A Text-Book of the History of Painting Part 13

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 77.--RUBENS. PORTRAIT OF YOUNG WOMAN. HERMITAGE, ST. PETERSBURGH.]

SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING: This was the great century of Flemish painting, though the painting was not entirely Flemish in method or thought. The influence of Italy had done away with the early simplicity, purity, and religious pathos of the Van Eycks. During the sixteenth century everything had run to bald imitation of Renaissance methods.

Then came a new master-genius, Rubens (1577-1640), who formed a new art founded in method upon Italy, yet distinctly northern in character.

Rubens chose all subjects for his brush, but the religious altar-piece probably occupied him as much as any. To this he gave little of Gothic sentiment, but everything of Renaissance splendor. His art was more material than spiritual, more brilliant and startling in sensuous qualities, such as line and color, than charming by facial expression or tender feeling. Something of the Paolo Veronese cast of mind, he conceived things largely, and painted them proportionately--large t.i.tanic types, broad schemes and ma.s.ses of color, great sweeping lines of beauty. One value of this largeness was its ability to hold at a distance upon wall or altar. Hence, when seen to-day, close at hand, in museums, people are apt to think Rubens's art coa.r.s.e and gross.

There is no prettiness about his type. It is not effeminate or sentimental, but rather robust, full of life and animal spirits, full of blood, bone, and muscle--of majestic dignity, grace, and power, and glowing with splendor of color. In imagination, in conception of art purely as art, and not as a mere vehicle to convey religious or mythological ideas, in mental grasp of the pictorial world, Rubens stands with t.i.tian and Velasquez in the very front rank of painters.

As a technician, he was unexcelled. A master of composition, modelling, and drawing, a master of light, and a color-harmonist of the rarest ability, he, in addition, possessed the most certain, adroit, and facile hand that ever handled a paint-brush. Nothing could be more sure than the touch of Rubens, nothing more easy and masterful. He was trained in both mind and eye, a genius by birth and by education, a painter who saw keenly, and was able to realize what he saw with certainty.

Well-born, enn.o.bled by royalty, successful in both court and studio, Rubens lived brilliantly and his life was a series of triumphs. He painted enormous canvases, and the number of pictures, altar-pieces, mythological decorations, landscapes, portraits scattered throughout the galleries of Europe, and attributed to him, is simply amazing. He was undoubtedly helped in many of his canvases by his pupils, but the works painted by his own hand make a world of art in themselves. He was the greatest painter of the North, a full-rounded, complete genius, comparable to t.i.tian in his universality. His precursors and masters, Van Noort (1562-1641) and Vaenius (1558-1629), gave no strong indication of the greatness of Ruben's art, and his many pupils, though echoing his methods, never rose to his height in mental or artistic grasp.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 78.--VAN DYCK. PORTRAIT OF CORNELIUS VAN DER GEEST. NAT. GAL. LONDON.]

Van Dyck (1599-1641) was his princ.i.p.al pupil. He followed Rubens closely at first, though in a slighter manner technically, and with a cooler coloring. After visiting Italy he took up with the warmth of t.i.tian. Later, in England, he became careless and less certain. His rank is given him not for his figure-pieces. They were not always successful, lacking as they did in imagination and originality, though done with force. His best work was his portraiture, for which he became famous, painting n.o.bility in every country of Europe in which he visited. At his best he was a portrait-painter of great power, but not to be placed in the same rank with t.i.tian, Rubens, Rembrandt, and Velasquez. His characters are gracefully posed, and appear to be aristocratic. There is a n.o.ble distinction about them, and yet even this has the feeling of being somewhat affected. The serene complacency of his lords and ladies finally became almost a mannerism with him, though never a disagreeable one. He died early, a painter of mark, but not the greatest portrait-painter of the world, as is sometimes said of him.

There were a number of Rubens's pupils, like Diepenbeeck (1596-1675), who learned from their master a certain brush facility, but were not sufficiently original to make deep impressions. When Rubens died the best painter left in Belgium was Jordaens (1593-1678). He was a pupil of Van Noort, but submitted to the Rubens influence and followed in Rubens's style, though more florid in coloring and grosser in types.

