THE ARTIST IN HIS STUDIOJOHANNES (JAN) VERMEERCZERNIN GALLERY, VIENNA
THE ARTIST IN HIS STUDIOJOHANNES (JAN) VERMEERCZERNIN GALLERY, VIENNA
THE ARTIST IN HIS STUDIOJOHANNES (JAN) VERMEER
CZERNIN GALLERY, VIENNA
A signal example of Vermeer’s sincerity and, inasmuch as it is a portrait, unique, hangs in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest. It is thePortrait of a Lady. She is heavy-featured and of homely type, rather resembling the woman in the Rijks Museum picture,The Cook. A white cap tightly grasps her head; a broad white collar, fastened with a tuft of gold braid, falls over her black dress, the cuffs of which are of white lawn. She folds her hands at the waist, one of them in a cream kid glove, trimmed with gold braid, the other suspending its fellow, while she holds a black fan. The face is relieved on one side by greenish-black transparent shadows and wears an expression of dull self-oblivion that is almost poignant and gives to the portrait a grave distinction.
In conclusion, it is worthy of note that Vermeer’s painting-career of scarcely more than twenty years passed from its experimental stage to a full development from which there was no decline. He did not toward the finish lapse from his finest ideals, like Maes and De Hooch, nor mingle pot-boilers with masterpieces in the manner of Jan Steen. He maintained consistently the artistic integrity of a scrupulously exacting conscience.
Jan Steenwas the chameleon of Dutch painting. Besides genre he essayed portraiture and Biblical subjects; alternated between small and large canvases; at one time suggests a recollection of some other artist, by turns Van Ostade, Terborch, Maes, Metsu, Van Mieris, or evenVermeer; at other times is incomparably himself, and still again not infrequently falls below his own standard. He has left more examples than any other genre artist; for dozens mentioned in old catalogues have disappeared, yet still some five hundred survive. He is numerously represented in public and private collections, yet in so many styles and varieties of quality that his artistic personality is apt to seem evasive, while the impression he arouses is by turns one of enthusiasm, indifference, and resentment.
By degrees, however, his personality emerges, as one becomes conscious of a trait that is shared by all his pictures. It is their liveliness of characterization, exhibited not only in the individual figures, but also in the inventiveness of grouping and in the peculiar vivacity with which the spirit of the scene has been rendered. He is of all the genre artists the supreme delineator of Dutch life among the lower middle classes in the Leyden and Haarlem of his day; depicting it, by turns, with something of the large-heartedness of a Shakspere, the wit and satire of a Molière, and the coarseness of a Rabelais. But in every vein, whether of broad survey or trenchant scrutiny, he is human; for the most part genial in his outlook, and always fresh in observation. It is probably because of this that Waagen characterizes him as “next to Rembrandt certainly the greatest genius among the painters of the Dutch School,” an opinion which is shared by W. Bürger (Thoré), while Dr. Bredius styles him “the greatest genre painter of the seventeenth century, one of the wittiest delineators of human folly, the character painterpar excellence.”
The standard, in fact, by which these and other admirers test him, and which must be applied by every one who would reach a just estimate of this many-sided artist, is bigger than that of technique. Steen drew well, but could be slipshod and incorrect in drawing; exhibited an extraordinary gift of improvised and occasionally studied composition, yet could huddle his canvases with a superabundance of material; in one picture would display a fine sense of color, to lose it in another; now would work with a juicy and limpid brushstroke, now in a thin method as dry as brick-dust, and could be indifferent to tonality, while at other times a tonalist of choice distinction. Therefore you cannot measure him as you do a Terborch or a Vermeer, or, indeed, range him for comparison alongside of any of the other genre artists. With them, at their best, the pictorial representation is the chief concern, and they invite you to judge them by their technique. But it is otherwise with Steen. You cannot hold him to so narrow a test, any more than you can Shakspere. Both are technicians who at times throw technique to the winds. You may regret it or resent it; but, to be just, must condone the fact in face of the bigness that looms behind.
The jovial humanity of Steen and the joy that he took in humorous characterization were responsible for the deficiencies he often exhibited as a painter. He would frequently be more interested in the subject than in the technicalities of an artistic problem; which, as we have seen, is precisely the reverse of the attitude that most of the great genre painters came to adopt. They were concerned primarily with the making of a picture; Steen wasquite frequently engrossed with the delineation of a phase of life. He was so interested in the story-telling element of the subject that under some circumstances he permitted himself to supersede the pictorial quality of the presentation. This should be frankly recognized in approaching the study of Jan Steen, otherwise by coming upon one or two of his inferior examples we may be led into a hasty depreciation of this great artist.
He belonged to an old respected family of Leyden, where he was born about 1626, his father being a brewer in prosperous circumstances. The son’s name is inscribed in the records of the University of Leyden, as having been one of its students in 1646; then we hear of him as a pupil of Nicolaes Knupfer, the painter of genre and of Biblical and mythological subjects. Afterward Steen studied with Jan van Goyen, whose daughter Margaret he married. He was one of the first members of the local Guild of St. Luke, established in 1648. From 1649 to 1654 he lived at The Hague; then returned to Leyden for seven years, during which time he owned a brewery near Delft. From 1661 to 1669 he resided at Haarlem, but in the last year lost his wife and returned to Leyden, where he remained until his death in 1679. In 1672 he had obtained permission from the magistrate of Leyden to maintain a café at his house, and the following year took a second wife, Maria van Egmont, the widow of a local bookseller. Houbraken states that they lived happily together, though their larder was often ill-stocked; but he is not so charitable toward Steen’s connection with the liquor trade. This fact, coupled with the jovial character of the artist’s pictures and enlivened
THE INNJAN STEENHAGUE MUSEUM
THE INNJAN STEENHAGUE MUSEUM
THE INNJAN STEEN
HAGUE MUSEUM
by hearsay information from a painter, Carel de Moor, led this story-monger into much tittle-tattle about the artist’s reckless habits. To-day, by the best authorities, this view of Steen is discredited. It is, however, quite clear that he was often in desperate states; for example, in the February after his first wife’s death an apothecary seized his goods and sold his pictures to satisfy a debt of ten florins! But the reason was not idleness, for he was the most prolific painter of his day; it is to be found in the miserable price for which he had to sell his work. No wonder he tried to eke out his finances by keeping a brewery, which, by the way, was a privilege specially granted at that time only to a few families of particular respectability. As to the café, since he had to turn to trade, he naturally adopted the one with which his family had been connected; the disgrace, if there were any, not being his, but the public’s, who paid him better for drinks than for his pictures.
