displayed the same tendency to exaggeration and frolic as his comrade. He had humor and boisterous spirits, but he is to be distinguished from his rival by a more general use of the principles of light and shade, and especially by a greater concentration of light on a small surface in contrast with a broad expanse of gloom. The key of his harmonies remains for a time in the scale of grays. But his treatment is dry and careful, and in this style he shuns no difficulties of detail, representing cottages inside and out, with the vine leaves covering the poorness of the outer side, and nothing inside to deck the patch-work of rafters and thatch, or tumble-down chimneys and ladder staircases, that make up the sordid interior of the Dutch rustic of those days. His men and women, attuned to these needy surroundings, are invariably dressed in the poorest clothes. The hard life and privations of the race are impressed on their shapes and faces, their shoes and hats, worn at heel and battered to softness, as if they had descended from generation to generation, so that the boy of ten seems to wear the cast-off things of his sire and grandsire. It was not easy to get poetry out of such materials. But the greatness of Ostade lies in the fact that he often caught the poetic side of the life of the peasant class, in spite of its uglinessand stunted form and misshapen features. He did so by giving their vulgar sports, their quarrels, even their quieter moods of enjoyment, the magic light of the sungleam, and by clothing the wreck of cottages with gay vegetation."[14]
Crowe's Opinion of Ostade's Style.—"There is less of the style of Hals in Adriaen Ostade than in Brouwer, but a great likeness to Brouwer in Ostade's early works. During the first years of his career, Ostade displayed the same tendency to exaggeration and frolic as his comrade. He had humor and boisterous spirits, but he is to be distinguished from his rival by a more general use of the principles of light and shade, and especially by a greater concentration of light on a small surface in contrast with a broad expanse of gloom. The key of his harmonies remains for a time in the scale of grays. But his treatment is dry and careful, and in this style he shuns no difficulties of detail, representing cottages inside and out, with the vine leaves covering the poorness of the outer side, and nothing inside to deck the patch-work of rafters and thatch, or tumble-down chimneys and ladder staircases, that make up the sordid interior of the Dutch rustic of those days. His men and women, attuned to these needy surroundings, are invariably dressed in the poorest clothes. The hard life and privations of the race are impressed on their shapes and faces, their shoes and hats, worn at heel and battered to softness, as if they had descended from generation to generation, so that the boy of ten seems to wear the cast-off things of his sire and grandsire. It was not easy to get poetry out of such materials. But the greatness of Ostade lies in the fact that he often caught the poetic side of the life of the peasant class, in spite of its uglinessand stunted form and misshapen features. He did so by giving their vulgar sports, their quarrels, even their quieter moods of enjoyment, the magic light of the sungleam, and by clothing the wreck of cottages with gay vegetation."[14]
Ostade the Greatest Dutch Painter of Peasant Life in his Day.—Adriaen van Ostade is rightly regarded as the greatest of the Dutch painters of the seventeenth century who represented the peasant life of that day. In song and dance, weddings andkermesses, at bowling, love-making, and drinking, Ostade always was an observer of country folk, although he himself was a townsman, and held a rather exalted position in the world. His second wife seems to have raised him into a very high social class of Amsterdam families, as numerous records of executions of wills, which the painter must have signed in Amsterdam, inform us. To some extent, his peasants involuntarily progress parallel with the force of his own life. In his earliest pictures, when Ostade was still a modest artist, his peasants are also still quite peasant-like; in his tavern-scenes things are still very lively. Later, when the painter became closely related to refined and well-to-do patricians, his peasants also became more prosperous and polite; in a word, more decorous. Unfortunately, his painting also became somewhat more polished and smooth, so that the early pictures, and particularly those of the middle period, more strongly delight the heart of an artist than the cool, smooth works of the later period. Ostade is eminent in his coloring, chiaroscuro, and composition: he knows how to arrange his groups in the most spontaneous and natural manner; and truly artistic is his method of illumination, for which, knowingly or unknowingly, he has to thank Rembrandt. In his earliest pictures, which have a somewhat cold tone grading into gray, reminding us of his teacher Hals (from 1631 to 1640), there still remains some local color. The subjects, mostly peasants in poor homes or in the tavern, are energetically conceived. Bode rightly says:
"Instead of the pleasant humor and the poetry of the prosperous middle class which are common to the later pictures, these earlier works display an effort for characterizing according to life and movement; a keen humor in the spirit of Hals and Brouwer; and, particularly, a characteristic inquiry into the separate individualities, such as the lifelike representation of an expressive scene, the feasting, round dances, and fighting of his jovial peasant folk."Bredius on the increasing Brightness of his Pictures.—"He died in 1685. Before 1640 his chiaroscuro was already finer, and between 1640 and 1655 (his flowering-time) many of his pictures show no traces of Rembrandt's influence. The tone of his works was quite different and approaches a warm brown; the chiaroscuro, as, for instance, in his well-known Painter's Studio in Amsterdam; and later, very closely repeated (Dresden, 1663), attains the highest degree of freedom; then his pictures become somewhat slowly cooler, the tone gets constantly grayer, but the drawing always remains strikingly correct, the grouping natural, and the pictures become brighter, smoother, and more polished. In the meantime Ostade had become a finer, more respectable gentleman. Well on in years, he could leave this life without worry, and was buried at Haarlem by his admirers and pupils on May 2, 1685."