He painted all sorts of subjects, but was seen at his best in mythological scenes with groups of drunken satyrs and bacchants, surrounded by a close-placed landscape. He was the most independent and original of the followers, of whom there was a host. Crayer (1582-1669), Janssens (1575-1632), Zegers (1591-1651), Rombouts (1597-1637), were the prominent ones. They all took an influence more or less p.r.o.nounced from Rubens. Cornelius de Vos (1585-1651) was a more independent man--a realistic portrait-painter of much ability.

Snyders (1579-1657), and Fyt (1609?-1661), devoted their brushes to the painting of still-life, game, fruits, flowers, landscape--Snyders often in collaboration with Rubens himself.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 79.--TENIERS THE YOUNGER. PRODIGAL SON. LOUVRE.]

Living at the same time with these half-Italianized painters, and continuing later in the century, there was another group of painters in the Low Countries who were emphatically of the soil, believing in themselves and their own country and picturing scenes from commonplace life in a manner quite their own. These were the "Little Masters," the _genre_ painters, of whom there was even a stronger representation appearing contemporaneously in Holland. In Belgium there were not so many nor such talented men, but some of them were very interesting in their work as in their subjects. Teniers the Younger (1610-1690) was among the first of them to picture peasant, burgher, alewife, and n.o.bleman in all scenes and places. Nothing escaped him as a subject, and yet his best work was shown in the handling of low life in taverns. There is coa.r.s.e wit in his work, but it is atoned for by good color and easy handling. He was influenced by Rubens, though decidedly different from him in many respects. Brouwer (1606?-1638) has often been catalogued with the Holland school, but he really belongs with Teniers, in Belgium. He died early, but left a number of pictures remarkable for their fine "fat" quality and their beautiful color. He was not a man of Italian imagination, but a painter of low life, with coa.r.s.e humor and not too much good taste, yet a superb technician and vastly beyond many of his little Dutch contemporaries at the North. Teniers and Brouwer led a school and had many followers.

In a slightly different vein was Gonzales Coques (1618-1684), who is generally seen to advantage in pictures of interiors with family groups. In subject he was more refined than the other _genre_ painters, and was influenced to some extent by Van Dyck. As a colorist he held rank, and his portraiture (rarely seen) was excellent. At this time there were also many painters of landscape, marine, battles, still-life--in fact Belgium was alive with painters--but none of them was sufficiently great to call for individual mention. Most of them were followers of either Holland or Italy, and the gist of their work will be spoken of hereafter under Dutch painting.

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING IN BELGIUM: Decline had set in before the seventeenth century ended. Belgium was torn by wars, her commerce flagged, her art-spirit seemed burned out. A long line of petty painters followed whose works call for silence. One man alone seemed to stand out like a star by comparison with his contemporaries, Verhagen (1728-1811), a portrait-painter of talent.

NINETEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING IN BELGIUM: During this century Belgium has been so closely related to France that the influence of the larger country has been quite apparent upon the art of the smaller. In 1816 David, the leader of the French cla.s.sic school, sent into exile by the Restoration, settled at Brussels, and immediately drew around him many pupils. His influence was felt at once, and Francois Navez (1787-1869) was the chief one among his pupils to establish the revived cla.s.sic art in Belgium. In 1830, with Belgian independence and almost concurrently with the romantic movement in France, there began a romantic movement in Belgium with Wappers (1803-1874). His art was founded substantially on Rubens; but, like the Paris romanticists, he chose the dramatic subject of the times and treated it more for color than for line. He drew a number of followers to himself, but the movement was not more lasting than in France.