So far as the dates on his pictures show, his period of production lasted for twenty-five years, from 1653 to 1678, so that his output averaged more than twenty pictures a year. The best period may probably be reckoned during the years from 1654 to 1669, which covered his second sojourn in Leyden and his visit to Haarlem. His family was growing up around him, and the children from year to year figure in his pictures, and his handsome wife, Margaret, appears as a center of kindliness and comfort, while his own person often adds the note of jollity. To these pleasant times belong the incomparable “family scenes”—A Homely Scene,The Feast of St. Nicholas, andThe Happy Familyof the Rijks Museum;The Christening Partyof the Berlin Gallery;While the Old Ones Sing the Young Ones Pipeof the Hague Gallery; and the Cassel Gallery’sTwelfth Night, where Margaret appears for the last time, since the picture was painted in the year of her death.
These and other group-pictures, such asThe Prince’s Birthdayof the Rijks Museum, are works of genius, unique in painting. For they are not constructed according to the methods of the schools, but are the products of a natural gift of seeing and rendering naturally a glimpse of busy life. Yet with a tact that avoids confusion; places everything in its own plane of space with admirable precision and propriety; leaves no intervals of uncertainty or obscurity; but secures to the whole an artistic reasonableness and completeness; and all this with an art that conceals art, and makes the scene appear to be one of complete naturalness. No other artist has ever reconciled nature and art quite so happily; and when one passes from the technical appreciation to a study of the varieties of character, depicted in the personages of all ages from the baby to the grandparents, and notes the mingling of humor and tenderness in the sentiment and the embracing large-heartedness that has inspired the whole, it is to marvel at and rejoice in the uniqueness of Steen’s genius.
Then, by way of contrast, mark his treatment of a subject in which only a few persons figure. To myself his series of medical visits presents perhaps the most charming example of this concentrated phase of his art. WitnessThe Sick Ladyof the Rijks Museum, where the young woman sits with her head supported by a pillow, its whiteness against the pallor of her face, while the doctor stands counting her pulse. It is a masterpiece of tender characterization, for here the physician also is gentle and solicitous. However, he is not so inA Doctor Visiting a Sick Young Woman(No. 166) of the Hague Gallery. There he is boorish in appearance and suggests ignorance; in rough contrast to the pathetically fragile little lady, lying in bed and so ruefully gazing at the medicine-glass in the maid’s hand. The picture is not dated, but I wonder if it was painted after the artist’s rude experience with the apothecary who sold him up for ten florins! Again, inThe Doctor’s Visitof the National Gallery, the man presents a different trait of behavior. It is not tenderness toward a delicate young thing as in the Amsterdam picture, but respectful solicitude toward an older woman, who, by the way, reminds one of Steen’s wife, Margaret. She is dressed in a jacket of old rose, edged with fur, and a silvery-blue skirt, while the doctor wears a suit of black with olive velvet sleeves. In the Amsterdam picture his black costume is relieved by a silk cloak of ashy brown, while the young woman is in pearly-gray satin, trimmed with white fur, a peep of blue slipper appearing from beneath the skirt. In fact, the color of these pictures is exceedingly choice; differing from the richness and liveliness of the family groups; corresponding in its subtle delicacy to the delicate pointedness of the characterization that is not without a certain dry flavor of wit.
It is between these two extremes of generous freedom and highly wrought restraint that the pendulum of Steen’s art swings, with such wealth of variety that it isimpossible to specialize further. However, a word or two must be said in conclusion about his treatment of Biblical subjects, of whichThe Marriage at CanaandThe Expulsion of Hagar, both in the Dresden Gallery, may be cited as typical examples.
Steen’s treatment of Biblical, as of occasional mythological, subjects was purely in the vein of genre; not, however, with any resort to emotional or dramatic appeal, as in the case of Rembrandt. In translating the old scene into the vernacular of Dutch middle-class or low-class life, Steen preserves nothing of its religious significance, or even of its epic dignity. The theme with him becomes simply a vehicle for characterization and possible humor. Thus, inThe Marriage at Cana, Christ is standing at the table in the act of blessing a Dutch wedding-party, but all this is in the background. The salient features of the scene are occurring in the foreground, where a fat cellarer hands a glass of wine to a fiddler, and a slattern woman leans against a cask, giving a drink to a boy. InThe Expulsion of Hagar, Sarah sits inside the door, “examining” the little Isaac’s head; Hagar weeps as Abraham sadly dismisses her: while Ishmael strings his bow, two spaniels are catching fleas, and sheep, cows, and poultry are scattered through the yard. Meanwhile, though the pictures make no appeal to the spiritual imagination, the sensuous imagination may be stimulated by the choiceness of their charm of color. Perhaps, however, if one wishes to epitomize Steen’s attitude toward the subjects he took from the Bible and the classics, one may best compare his rendering ofThe Disciples at Emmaus(Rijks Museum) withRembrandt’s treatment of the same subject in the Louvre. Instead of Christ being the pathetic center of divine illumination, as in the latter picture, Steen has placed Him in the shadow of the background, leaving the room, while the disciples, attended by a serving-woman, are gazing disconsolately at the table, which is garnished with—of all imaginably incongruous things—a lemon.
TO the Dutch method of treating Biblical subjects we have already alluded in the case of Rembrandt and Jan Steen. It shows in common the motive of translating the story into the vernacular of Dutch life, accompanied on the part of Rembrandt with strong emotional and dramatic appeal, expressed by means of color and chiaroscuro. It was also Rembrandt’s practice to employ models selected from the Ghetto in Amsterdam. Among his followers was a group of men who emulated his treatment of Biblical subjects, while they also distinguished themselves in portraiture. Hence the convenience of considering these two branches of Dutch painting in the same chapter. Moreover, the incongruity between the two is not so great as it may appear at first sight, since the Dutch perpetuated the Flemish tendency, which was also German, of not only personifying the sacred characters by personages of their own day, but of reproducing so faithfully their characterization that the heads were practically portraits.