"Instead of the pleasant humor and the poetry of the prosperous middle class which are common to the later pictures, these earlier works display an effort for characterizing according to life and movement; a keen humor in the spirit of Hals and Brouwer; and, particularly, a characteristic inquiry into the separate individualities, such as the lifelike representation of an expressive scene, the feasting, round dances, and fighting of his jovial peasant folk."
Bredius on the increasing Brightness of his Pictures.—"He died in 1685. Before 1640 his chiaroscuro was already finer, and between 1640 and 1655 (his flowering-time) many of his pictures show no traces of Rembrandt's influence. The tone of his works was quite different and approaches a warm brown; the chiaroscuro, as, for instance, in his well-known Painter's Studio in Amsterdam; and later, very closely repeated (Dresden, 1663), attains the highest degree of freedom; then his pictures become somewhat slowly cooler, the tone gets constantly grayer, but the drawing always remains strikingly correct, the grouping natural, and the pictures become brighter, smoother, and more polished. In the meantime Ostade had become a finer, more respectable gentleman. Well on in years, he could leave this life without worry, and was buried at Haarlem by his admirers and pupils on May 2, 1685."
Ter Borch's Freedom from Grossness.—Ter Borch (1617-81) is excellent as a portrait-painter, but still greater as a painter ofgenresubjects. He depicts with admirable truth the life of the wealthy and cultured classes of his time, and his work is free from any touch of the grossness which finds so large a place in Dutch art. His figures are well drawn and expressive in attitude; his coloring is clear and rich, but his best skill lies in his unequalled rendering of textiles in draperies.
The Elegance of his Sitters.—Ter Borch was not only an excellent painter of Conversations, he was, indeed, the creator of hisgenre. With a little less wit and a little less taste, perhaps, than Metsu, he charms you with his family concerts, histête-à-têtelovers, his light afternoon repasts, and in selecting for heroes the most elegant cavaliers of the world in which he lived. His pretty pages with great puffedsleeves striped with velvet, and those blond ladies with transparent complexions, plump hands, and round waists, constitute a type that no artist has so well represented as Ter Borch. Before depicting these delightful and familiar scenes, he first learned to imitate all that could add to the charm of these pictures of private life,—silken draperies, Turkish rugs, leather, ermine, velvet, and satin,—more particularly satin, andwhitesatin above all else. The most striking example we shall see at the Rijks, in the picture called Paternal Advice, known also as theRobe de Satin.
Resemblance between his Paintings and those of Metsu.—There is so much resemblance between Gerard Ter Borch (or Terburg) and Metsu that at first it is hard to distinguish them. Their subjects are much the same; for instead of painting scenes of low life—inns with carousing peasants, etc.—both turn with sympathy to high life;sujets de modeis the name given to their works in which satins, velvets, silks, and lace, rich robes and mantles, elegant hangings, and table-carpets figure so largely.