Wiertz (1806-1865), whose collection of works is to be seen in Brussels, was a partial exposition of romanticism mixed with a what-not of eccentricity entirely his own. Later on came a comparatively new man, Louis Gallait (1810-?), who held in Brussels substantially the same position that Delaroche did in Paris. His art was eclectic and never strong, though he had many pupils at Brussels, and started there a rivalry to Wappers at Antwerp. Leys (1815-1869) holds a rather unique position in Belgian art by reason of his affectation. He at first followed Pieter de Hooghe and other early painters. Then, after a study of the old German painters like Cranach, he developed an archaic style, producing a Gothic quaintness of line and composition, mingled with old Flemish coloring. The result was something popular, but not original or far-reaching, though technically well done. His chief pupil was Alma Tadema (1836-), alive to-day in London, and belonging to no school in particular. He is a technician of ability, mannered in composition and subject, and somewhat perfunctory in execution. His work is very popular with those who enjoy minute detail and smooth texture-painting.

In 1851 the influence of the French realism of Courbet began to be felt at Brussels, and since then Belgian art has followed closely the art movements at Paris. Men like Alfred Stevens (1828-), a pupil of Navez, are really more French than Belgian. Stevens is one of the best of the moderns, a painter of power in fashionable or high-life _genre_, and a colorist of the first rank in modern art. Among the recent painters but a few can be mentioned. Willems (1823-), a weak painter of fashionable _genre_; Verboeckhoven (1799-1881), a vastly over-estimated animal painter; Clays (1819-), an excellent marine painter; Boulanger, a landscapist; Wauters (1846-), a history, and portrait-painter; Jan van Beers and Robie. The new men are Claus, Buysse, Frederic, Khnopff, Lempoels.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 80.--ALFRED STEVENS. ON THE BEACH.]

PRINc.i.p.aL WORKS:--Hubert van Eyck, Adoration of the Lamb (with Jan van Eyck) St. Bavon Ghent (wings at Brussels and Berlin supposed to be by Jan, the rest by Hubert); Jan van Eyck, as above, also Arnolfini portraits Nat. Gal. Lon., Virgin and Donor Louvre, Madonna Staedel Mus., Man with Pinks Berlin, Triumph of Church Madrid; Van der Weyden, a number of pictures in Brussels and Antwerp Mus., also at Staedel Mus., Berlin, Munich, Vienna; Cristus, Berlin, Staedel Mus., Hermitage, Madrid; Justus van Ghent, Last Supper Urbino Gal.; Bouts, St. Peter Louvain, Munich, Berlin, Brussels, Vienna; Memling, Brussels Mus. and Bruges Acad., and Hospital Antwerp, Turin, Uffizi, Munich, Vienna; Van der Meire, triptych St. Bavon Ghent; Ghaeraert David, Bruges, Berlin, Rouen, Munich.

Ma.s.sys, Brussels, Antwerp, Berlin, St. Petersburg; best works Deposition in Antwerp Gal. and Merchant and Wife Louvre; Mostert, altar-piece Notre Dame Bruges; Mabuse, Madonnas Palermo, Milan Cathedral, Prague, other works Vienna, Berlin, Munich, Antwerp; Floris, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin, Munich, Vienna; Barent van Orley, altar-pieces Church of the Saviour Antwerp, and Brussels Mus.; Cocxie, Antwerp, Brussels, and Madrid Mus.; Pourbus, Bruges, Brussels, Vienna Mus.; Moro, portraits Madrid, Vienna, Hague, Brussels, Ca.s.sel, Louvre, St. Petersburg Mus.; Bril, landscapes Madrid, Louvre, Dresden, Berlin Mus.; the landscapes of the three Breughels are to be seen in most of the museums of Europe, especially at Munich, Dresden, and Madrid.