Among the pupils of Rembrandt who varied portraiture with pictures from the Bible story were, in order of their age, Govert Flinck, Ferdinand Bol, Carel Fabritius, Gerbrandt van den Eeckhout, and Aert de Gelder; while another, who is known solely as a portrait-painter, was Dirck Dircksz Santvoort.
Thisartist (1615-1660) began by being so close an imitator of Rembrandt’s method of chiaroscuro that many of his pictures used to be taken for his master’s; later, however, when the fashion for Italian art was revived, he abandoned the chiaroscuro and devoted himself to line and form. Indeed, he seems to have been an able opportunist; but to mistake him for Rembrandt suggests a shallow conception of the latter. Flinck’s Biblical masterpiece is probably theIsaac Blessing Jacob; in the Rijks Museum. The patriarch’s half-figure, as he sits propped up by pillows, is clad in a splendid crimson robe; the gesture of the arms is full of dignity, and the head crowned with the majestic character of old age. And the aged face of Rebecca is reverently characteristic. The color throughout is rich, and the light and shadow are warm and luminous. It is an effective rendering of a grave incident, but the latter has been seen rather than felt, and certainly not with the depth and poignancy of feeling that Rembrandt would have suggested. Another fine example of Flinck’s is in the Dresden Gallery—David Handing the Letter to Uriah. Crimson again appears in the king’s robe, contrasted with which is a large mass of golden yellow with red border, formed by the cloak ofa secretary at his side, while Uriah’s figure, kept in shadow, is clad in peacock blue and purplish brown. The whole forms a splendid scheme of color, and again the characterization is extremely interesting, especially that of the black-haired and-bearded king, who shows a certain mingling of hardness and nervousness in his face and demeanor. The treatment is seriously conceived, but with rather a faint grasp of the dramatic possibilities involved in the theme.
In theAngel and the Shepherdsof the Louvre there is still less feeling for the scene, except in so far as it offered an opportunity for chiaroscuro. Even the composition is rather perfunctory, the shepherds being huddled on the right, balanced by a cow and sheep on the opposite side of the foreground, while the angel who brings the message of Christ’s birth appears above in the center with cherubs. Nor is the chiaroscuro satisfactory, for while there are some nice passages of color in the lighted parts, the shadows are without quality and seem used only as foils to the light, and not as having individual value. More successful in its recollection of the Rembrandt manner, and altogether a picture of considerable charm, is the classical subject,Diana and Endymion, in the Liechtenstein Gallery, Vienna.
In the Dresden Gallery are two of the old-men studies that this artist frequently painted, while a more important example of his fondness for representing old age is shown in the Art-History Museum, Vienna. ThisGray-Bearded Old Mansuggests, like the others, the influence of Rembrandt, but superficially. It has the venerableness of old age, but not the power of expression that makes Rembrandt’s treatment of this subject so spiritually compelling.
The Louvre has a charmingPortrait of a Little Girl, in an olive-green dress, holding a spade. In arrangement of costume and choice of color it is quite Rembrandtesque. Again, in the Berlin Gallery is a very pleasingPortrait of a Young Woman. But it is in the Rijks Museum that the portraiture of Flinck can best be studied, both in corporation pictures and single figures. They vary in quality from the quite impressive bust portrait (No. 931) ofM. Johannes Wittenbogaert(?), with its mellow flesh tints and strong suggestion of character, to the showy but perfunctoryFête of the Civil Guard, Münster,, 1648. In this there is no charm of flesh and little of fabrics. The whole is pompously theatrical, done apparently for “business,” with no eye to anything but satisfying the vanity of the subjects.
Ferdinand Bol(1616-1680) in the beginning of his career reproduced the manner of Rembrandt. His coloring was mellow and enriched by chiaroscuro. Later, about 1650, the chiaroscuro became less pronounced and the color insipid. While he is esteemed chiefly for his portraits, he also treated Biblical subjects, as may be seen by three examples in the Dresden Gallery and two in the Rijks Museum. The most pleasing of the Dresden pictures isJacob Presented to Pharaoh by Joseph. There is a very characteristic look of scrutiny in Pharaoh’s face, while his jewel-bespangled cloak, with its broad border of white and black fur, affords a fine mass of scintillating color, juxtaposed to the rich creamy costume of Joseph and the crimson of the old man’s. The picture, indeed, presents a very handsome color-scheme, though one may discover a certain stiffness and theatricality in the gesture of Joseph’s hands. The accompanying picture,Rest of the Holy Family during Its Flight into Egypt, is over six feet high and suggests a canvas too large for the material introduced, so that one third of it is filled up with supernumerary articles, such as a saddle and a basket of tools. One suspects that the picture may have been intended as a decoration for some wall-space, as the very large example in the Rijks Museum certainly was. For this,Abraham Receiving the Angelswas one of five panels painted for a room in a house at Utrecht, the other four being now in the abbey of Middelburg in Zeeland. A mild reflection of Italian Renaissance feeling is suggested by thecomme il fautdisposition of the angels’ draperies, but their coloring of golden amber is finely Rembrandtesque; so, too, the glow of the yellowing beech-tree that spires up into the top of the composition, and the plum-gray velvet of Abraham’s robe. The picture, in fact, while shallow in its treatment of the incident, is finely decorative. On the other hand, theSalome Dancing before Herod, a work apparently of Bol’s later period, is an absurdly bad picture, bright and flimsy in color and entirely trifling as a study of form.