The Difference between Ter Borch and Metsu.—The difference between Ter Borch and Metsu is defined by Blanc, who says it is the difference betweenbonhomieandfinesse; the one is naive and gracious, the other ingenious and piquant. Both, however, are charming in the way they introduce us into a house and show us some little comedy that is being played by the unconscious lovers, family group, or party of friends. Like Metsu, Ter Borch is particularly fond of making music a motive of his pictures. A timid love often expresses itself to the notes of a mandolin or lute; sometimes we surprise a musical party singing and playing instruments; a lady composing music or trying a new piece for the first time, while her gallant and richly dressed lover stands by her side. Sometimes we see a young lady quite alone in jacket of puce-colored velvet plucking her lute, which rests on her satin skirt. Sometimes again the conversation takes place in front of a clavecin, where the lady's hands are painted in correct position, though she pauses tohear what her lover has to say, while her spaniel sleeps on the foot-warmer.
Ter Borch's Conversations characterized.—"Pretty little dramas," Blanc calls these Conversations of Ter Borch, "dramas without action or noise, which excite the thought only, and whose intrigue consists only in a clasp of the hand, the lowering of an eyelid, or the exchange of a glance and a smile." He also calls attention to the type of woman represented by Ter Borch, Van Mieris, and Metsu, all of whom have high foreheads on which a few little curls wander, like those made fashionable at this period by Ninon de Lenclos, and known as "boucles à la Ninon."
The Women of Ter Borch's Pictures.—The women of Ter Borch's pictures are like Rousseau's pen-portrait of Madame de Warens, who
"had an air caressing and tender, a very gentle glance, ash-colored hair of uncommon beauty, which she arranged in a verynégligéstyle that produced a piquant effect. She was small and a little thick in the waist; but it would be impossible to find a more beautiful head or a lovelier bust, hands, and arms."
"had an air caressing and tender, a very gentle glance, ash-colored hair of uncommon beauty, which she arranged in a verynégligéstyle that produced a piquant effect. She was small and a little thick in the waist; but it would be impossible to find a more beautiful head or a lovelier bust, hands, and arms."
Dr. Bredius, who calls attention to Ter Borch's position in the hall of fame as singular in the fact that he has never been assailed by critics, nor, on the other hand, sufficiently appreciated, says:
"Without striking originality, without any commanding dramatic quality, without humor, and without any startling light effects, Ter Borch is yet entitled to the name of the firstgenrepainter of Holland,—indeed, of all schools,—merely by his perfect talent and fulfilment as an artist. Rightly is Ter Borch called the most eminent painter of the Dutch school. Not only does he paint high society almost exclusively, but he does it in a distinguished style. The pose of his figures, the composition of his picture, the fine color, the admirable drawing, all breathe an elegance which is not met with elsewhere in the Dutch school. Thereby, he is the one and only master of his subject. What he paints is always completed to the highest degree. We never find in him a trace of effort. What he does must be so and not otherwise. We look for humor in him in vain; but nobilitywe always find, and not least in his likenesses, which, notwithstanding their small dimensions, are 'the last word of a portrait.'"
"Without striking originality, without any commanding dramatic quality, without humor, and without any startling light effects, Ter Borch is yet entitled to the name of the firstgenrepainter of Holland,—indeed, of all schools,—merely by his perfect talent and fulfilment as an artist. Rightly is Ter Borch called the most eminent painter of the Dutch school. Not only does he paint high society almost exclusively, but he does it in a distinguished style. The pose of his figures, the composition of his picture, the fine color, the admirable drawing, all breathe an elegance which is not met with elsewhere in the Dutch school. Thereby, he is the one and only master of his subject. What he paints is always completed to the highest degree. We never find in him a trace of effort. What he does must be so and not otherwise. We look for humor in him in vain; but nobilitywe always find, and not least in his likenesses, which, notwithstanding their small dimensions, are 'the last word of a portrait.'"
TER BORCH The DespatchTER BORCHThe Despatch
Description of The Despatch.—The Despatch, dated 1655, belongs to his second period. On a low chair beside a table on which stand a decanter and beaker, an officer is sitting with his wife or sweetheart. She is sitting on the floor reclining against his knee. Both are young. He holds the despatch in his hand and she looks somewhat distressed. In front of them stands the trumpeter, who, it appears, has brought the message. The officer is fully dressed, and on the table beside him lie his weapons.