Rubens, many works, 93 in Munich, 35 in Dresden, 15 at Ca.s.sel, 16 at Berlin, 14 in London, 90 in Vienna, 66 in Madrid, 54 in Paris, 63 at St. Petersburg (as given by Wauters), best works at Antwerp, Vienna, Munich, and Madrid; Van Noort, Antwerp, Brussels Mus., Ghent and Antwerp Cathedrals; Van Dyck, Windsor Castle, Nat. Gal. Lon., 41 in Munich, 19 in Dresden, 15 in Ca.s.sel, 13 in Berlin, 67 in Vienna, 21 in Madrid, 24 in Paris, and 38 in St. Petersburg (Wauters), best examples in Vienna, Louvre, Nat. Gal. Lon.; and Madrid, good example in Met. Mus. N. Y.; Diepenbeeck, Antwerp Churches and Mus., Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Frankfort; Jordaens, Brussels, Antwerp, Munich, Vienna, Ca.s.sel, Madrid, Paris; Crayer, Brussels, Munich, Vienna; Janssens, Antwerp Mus., St. Bavon Ghent, Brussels and Cologne Mus.; Zegers, Cathedral Ghent, Notre Dame Bruges, Antwerp Mus.; Rombouts, Mus. and Cathedral Ghent, Antwerp Mus., Beguin Convent Mechlin, Hospital of St. John Bruges; De Vos, Cathedral and Mus. Antwerp, Munich, Oldenburg, Berlin Mus.; Snyders, Munich, Dresden, Vienna, Madrid, Paris, St. Petersburg; Fyt, Munich, Dresden, Ca.s.sel, Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, Paris; Teniers the Younger, 29 pictures in Munich, 24 in Dresden, 8 in Berlin, 19 in Nat. Gal. Lon., 33 in Vienna, 52 in Madrid, 34 in Louvre, 40 in St. Petersburg (Wauters); Brauwer, 19 in Munich, 6 in Dresden, 4 in Berlin, 5 in Paris, 5 in St. Petersburgh (Wauters); Coques, Nat.

Gal. Lon., Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich Mus.

Verhagen, Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, and Vienna Mus.; Navez, Ghent, Antwerp, and Amsterdam Mus., Nat. Gal. Berlin; Wappers, Amsterdam, Brussels, Versailles Mus.; Wiertz, in Wiertz Gal. Brussels; Gallait, Liege, Versailles, Tournay, Brussels, Nat. Gal. Berlin; Leys, Amsterdam Mus., New Pinacothek, Munich, Brussels, Nat. Gal. Berlin, Antwerp Mus.

and City Hall; Alfred Stevens, Ma.r.s.eilles, Brussels, frescos Royal Pal. Brussels; Willems, Brussels Mus. and Foder Mus.

Amsterdam, Met. Mus. N. Y.; Verboeckhoven, Amsterdam, Foder, Nat. Gal. Berlin, New Pinacothek, Brussels, Ghent, Met. Mus.

N. Y.; Clays, Ghent Mus.; Wauters, Brussels, Liege Mus.; Van Beers, Burial of Charles the Good Amsterdam Mus.

CHAPTER XVII.

DUTCH PAINTING.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED: As before Fromentin, (Waagen's) Kugler; Amand-Durand, _OEuvre de Rembrandt_; _Archief voor Nederlandsche Kunst-geschiedenis_; Blanc, _OEuvre de Rembrandt_; Bode, _Franz Hals und seine Schule_; Bode, _Studien zur Geschichte der Hollandischen Malerei_; Bode, _Adriaan van Ostade_; Brown, _Rembrandt_; Burger (Th.

Th.o.r.e), _Les Musees de la Hollande_; Havard, _La Peinture Hollandaise_; Michel, _Rembrandt_; Michel, _Gerard Terburg et sa Famille_; Mantz, _Adrien Brouwer_; Rooses, _Dutch Painters of the Nineteenth Century_; Rooses, _Rubens_; Schmidt, _Das Leben des Malers Adriaen Brouwer_; Van der Willigen, _Les Artistes de Harlem_; Van Mander, _Leven der Nederlandsche en Hoogduitsche Schilders_; Vosmaer, _Rembrandt, sa Vie et ses OEuvres_; Westrheene, _Jan Steen, etude sur l'Art en Hollande_; Van d.y.k.e, _Old Dutch and Flemish Masters_.

THE DUTCH PEOPLE AND THEIR ART: Though Holland produced a somewhat different quality of art from Flanders and Belgium, yet in many respects the people at the north were not very different from those at the south of the Netherlands. They were perhaps less versatile, less volatile, less like the French and more like the Germans. Fond of homely joys and the quiet peace of town and domestic life, the Dutch were matter-of-fact in all things, st.u.r.dy, honest, coa.r.s.e at times, sufficient unto themselves, and caring little for what other people did. Just so with their painters. They were realistic at times to grotesqueness. Little troubled with fine poetic frenzies they painted their own lives in street, town-hall, tavern, and kitchen, conscious that it was good because true to themselves.