Of Bol’s capacity in portrait-painting a good example isPortrait of a Mathematician, in the Louvre. He is shown resting one arm on a balustrade, the body, inblack with a white collar, being in profile, while the gray-haired head, covered with a black cap, is facing round to the spectator, as he points with a ruler to a geometrical figure on a blackboard. It is a piece of honest characterization, blending vivacity and dignity. In quite a different vein is his portrait of a girl in profile in the Liechtenstein Gallery. She has soft pale blond hair, and the figure is enveloped in that yellow tonality which marks Bol’s transition from the Rembrandtesque manner to his later one. The girl with her protruding forehead bears a striking resemblance to a girl, painted by Rembrandt, in Room VI of the same gallery, and a comparison of the two pictures offers an interesting commentary upon the essential difference between the master and one of his most successful pupils.
Among five portraits by Bol in the Munich Pinakothek No. 338 may be specified as particularly handsome. It is that of a man with dark-brown hair and a mustache and imperial of lighter hue, possibly Govert Flinck. He wears a black cap and cloak and leans his arm upon a table. The following number in the catalogue is allotted to a portrait of this man’s wife. She is shown as far as the waist, where her hands are folded, the body full front, the head a little to the left. The face is beautifully modeled in clear flesh-tones, surrounded by golden-brown hair in ringlets. Beneath her white stomacher is a dull-red gown with olive sleeves. Thus the color-scheme is Rembrandtesque, with an envelop of warm amber atmosphere, while the serious sympathy with which the characterization has been rendered would not be unworthy of Bol’s great master.
Unfortunately, Bol by no means maintained this highstandard, as may be seen among the numerous examples of his portraits in the Rijks Museum. They mostly belong to his later period. The best is the earliest one, painted in 1657, representing theSix Governors of the Huiszittenhuis, seated round a table in black clothes and steeple hats. The heads are well characterized and the flesh-tones luminous; but an air of attitudinizing pervades the assemblage, which has rather the prim, set manner of a photographic group. And much the same feeling is aroused by theFour Governors of the Leper House, which is considered in Holland his masterpiece. In fact, it is not in the formal arrangement of a corporation picture, but in a single figure, that Bol is seen to best advantage. Yet some of the examples of these in the Rijks Museum, such as theRoelof MeulenaarandMaria Rey, are commonplace parodies of Rembrandt’s manner, while that of the sculptorArtus Quellinusis a parody of Van Dyck’s elegance. Bol, in fact, was an able assimilator of his master, Rembrandt, and as long as he retained the enthusiasm of his youth, painted creditable and often excellent portraits. Later, however, he drifted into the swim of social decadence, and his work is characterized by affectation, vapidity, and perfunctoriness.
Fabritius(about 1620-1654), after studying with Rembrandt, resided in Delft, where he became, it will be recalled, the teacher of Jan Vermeer. His life was prematurely cut short by the explosion of a powder-magazine, while he was in the act of painting the portrait of Simon Decker, sacristan of the old church at Delft. In consequence, the number of his pictures is small, and some of those which appear under his name in the catalogues are of disputed attribution. He must have had a precocious talent, for thePortrait of Abraham de Notte, in the Rijks Museum, is dated 1640, when the artist was scarcely twenty. It is a bust portrait in which the black-haired head, set against a light background, is well enveloped in atmosphere, while the features are fluently modeled in warm, luminous tones. It proves him to have been an exceptionally apt pupil of the master, and helps to justify the attribution to him of the other picture in the Rijks Museum,The Decapitation of St. John the Baptist, a powerful and attractive work. A golden luminosity, rich in quality, pervades the whole canvas. The characterization of the figures is striking. The executioner, a sturdy, brutal figure, with a rubicund, swollen face, showing above his white shirt, holds the head upon a salver, with the absolute unconcern of a butcher serving meat. A corresponding lack of emotion is apparent in the two female figures, daintily dressed and of girlish refinement, Salome’s eyes gazing into vacancy with a wistful expression, while Herodias, looking but little older, gazes at the head with a slight air of curiosity. The conception of these women is early Italian rather than what one would associate with Dutch of the seventeenth century, and recalls the expression of Mantegna’sJudith with the Head of Holofernes. They suggest a sexless abstraction, moved by no active impulse, yet hauntingly fascinating in itsyoung passionlessness. In the Berlin Gallery aStudy of a Man Prayingis attributed to Fabritius, while in the Munich Pinakothek are two portraits of young men associated with his name. The bust portrait, No. 344, is definitely assigned to him, while the half-length, No. 345, once attributed to him, is now assigned to Rembrandt. It represents a young man with long hair parted in the center, who, holding a sheaf of paper and a pen, seems to have paused in his writing and is looking up and out of the picture with an expression of rapt meditation. In its different way it is akin to the expression of theSalomein the other picture. That so gravely fine a picture should have passed for a Fabritius suggests the character of the estimation which hangs about the memory of this artist, who did not live to fulfil the promise of his youth. Moreover, what is known and what is conjectured about him suggests the value of his influence upon Jan Vermeer, whose own tendency to give his figures a concentrated absorption may possibly be traced to this source.
Eeckhout(1621-1674), the son of an Amsterdam goldsmith, was the first pupil to enter Rembrandt’s studio and one of his closest imitators. For example, inThe Woman Taken in Adulteryof the Rijks Museum, the face of the lonely figure of Christ is the center of light amid the coruscation of rich coloring formed by the costumes of the scribes and Pharisees, while a quieter note of dignity appears in the fine green and plumdraperies of the kneeling woman. The color is sonorous, yet its echo does not penetrate to the depths of the surroundings, the shadows of which are inclined to be opaque and unexplorable. Better in this respect, that its shadows are more luminous, is theChrist with the Doctorsof the Munich Pinakothek. Here the strongest light centers on the head of an old rabbi, so as to bring out the color of his turban and beard while leaving his face in shadow; a device which makes the little face of the Child Christ, though it is clearly illuminated, seem by comparison pathetically insignificant. Meanwhile the light touches here and there the other figures in the group and penetrates their environment of shadow. It is worth while to compare this picture with the series of Biblical subjects by Rembrandt in the same museum, particularly theAdoration of the Shepherds. In the Berlin Gallery Eeckhout is represented byRaising of Jairus’s Daughterand aPresentation of Christ in the Temple. These pictures, particularly the latter, are wonderfully reminiscent of Rembrandt, finely composed in masses of light and shade and sumptuous in color. In a third example,Mercury and Argus, Eeckhout has treated this mythological subject with some charm. The young nude figure of Mercury, with a blue drapery over his knees, as he sits playing his pipe, is a charming white spot against the warm ruddiness of the rocky landscape, where beside a white and red cow the brown nude form of Argus is stretched, as if in sleep. Farther back in shadow are the sheep and goats. The feeling of the picture is pleasant; but its suggestion is inclined to be rather superficial.