His own Likeness, painted by Himself.—The other picture of Ter Borch's in this gallery is his own likeness, painted by himself about 1660. He is dressed entirely in black and stands out strongly against a gray background. He wears a large wig, the curls of which shade his rather melancholy face, distinguished by a long nose and grayish moustache. It was probably painted while Ter Borch was a burgomaster of Deventer.
Caspar Netscher's Family Group.—Much in the same style as Ter Borch's Conversations is Netscher's Family Group. Caspar Netscher (1639-84) was a pupil of Ter Borch, and this is one of the best works of his best period. The painter, in a red slashed jacket, is accompanying on his lute his daughter, who is singing, and whose timidity is well expressed. She wears a dress of white satin and has feathers in her hair. On the other side of the table covered with a Persian carpet, and in the half light, sits Netscher's wife. On the back of the arm-chair in which Netscher is sitting is his signature and the date 1665. Netscher is also represented by two portraits—Mr. and Mrs. Van Waalwijk.
Few Examples of Metsu.—Metsu, like many other Dutch masters, is poorly represented in the great public galleries of his own country. While The Hague Gallery has but three and the Rijks only four, the Louvre, for example, has eight and Dresden six.
Those who have seen pictures by Metsu (1630-67), Ter Borch, or Caspar Netscher, will have a better knowledge of the customs and costumes of the upper classes at the period of the Stadtholders, their faces, their polished manners, their interiors, and even their thoughts, than if they had read many books of travel, whole volumes of geography, description, and history.
The Rich Dutchman as painted by Metsu.—As he appears in the pictures of Gabriel Metsu, the rich Dutchman is domesticated, methodical, and well regulated in his life. His house is the universe for him. In this cherished and well-arranged abode, he concentrates as many joys as the ancient kings of Asia assembled in the palaces of Susa or Ecbatana. His country's and his own ships have "ploughed the sea from end to end, penetrating to Japan for porcelain and amber, and bringing back from Goa pepper and ginger." From the ends of the earth have come to him all things that could charm his family life and distract the melancholy that the sad nature of the North and its long winters inspire. Asia has sent to him her muslins, spices, and diamonds; the polar ice has furnished him with the furs that edge the velvet robes which his wife and his eldest daughter wear indoors. The birds, insects, shells, and mineral specimens of the most distant climes fill his cabinet, carefully arranged under glass. In his gardens flourish rare plants, the choicest flowers and bulbs cultivated by himself or under his own eyes. His furniture, of exquisite taste and workmanship, carefully looked after and incessantly cleaned, does not suffer by the changes of fashion; it is transmitted from father to son, and lasts for generations. His alcove bed is supported by ebony columns and closed in with green damask curtains. Hanging from the ceiling, a candelabrum of gilt bronze spreads its branches twisted into elegant volutes. The floors are waxed till they are a pleasure to the eye, the windows are polished, the door-knob is shining, the furniture gleams like a mirror, and yet the daylight falling through lightly tinted taffeta curtains sheds overall these objects only a soft, moderate, and harmonious radiance.
How Metsu depicts the Manners of the Dutch.—"The manners of Holland, as well as its material physiognomy in civil life, its interiors, its furniture, the decoration and luxury of its apartments, are all written down in Metsu's pictures with charming clearness, which is all the more pleasing since this merit seems to be involuntary in the painter. After two hundred years, his work may serve for the complete reconstitution of a well-to-do interior as it was composed in the seventeenth century by the climate of the country, the character of its inhabitants, and the historic circumstances in the midst of which the Dutch merchants, the masters of the commerce of the world, then lived."By Metsu's favor we are able to penetrate into those interiors which are so jealously closed to strangers. Most often it is by a window that serves as a frame for his picture that Metsu gives us access to the boudoirs of fashionable ladies, and makes us take them by surprise, sometimes in velvetdéshabillewriting their secrets; sometimes finishing their toilette in view of a hoped-for visit; and sometimes breathing over the keys of their clavecin the sighs of their hearts and the thoughts they do not express."His Carefulness in selecting Details.—"Metsu rarely paints an interior without introducing the pet spaniel of the period, which often contributes much to our comprehension of the scene by the character of its attitude."There are some Dutch masters who unintelligently accumulate innumerable details everywhere. They make a picture of manners the pretext for a ridiculous display of furniture, crystal, lustres,chinoisarieand curiosities of every kind; their interiors resemble bazaars. Metsu puts beside his subjects only those details necessary to make the intrigue clear, and to explain the conversation.His Treatment of Still Life.