At first Dutch art was influenced, even confounded, with that of Flanders. The Van Eycks led the way, and painters like Bouts and others, though Dutch by birth, became Flemish by adoption in their art at least. When the Flemish painters fell to copying Italy some of the Dutch followed them, but with no great enthusiasm. Suddenly, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, when Holland had gained political independence, Dutch art struck off by itself, became original, became famous. It pictured native life with verve, skill, keenness of insight, and fine pictorial view. Limited it was; it never soared like Italian art, never became universal or world-embracing. It was distinct, individual, national, something that spoke for Holland, but little beyond it.

In subject there were few historical canvases such as the Italians and French produced. The nearest approach to them were the paintings of shooting companies, or groups of burghers and syndics, and these were merely elaborations and enlargements of the portrait which the Dutch loved best of all. As a whole their subjects were single figures or small groups in interiors, quiet scenes, family conferences, smokers, card-players, drinkers, landscapes, still-life, architectural pieces.

When they undertook the large canvas with many figures, they were often unsatisfactory. Even Rembrandt was so. The chief medium was oil, used upon panel or canvas. Fresco was probably used in the early days, but the climate was too damp for it and it was abandoned. It was perhaps the dampness of the northern climate that led to the adaptation of the oil medium, something the Van Eycks are credited with inaugurating.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 81.--HALS. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.]

THE EARLY PAINTING: The early work has, for the great part, perished through time and the fierceness with which the Iconoclastic warfare was waged. That which remains to-day is closely allied in method and style to Flemish painting under the Van Eycks. Ouwater is one of the earliest names that appears, and perhaps for that reason he has been called the founder of the school. He was remarked in his time for the excellent painting of background landscapes; but there is little authentic by him left to us from which we may form an opinion.[17]

Geertjen van St. Jan (about 1475) was evidently a pupil of his, and from him there are two wings of an altar in the Vienna Gallery, supposed to be genuine. Bouts and Mostert have been spoken of under the Flemish school. Bosch (1460?-1516) was a man of some individuality who produced fantastic purgatories that were popular in their time and are known to-day through engravings. Engelbrechsten (1468-1533) was Dutch by birth and in his art, and yet probably got his inspiration from the Van Eyck school. The works attributed to him are doubtful, though two in the Leyden Gallery seem to be authentic. He was the master of Lucas van Leyden (1494-1533), the leading artist of the early period. Lucas van Leyden was a personal friend of Albrecht Durer, the German painter, and in his art he was not unlike him. A man with a singularly lean type, a little awkward in composition, brilliant in color, and warm in tone, he was, despite his archaic-looking work, an artist of much ability and originality. At first he was inclined toward Flemish methods, with an exaggerated realism in facial expression. In his middle period he was distinctly Dutch, but in his later days he came under Italian influence, and with a weakening effect upon his art. Taking his work as a whole, it was the strongest of all the early Dutch painters.

[Footnote 17: A Raising of Lazarus is in the Berlin Gallery.]

SIXTEENTH CENTURY: This century was a period of Italian imitation, probably superinduced by the action of the Flemings at Antwerp. The movement was somewhat like the Flemish one, but not so extensive or so productive. There was hardly a painter of rank in Holland during the whole century. Scorel (1495-1562) was the leader, and he probably got his first liking for Italian art through Mabuse at Antwerp. He afterward went to Italy, studied Raphael and Michael Angelo, and returned to Utrecht to open a school and introduce Italian art into Holland. A large number of pupils followed him, but their work was lacking in true originality. Heemskerck (1498-1574) and Cornelis van Haarlem (1562-1638), with Steenwyck (1550?-1604), were some of the more important men of the century, but none of them was above a common average.

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY: Beginning with the first quarter of this century came the great art of the Dutch people, founded on themselves and rooted in their native character. Italian methods were abandoned, and the Dutch told the story of their own lives in their own manner, with truth, vigor, and skill. There were so many painters in Holland during this period that it will be necessary to divide them into groups and mention only the prominent names.