Of this artist’s portraits there is an example in the Brunswick Gallery and one excellent specimen in the National Gallery. This isThe Wine Contract, in which the four governors of the Wine Guild of Amsterdam, dressed in black, are seated at a table, examining a contract.
De Gelderwas a pupil of Rembrandt’s old age. He himself was not born until 1645, and, it is supposed, was little over fifteen when, after studying with Hoogstraten in their native city, Dordrecht, he went to Amsterdam. Then he returned to Dordrecht and resided there until his death in 1727. He is thus one of the latest of the artists of the period we are considering. An early work, dated 1671, directly inspired by Rembrandt, is in the Dresden Gallery.The Presentation of Christ in the Templeis a reproduction in color of Rembrandt’s well-known etching of this subject, worked out in red and brown and olive green, enveloped in a dull, warm glow, which, however, has more of mannerism than of suggestion to the imagination. The accompanying example in this gallery,An Important Document, shows a man and woman seated at a table, covered with a red cloth, examining a paper. The coloring is warm, the hands and faces, however, inclining to an unpleasant brickiness of red, while the whole aspect of the scene is lifelike but uninspired. The Dresden Gallery also owns thePortrait of a Halberdier, a well-painted and fairly interesting study of a stout man, with rosy, glowing face beneath a fur-brimmed hat, whose uniform is of various tones of olive green.
De Gelder is also represented by three portraits in the Rijks Museum and by a Biblical subject,Judah and Thamar, in the Hague Gallery, but the best example of the latter kind is in the Museum of Art at Budapest. ThisEsther and Mordecai, dated 1685, shows the queen, seated at a table before an open book, resplendent in a brocaded and jeweled cloak and a tagged and tufted dress, listening while Mordecai, bending forward with humble admiration, addresses her. The coloring is rich and mellow, and the delineation of character, especially in the case of Mordecai, has considerable suggestion of the spirit of the story.
Ifit is a fact, as generally supposed, that Santvoort (1610-1680) was one of Rembrandt’s pupils, he did not follow the master’s use of chiaroscuro, but rather the example of his elaborately detailed portraits. In Santvoort’s own case, as he may be studied in the Rijks Museum, this led at first’ to hardness of modeling, as may be seen in the portrait group of theDirck Bas Jacobsz Family, dated 1634, where the stiffness of the composition is increased by the gaze of every face being focused to one point. Still hard, but full of character, is a later portrait, dated 1638, ofFour Ladies of the Spinhuis. The latter was the house of correction, and these guardians and matrons look competent to rule it firmly.More theatrical in arrangement, with hands pointing this way and that, is theFour Governors of the Serge Hall(1643). Meanwhile, three years earlier, Santvoort painted the single portrait ofFrederick Dircksz Alewyn, which again is harsh in texture and bronze-like in color. On the other hand, the portrait of this man’s wife,Agatha Geelvinck, has a distinct charm. The light falls upon her forehead and soft hair, which is frizzed out with little curls, while the features are modeled with a dainty discretion that recalls a Florentine primitive. Then follow two portraits of children, respectively ten and nine years old,MartinusandClara Alewyn. They are represented as a shepherd and shepherdess, the former in a rose tunic, with a scarf of goldish sheen, quite Rembrandtesque in quality, the latter in a satin dress of the hue of strawberries and cream. She carries a bow and arrow, and is accompanied by lambs, while the boy is attended by a black greyhound. The hands and faces are well modeled and have expression, while the painting throughout is fluent and limpid. The pictures are inclined to sentimentality, which, however, is more easily excused because of the youngness of the children and the painter-like quality of the technique.
From the above followers of Rembrandt, who reflect the manner but so little of the greatness of the master, it is a relief to turn to a portrait-painter who, while he owed something to Rembrandt in the way of chiaroscuro, was
PORTRAIT OF PAUL POTTERBARTHOLOMEUS VAN DER HELSTHAGUE MUSEUM
PORTRAIT OF PAUL POTTERBARTHOLOMEUS VAN DER HELSTHAGUE MUSEUM
PORTRAIT OF PAUL POTTERBARTHOLOMEUS VAN DER HELST
HAGUE MUSEUM
an independent personality and one of force. It is Bartholomeus van der Helst, born in Haarlem in 1613, whose life, however, was spent in Amsterdam, where he died in 1670. It is in the Rijks Museum that he is most brilliantly represented, though his single portraits stud the galleries of Europe. Their usual feature is direct and vivid characterization, conveyed without much persuasiveness of manner, but singularly sincere. One example, however, thePortrait of Paul Potter, is an exception, being both in technique and feeling one of the most persuasive portraits to be met with. It has in it also a suggestion of the feeling for decorative arrangement, which was elaborated on so sumptuous a scale in the corporation pictures of the Rijks Museum.
In the chapter on Hals I alluded to Van der Helst as his inferior in composition and characterization. And the judgment stands, especially when you find yourself at Haarlem in the presence of the superb facility and quality of Hals’s genius. None the less, when you face the prodigious output of Van der Helst’s talent in the Rijks Museum, you realize that, while he was less efficient as a painter, less gifted with the ease, as it were, of improvisation, in his compositions, he had yet an exuberance of invention and a gusto for characteristic generalization, so amazing that from a distance one may be disposed to question if Hals, after all, was so much greater. At his best he undoubtedly was, having the artist’s fine gift of heightening the significance of what he handled, and even in his less memorable work exhibiting more or less of that magical manipulation which is itself an inspiration. Beside him Van der Helst is lessthe artist than a mighty craftsman, and, when one grows enthusiastic over him, it is not because he has heightened the appeal of his material, but because he realizes so wonderfully the prodigal physical exuberance of his day. This reaches its culmination in his masterpiece,The Banquet of the Civic Guard(No. 1135). Grouped around the standard-bearer, who is in black velvet with a sash of the same blue silk as the flag, are some two dozen figures, arranged in natural positions, with easy gestures and heads and hands individually characterized. In these particulars and the treatment of the fabrics there is more than mere craftsmanship. The latter has been regulated by a superior order of intellect.