—"However great may have been his talent for painting still life, he never allowed himself to be carried away, like so many others, by that vulgar pleasure; but, on the other hand, what finish! what a precious touch! And then how he loves to give full value to the beauties of local color, or to shade a Turkey carpet, or to grade down the lights on gold and silver vases. What pleasure he takes in the Bohemian glasses and the transparent liquors that half fillthem! The glasses in his pictures have great importance, for the life of a retired Dutchman is spent in continual smoking and drinking; but in Metsu we no longer see the Pantagruelesque glasses of several stages that Van Ostade's peasants always have in their hands; these are fine and more discrete glasses, of elegant form, tall and oblong glasses in which the Haarlem beer froths; glasses cut and fashioned in twenty different ways, octagon glasses each facet of which ends with a curve and which cut the light with their sharp edges, or glasses the calyx of which forms a reversed cone on a heron's claw, or elongates into a swan's neck, and finishes like a trumpet; lastly, the glasses of the grandparents, sometimes of an imperishable thickness and solidity, sometimes as delicate, light, and thin as an onion skin."[15]
How Metsu depicts the Manners of the Dutch.—"The manners of Holland, as well as its material physiognomy in civil life, its interiors, its furniture, the decoration and luxury of its apartments, are all written down in Metsu's pictures with charming clearness, which is all the more pleasing since this merit seems to be involuntary in the painter. After two hundred years, his work may serve for the complete reconstitution of a well-to-do interior as it was composed in the seventeenth century by the climate of the country, the character of its inhabitants, and the historic circumstances in the midst of which the Dutch merchants, the masters of the commerce of the world, then lived.
"By Metsu's favor we are able to penetrate into those interiors which are so jealously closed to strangers. Most often it is by a window that serves as a frame for his picture that Metsu gives us access to the boudoirs of fashionable ladies, and makes us take them by surprise, sometimes in velvetdéshabillewriting their secrets; sometimes finishing their toilette in view of a hoped-for visit; and sometimes breathing over the keys of their clavecin the sighs of their hearts and the thoughts they do not express."
His Carefulness in selecting Details.—"Metsu rarely paints an interior without introducing the pet spaniel of the period, which often contributes much to our comprehension of the scene by the character of its attitude.
"There are some Dutch masters who unintelligently accumulate innumerable details everywhere. They make a picture of manners the pretext for a ridiculous display of furniture, crystal, lustres,chinoisarieand curiosities of every kind; their interiors resemble bazaars. Metsu puts beside his subjects only those details necessary to make the intrigue clear, and to explain the conversation.
His Treatment of Still Life.—"However great may have been his talent for painting still life, he never allowed himself to be carried away, like so many others, by that vulgar pleasure; but, on the other hand, what finish! what a precious touch! And then how he loves to give full value to the beauties of local color, or to shade a Turkey carpet, or to grade down the lights on gold and silver vases. What pleasure he takes in the Bohemian glasses and the transparent liquors that half fillthem! The glasses in his pictures have great importance, for the life of a retired Dutchman is spent in continual smoking and drinking; but in Metsu we no longer see the Pantagruelesque glasses of several stages that Van Ostade's peasants always have in their hands; these are fine and more discrete glasses, of elegant form, tall and oblong glasses in which the Haarlem beer froths; glasses cut and fashioned in twenty different ways, octagon glasses each facet of which ends with a curve and which cut the light with their sharp edges, or glasses the calyx of which forms a reversed cone on a heron's claw, or elongates into a swan's neck, and finishes like a trumpet; lastly, the glasses of the grandparents, sometimes of an imperishable thickness and solidity, sometimes as delicate, light, and thin as an onion skin."[15]
Favorite Subjects.—Metsu is fond of representing the patricians of his day and their womankind either in pleasant entertainment, or, more frequently, in individual figures engaged in quiet work. A picture of this class is The Amateur Musicians. The lady on the left is very quietly playing her instrument with the same sense of repose that is expressed by the lady who seems to be writing down the notes. Only on the face of the elegant gentleman standing behind her chair is painted a merry, almost roguish, smile.