PORTRAIT AND FIGURE PAINTERS: The real inaugurators of Dutch portraiture were Mierevelt, Hals, Ravesteyn, and De Keyser. Mierevelt (1567-1641) was one of the earliest, a prolific painter, fond of the aristocratic sitter, and indulging in a great deal of elegance in his accessories of dress and the like. He had a slight, smooth brush, much detail, and a profusion of color. Quite the reverse of him was Franz Hals (1584?-1666), one of the most remarkable painters of portraits with which history acquaints us. In giving the sense of life and personal physical presence, he was unexcelled by any one. What he saw he could portray with the most telling reality. In drawing and modelling he was usually good; in coloring he was excellent, though in his late work sombre; in brush-handling he was one of the great masters. Strong, virile, yet easy and facile, he seemed to produce without effort. His brush was very broad in its sweep, very sure, very true. Occasionally in his late painting facility ran to the ineffectual, but usually he was certainty itself. His best work was in portraiture, and the most important of this is to be seen at Haarlem, where he died after a rather careless life. As a painter, pure and simple, he is almost to be ranked beside Velasquez; as a poet, a thinker, a man of lofty imagination, his work gives us little enlightenment except in so far as it shows a fine feeling for ma.s.ses of color and problems of light. Though excellent portrait-painters, Ravesteyn (1572?-1657) and De Keyser (1596?-1679) do not provoke enthusiasm. They were quiet, conservative, dignified, painting civic guards and societies with a knowing brush and lively color, giving the truth of physiognomy, but not with that verve of the artist so conspicuous in Hals, nor with that unity of the group so essential in the making of a picture.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 82.--REMBRANDT. HEAD OF WOMAN. NAT. GAL. LONDON.]

The next man in chronological order is Rembrandt (1607?-1669), the greatest painter in Dutch art. He was a pupil of Swanenburch and Lastman, but his great knowledge of nature and his craft came largely from the direct study of the model. Settled at Amsterdam, he quickly rose to fame, had a large following of pupils, and his influence was felt through all Dutch painting. The portrait was emphatically his strongest work. The many-figured group he was not always successful in composing or lighting. His method of work rather fitted him for the portrait and unfitted him for the large historical piece. He built up the importance of certain features by dragging down all other features. This was largely shown in his handling of illumination.

Strong in a few high lights on cheek, chin, or white linen, the rest of the picture was submerged in shadow, under which color was unmercifully sacrificed. This was not the best method for a large, many-figured piece, but was singularly well suited to the portrait. It produced strength by contrast. "Forced" it was undoubtedly, and not always true to nature, yet nevertheless most potent in Rembrandt's hands. He was an arbitrary though perfect master of light-and-shade, and unusually effective in luminous and transparent shadows. In color he was again arbitrary but forcible and harmonious. In brush-work he was at times labored, but almost always effective.

Mentally he was a man keen to observe, a.s.similate, and express his impressions in a few simple truths. His conception was localized with his own people and time (he never built up the imaginary or followed Italy), and yet into types taken from the streets and shops of Amsterdam he infused the very largest humanity through his inherent sympathy with man. Dramatic, even tragic, he was; yet this was not so apparent in vehement action as in pa.s.sionate expression. He had a powerful way of striking universal truths through the human face, the turned head, bent body, or outstretched hand. His people have character, dignity, and a pervading feeling that they are the great types of the Dutch race--people of substantial physique, slow in thought and impulse, yet capable of feeling, comprehending, enjoying, suffering.

His landscapes, again, were a synthesis of all landscapes, a grouping of the great truths of light, air, shadow, s.p.a.ce. Whatever he turned his hand to was treated with that breadth of view that overlooked the little and grasped the great. He painted many subjects. His earliest work dates from 1627, and is a little hard and sharp in detail and cold in coloring. After 1654 he grew broader in handling and warmer in tone, running to golden browns, and, toward the end of his career, to rather hot tones. His life was embittered by many misfortunes, but these never seem to have affected his art except to deepen it. He painted on to the last, convinced that his own view was the true one, and producing works that rank second to none in the history of painting.