It is here that one seems to discover the essential difference between Van der Helst and Hals. The former is intellectually the bigger man, while Hals’s distinction is a superiority of feeling. His work, therefore, has the sensuous charm in which the other’s is deficient. When in the light of this you reëxamine Van der Helst’s masterpiece, it is to discover that what is lacking in it is the esthetic quality. The composition is not pervaded with atmosphere, in the various planes of which the figures might take on differences of subtle value; and, while there is an arrangement of light and shade, it is used only to assist the modeling of the figures, and with no feeling for heightening the beauty of the color-scheme by the luminosity of the hues. The result is that the scene, for all its assertion of vital force, is lacking in vivacity. The same test, applied to the other corporation pictures and single portraits by this artist in the Rijks Museum, corroborates the conviction that, apartfrom Rembrandt, Van der Helst was the biggest intellectual force among the portrait-painters of Holland, but that he lacked the esthetic feeling and accordingly the quality of technique which alone make him inferior to Hals.
Sonof an architect and sculptor, Thomas de Keyser was born in Amsterdam, 1596 or 1597, and died there in 1667. His career is divided by a date about 1628. Before this his portraits are similar in character to those of Nicolaes Elias, with which they have been confused. The figures have a hardness and some stiffness, but unmistakable carrying power; the flesh is leathery, dull in color, and expressionless, and the composition either formally arranged in rows, or artlessly strung out in separate items. Thus his earlier portraits present a curious mingling of power and naïveté. They are representative of real people, but are not yet conceived with an artist’s eye. Then by 1628 a change begins to appear in De Keyser’s work, as it also did a few years later in that of Elias. Atmosphere creeps into his pictures; the flesh becomes more luminous, the composition at once more varied and more unified, and the figures, without losing their character, acquire amenity and dignity. It is said that De Keyser’s work influenced the young Rembrandt when he first settled in Amsterdam, and it would seem as if also the older man gradually gained something from the younger.
In the Rijks Museum an example of De Keyser’s early style isThe Company of Captain Cloeck(No. 1300). It is true it is dated 1632; but it still exhibits the hard-fleshed, vacantly staring faces, the figures in unimaginative poses and in no atmospheric envelop, and spiritless treatment of the fabrics. But compareThe Family Meebeeck Cruywaghen(No. 1349). Here the group is held together by a pleasing background of trees and house, bathed in a yellow glow. It is the homestead, and the comfort of it is reflected in the charming spontaneousness of feeling in the figures—father, mother, and grandmother, and six happy children. Each is delightfully individualized, and the expression of the whole picture is one of dignity and sweetness. Or for dignity, again, of a very refined order, take the equestrianPortrait of Pieter Schout(No. 1650). There is here a fine feeling for color, the black horse and its rider’s black hat and yellow coat showing grandly against the drab gray of the lofty sky, below which are sand-dunes with light-green verdure. The picture, though scarcely three feet high, has a sense of space and the bigness of a large canvas.
The startling difference between De Keyser’s two styles is well exemplified in the Berlin Gallery, where you can compare the hard spread-out arrangement in black dresses ofAn Old Lady and Her Three Daughterswith the genial dignity ofAn Old Man and His Two Sons. An exceedingly interestingPortrait of a Womanhangs in the Museum of Art in Budapest. About fifty years old, she is seated in an arm-chair almost facing us; in a handsome black silk dress, trimmed with brown fur, with a wide starched ruff and a lawn cap
FAMILY OF ADMIRAL PIETER PIETERSZTHOMAS DE KEYSERRIJKS MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM
FAMILY OF ADMIRAL PIETER PIETERSZTHOMAS DE KEYSERRIJKS MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM
FAMILY OF ADMIRAL PIETER PIETERSZTHOMAS DE KEYSER
RIJKS MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM
with wings over the ears. Her honest face is modeled in firm planes, and is ruddy with health. This painter-like and admirably human portrait is dated in the year that has been adopted as separating the artist’s two periods: namely, 1628.
Amongthe portrait-painters whose work exhibits the characteristic qualities of Dutch seventeenth-century art are Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt (1567-1641) and Jan Anthonisz van Ravesteyn, both of whom lived at The Hague, where they are well represented in the Mauritshuis; Salomon de Bray (1597-1664), who lived in Haarlem, where he can be seen to best advantage, and Paulus Moreelse (1571-1638), who was born and lived the greater part of his life in Utrecht. To the average student of painting the last named is probably the most interesting. The others are highly esteemed in Holland, though it is pointed out that in the latter part of their lives quality gave way to quantity. Indeed, they were so prolific that one tires of trying to pick good examples out of the mass of mediocrity. In the case of Moreelse, however, it is different. His works, less numerous, have a choiceness of feeling and execution, his portraits of women and children being especially gracious in conception and treatment. Witness, for example, in the Rijks Museum theMaria van Utrechtand the portrait of a child of some seven years,The Little Princess. In place of breadth and freedom, these pictures are precise and meticulous in brushwork, the details of the costumes elaborately reproduced, the faces softly modeled with faint greenish-gray shadows. Yetthey have character and suggest reality and possess an undeniable charm. Somewhat broader in method is hisPortrait of a Young Lady, in the Budapest Museum. Seen to the waist, she is in black velvet, with cuffs and a deep collar of exquisite point-lace. Her pleasantly thoughtful face is painted with a somewhat dull and heavy brush, yet the expression is that of life, and its charm is increased by the soft hair being worn in large rolls over the ears and confined in a cap, of which only the dainty edges of lace appear. It is a portrait of singularly choice refinement.
To the occasional portraiture of the genre artists Maes, Terborch, and Netscher we have alluded in another chapter.
IN the Berlin Gallery are two small examples ofHolland Landscape with the Hamlet of Rhenen. They are by Hercules Seghers, whom Bode points to as the father of seventeenth-century Dutch landscape. Similar in general design, they are distinguished by a fine sweep of almost clear sky, swimming with vapor, from which a level country, dotted with the roofs and church towers of a hamlet and threaded by a stream, stretches in pale-yellow tones, broken up with brownish shadows, to the foreground. The identification of the scene and the assignment of these pictures to Seghers have been made possible by comparison with some etchings of the same artist that modern Dutch research has discovered. By the same means other pictures, including aLandscapein the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, which used to be attributed to Rembrandt, have been restored to Seghers. This one again shows a plain, intersected by a stream, but bounded on the right by the abrupt shoulder of a mountain, whose top is merged in dark cloud, while the rest of the sky is an open expanse of whitish light. In the contrast of this with the dark tones of the ground, weirdly interspersed with fitful gleams, there is an extraordinary impressiveness. It is no wonder that it was mistaken for a Rembrandt; and the interest inSeghers deepens when it is ascertained that Rembrandt himself was strongly influenced during his earlier years in Amsterdam by the older artist. This has been proved by a comparison of certain of the etchings of the two men.
Hercules Seghers, in fact, seems to have been in his own day very much what Michel was to the modern revival of landscape-painting in France. He was a forerunner of the later movement, but unrecognized by the world, while almost the only records that exist of him are documentary evidences of debts. He was born in 1590, probably in Haarlem; worked in Haarlem, Utrecht, and The Hague, but chiefly in Amsterdam, where he died about 1640.
In the few examples of his work that still survive, we can trace the twofold tendency of Dutch landscape: in one direction its note of simple truthfulness to the facts of nature, and in the other the tincture of these facts with a romantic spirit. And, in addition to thus setting the motive, Seghers proclaimed the Dutch artist’s fondness for effects of sky, for tonalities of grays and browns, sparingly enlivened with greens.
For the Dutch landscapists were tonalists. With the single exception of Jan Vermeer, who approximated theplein-airof modern art, they transposed the hues of nature into a scheme of color which is none the less arbitrary and unnatural, although it preserves the values of nature’s coloring. In comparison with the naturalistic achievements of the modern artist, who studies nature in her own environment of light and renders her hues as actual light affects them, the Dutch artist was a composer on the theme of nature, but not a naturalist. The same, however, in only a less degree, is true of the Barbizon artists. They, too, were composers of schemes of tonality, so that, students of nature though they were, their landscapes will not compare in naturalness of suggestion with the work of many a modern man who will probably never enjoy their fame. Let me add that I do not mean to imply by this the essential superiority of the modern landscape-painter. That is another question, and only to be decided by each person for himself, according as he selects or does not select naturalistic representation as the standard of his taste. To one who does not the tonal transposition may seem preferable. Both methods, indeed, have their warrant in art.
But I press the distinction because, unless it is recognized, Dutch landscape-painting cannot be properly appreciated. If people approach it, and it is my experience that many do, with modernplein-airachievements in their eye and basing their judgment upon them, they can only suffer disappointment. The Dutch paintings will seem “old-fashioned,” false to nature, and uninspired. On the other hand, once the necessary attitude is assumed of accepting this transposition of color and light phenomena of nature into an equivalent of tonal values, proper appreciation is possible. Then one begins to study the examples partly for the quality of their tonality, partly for the degree in which they embody the character and spirit of the landscape, and partly, and probably chiefly, for the quality of the artist’s personality infused into them.
Rembrandtwas a master of both landscape motives, able alike to record with truthfulness the physical aspects of a scene or to infuse it with romantic suggestion; and nowhere more remarkably than in his etchings. In these, with a few lines that summarize the salient features of the scene, or with tonal effects of light and shade that elaborate and enrich the facts, he executed plates of pure landscape or of landscape as a setting for the figures. Among his paintings the examples of pure landscape are rare. The beautifulTobit and the Angelof the National Gallery may be considered one, as the figures are insignificant, and another, which, however, is a sea-piece, is in the Liechtenstein Gallery (No. 606): water, dotted with a boat and a few distant sails, stretching back to a low horizon, over which spreads a vast open creamy sky, with some finely buoyant clouds. It is as a setting to figures, especially in the Biblical subjects, that Rembrandt’s use of landscape may best be studied. Here it serves as an orchestration to the theme, enriching it with sensuous and emotional suggestion, and giving a free range to the artist’s romantic and dramatic imagination.
Rembrandt’sbest-known pupil in landscape was Philips Koninck, who was born in Amsterdam, 1619, and died there in 1688, some of his career being spent abroad.The character of his work suggests that he, too, may have been influenced directly by Hercules Seghers, for he affected far-reaching panoramas of flat country, interrupted by occasional low hills and traversed by streams. A fine sky extends above the ground, which is constructed in tones of warm pale yellow, olive green, and reddish brown. Notwithstanding the comparatively large size of the canvases and the extent of the scene included, the latter has been felt so synthetically, as well as comprehensively, that there is no lack of unity. An excellent example isThe Dunes, “The Valley of the Rhine near Arnheim,” owned by Sir William van Horne of Montreal. Another memorable example is in the Dresden Gallery,Dutch Landscape, a view from the dunes looking across the level country. This canvas is scarcely so large, but involves the same sense of bigness. The foreground, which shows some red-roofed cottages amidst the olive greens, is constructed in an ample way; a river occupies the middle distance, and the further plain is dotted with little trees. Overhead is a sky of drabbish gray and rosy cream. The Berlin Museum owns a handsome example with figure and cattle in the foreground, and the Rijks Museum contains two. Here also are to be seen four portraits by Koninck ofJoost van den Vondel, two at the age of seventy-eight and two at eighty-seven; the subject evidently being a friend of the artist, for on the back of one of the pictures is a dedicatory inscription.