Rembrandt's influence upon Dutch art was far-reaching, and appeared immediately in the works of his many pupils. They all followed his methods of handling light-and-shade, but no one of them ever equalled him, though they produced work of much merit. Bol (1611-1680) was chiefly a portrait-painter, with a pervading yellow tone and some pallor of flesh-coloring--a man of ability who mistakenly followed Rubens in the latter part of his life. Flinck (1615-1660) at one time followed Rembrandt so closely that his work has pa.s.sed for that of the master; but latterly he, too, came under Flemish influence. Next to Eeckhout he was probably the nearest to Rembrandt in methods of all the pupils. Eeckhout (1621-1674) was really a Rembrandt imitator, but his hand was weak and his color hot. Maes (1632-1693) was the most successful manager of light after the school formula, and succeeded very well with warmth and richness of color, especially with his reds.

The other Rembrandt pupils and followers were Poorter (fl. 1635-1643), Victoors (1620?-1672?), Koninck (1619-1688), Fabritius (1624-1654), and Backer (1608?-1651).

Van der Helst (1612?-1670) stands apart from this school, and seems to have followed more the portrait style of De Keyser. He was a realistic, precise painter, with much excellence of modelling in head and hands, and with fine carriage and dignity in the figure. In composition he hardly held his characters in group owing to a sacrifice of values, and in color he was often "spotty," and lacking in the unity of ma.s.s.

THE GENRE PAINTERS: This heading embraces those who may be called the "Little Dutchmen," because of the small scale of their pictures and their _genre_ subjects. Gerard Dou (1613-1675) is indicative of the cla.s.s without fully representing it. He was a pupil of Rembrandt, but his work gave little report of this. It was smaller, more delicate in detail, more petty in conception. He was a man great in little things, one who wasted strength on the minutiae of dress, or table-cloth, or the texture of furniture without grasping the ma.s.s or color significance of the whole scene. There was infinite detail about his work, and that gave it popularity; but as art it held, and holds to-day, little higher place than the work of Metsu (1630-1667), Van Mieris (1635-1681), Netscher (1639-1684), or Schalcken (1643-1706), all of whom produced the interior piece with figures elaborate in accidental effects. Van Ostade (1610-1685), though dealing with the small canvas, and portraying peasant life with perhaps unnecessary coa.r.s.eness, was a much stronger painter than the men just mentioned.

He was the favorite pupil of Hals and the master of Jan Steen. With little delicacy in choice of subject he had much delicacy in color, taste in arrangement, and skill in handling. His brush was precise but not finical.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 83.--J. VAN RUISDAEL. LANDSCAPE.]

By far the best painter among all the "Little Dutchmen" was Terburg (1617?-1681), a painter of interiors, small portraits, conversation pictures, and the like. Though of diminutive scale his work has the largeness of view characteristic of genius, and the skilled technic of a thorough craftsman. Terburg was a travelled man, visiting Italy, where he studied t.i.tian, returning to Holland to study Rembrandt, finally at Madrid studying Velasquez. He was a painter of much culture, and the keynote of his art is refinement. Quiet and dignified he carried taste through all branches of his art. In subject he was rather elevated, in color subdued with broken tones, in composition simple, in brush-work sure, vivacious, and yet un.o.btrusive. Selection in his characters was followed by reserve in using them. Detail was not very apparent. A few people with some accessory objects were all that he required to make a picture. Perhaps his best qualities appear in a number of small portraits remarkable for their distinction and aristocratic grace.

Steen (1626?-1679) was almost the opposite of Terburg, a man of sarcastic flings and coa.r.s.e humor who satirized his own time with little reserve. He developed under Hals and Van Ostade, favoring the latter in his interiors, family scenes, and drunken debauches. He was a master of physiognomy, and depicted it with rare if rather unpleasant truth. If he had little refinement in his themes he certainly handled them as a painter with delicacy. At his best his many figured groups were exceedingly well composed, his color was of good quality (with a fondness for yellows), and his brush was as limpid and graceful as though painting angels instead of Dutch boors.