Thegreat nursery of Holland landscape was the city of Haarlem. Van Goyen, it is true, belonged to Leyden,while Amsterdam, which produced Seghers and Koninck, in course of time claimed many others. But the majority were citizens of Haarlem or at least spent a portion of their working life in that city. They include Salomon van Ruisdael and his nephew Jacob; Pieter Molyn, Jan Wynants, Allart van Everdingen, and the painters of landscape with animals and figures, Philips Wouwerman, Adriaen van de Velde, and Nicolaes Berchem.
Salomon van Ruisdael(about 1600-1670), it has been conjectured, may have been a pupil of Van Goyen’s because of a similarity between the early work of both, that has lead to their pictures being attributed to each other. But later the similarity disappears, Van Goyen displaying an ampler and more poetic style, while Salomon van Ruisdael continues to be the industrious painter of landscapes that, while admirably faithful to the appearance of nature, are comparatively prosaic in feeling. While he was a member of the Guild of St. Luke in Haarlem and lived there continuously, he visited other cities, for some of his pictures exhibit views of Leyden, Dordrecht, and Nimwegen. The characteristic of his work is a quiet, homely dignity, that, while it gives a pleasant record of the Holland of his day, seldom stirs one to enthusiasm. Perhaps his chief claim to recognition is that he was the teacher of Jacob van Ruisdael.
Pieter Molyn(about 1600-1661) was a successful teacher, who had the capacity to foster the individuality of his pupils. Among these the most famous was GerardTerborch, who occasionally collaborated with his master by introducing figures into his landscapes. Molyn’s own pictures were inclined to be meager in composition, and dryly precise in execution.
Jan Wynants(about 1605-1679), again, was fortunate in having a collaborator, for more than one hundred and fifty of his pictures were enlivened with figures by that skilful and attractive artist, Adriaen van de Velde. They add brilliance and animation to landscapes that in themselves are painstaking but apt to be monotonous.
Allart van Everdingen(1621-1675) is not to be confounded with his brother Cæsar, who was a rather indifferent painter of portraits, genre and historical pictures. Allart was a pupil of Pieter Molyn and then worked in Sweden, subsequently spending seven years in Haarlem and the last twenty-two years of his life in Amsterdam. His fame also rests on his connection with Jacob van Ruisdael, who was induced by the success of Everdingen’s Swedish landscapes to abandon the direct study of nature and to invent scenes of romantic impressiveness. In the Rijks Museum there is a chance, in Nos. 2078 and 907, to compare side by side the work of these two men. The result, I think, is to discover that, while they may use practically the same material in the same way, Ruisdael gives a character to each object, that makes you feel as if he had penetrated into the heart as well as the marrow of the scene, while Everdingen remains merely a lover and recorder of the picturesque.
Van der Neerwas born in Gorkum in 1603, and died in poverty at Amsterdam in 1677. In his youth he was steward in the family of the Van Arkels, and at this time only occasionally indulged his love of painting. Later he devoted himself to art, but found few purchasers for his pictures and was continually harassed by creditors, and at one time, like Jan Steen, kept a tavern. He is distinguished particularly for his winter and moonlight scenes, the best of which date from about 1646. They exhibit not only a close study of nature but a poetic feeling, which is deep and sincere and often very impressive. He was a painter of moods, expressing the sentiment usually in delicate tonalities, so delicate, indeed, that his pictures, hidden away in the corners of galleries or confronted with more robust pictures, seem at first monotonous and cold. It is not until, as Bode points out, they are isolated in a good light that their merit becomes apparent. This famous expert also compares the method of Van der Neer’s moonlight scenes with that of Rembrandt’s interiors. The latter projects a shaft of light into the hollow gloom, while Van der Neer represents a concavity of light, the luminosity of which is heightened by the shadows. His method, in fact, is the exact reverse of Rembrandt’s.
Two memorable examples of his moonlight scenes appear in the Berlin Gallery, where one is impressively somber, while the other is dramatically stirred by the yellow and red flare and turbid smoke from a burninghouse, and figures in movement agitate the foreground. Others are in the National Gallery and in the Imperial Art Museum at Vienna. The example in the latter shows a darkened canal, with a boat, stretching back to a town that broods beneath a sky in which the moon rides at full, surrounded by fleecy clouds.
In the Vienna Gallery also is an example of one of his winter scenes, others appearing in the National Gallery and in the Wallace Collection. In these the artist indulges in a freer and livelier use of color, though the animation of the ground and its group of figures does not interfere with the delicate observation and sensitive feeling, that still regulate his treatment of the skies. It is on this that Van der Neer, like all painters of poetic moods, relies chiefly for expression.
In one of Van der Neer’s landscapes in the National Gallery, cattle were painted by Cuyp. The reminder may serve at this point of our story for an introduction to the important part played in Holland landscape by those artists who enlivened it with figures and animals.
Thepopularity of this branch of painting in the seventeenth century can be explained by its affinity to genre painting. It is but a step from depicting a party of people in an interior to showing them engaged in some sport or occupation in the open air. The same tendency to depict the incidents of Dutch life, or to use such incidents as the theme of a pictorial presentation, appears in both; and some of the artists of this out-of-door genre, Wouwerman, Adriaen van de Velde, Cuyp, and Berchem, reached proficiency that compares favorably with the masterpieces of interior genre. As for the fondness for depicting cattle, we may recollect how Troyon, after visiting Holland, turned from pure landscape to cattle studies, while every observant visitor to that country has enjoyed the spots of rich color which the grazing herds make in the far stretches of green pasture. They form one of the notable features of the Holland landscape, and it would have been surprising if the painters, so intent on the study of their home surroundings, had overlooked it. The signal member of this group of painters is Paul Potter.
Potteris the prodigy among Dutch artists. At the age of twenty-two he produced a masterpiece that, despite its shortcomings, has compelled the admiration of the world. This is a work of trenchant, even brutal force, while the majority of his work, especially in his later years, wins by its charm of persuasiveness. He is personally known to us through the beautiful portrait by Van der Helst. It was painted in the year of Potter’s death, and shows him a man of distinguished mien, with soft auburn hair curling upon his shoulders, and a face that is marked by a high forehead, heavy-lidded eyes, a strong nose, and full, impulsive lips; a face upon which consumption has set the impress of fell refinement.