Six Centuries of Painting Part 13

GERARD DOU was born at Leyden on the 7th April 1613, died there 1680. He entered Rembrandt's school at fifteen years of age, and in three years had attained the position of an independent artist. He devoted himself at first to portraiture, and, like his master, made his own face frequently his subject. Afterwards he treated scenes from the life chiefly of the middle cla.s.ses. He took particular pleasure in the representation of hermits; he also painted scriptural events and occasionally still life. His lighting is frequently that of lanterns and candles. Most of his pictures contain only from one to three figures, and do not exceed about 2 ft. high and 1 ft. 3 in. wide, being often smaller. His pictures seldom attain even an animated moral import, and may be said to be limited usually to a certain kindliness of sentiment.

On the other hand, he possessed a trace of his master's feeling for the picturesque, and for chiaroscuro. Notwithstanding the incalculable minuteness of his execution, the touch of his brush is free and soft, and his best pictures look like Nature seen through the camera-obscura.

His works were so highly estimated in his own time, that the President van Spiring, at the Hague, offered him 1000 florins a year for the right of pre-emption of his pictures. Considering the time which such finish required, and the early age at which he died, the number of his pictures--Smith enumerates about 200--is remarkable. In the Louvre are the following:--An old woman seated at a window, reading the Bible to her husband; this is one of the best among the many representations by Dou of a similar kind, being of warm sunny effect, and marvellous finish. Also the _Woman with the Dropsy_, which is accounted his _chef-d'oeuvre_.

Among the scholars of Gerard Dou, FRANS VAN MIERIS, born at Leyden 1635, died 1681, takes the first place. In chiaroscuro, and in delicacy of execution he is not inferior to his master. Although his pictures are generally very small, yet with their extraordinary minuteness of execution it is surprising that, in a life extended only to forty-six years, he should have produced so many. The Munich Gallery has most, then Dresden, Vienna, Florence, and St. Petersburg. The date, 1656, on a picture in the Vienna Gallery, _The Doctor_, shows the painter to have attained the summit of his art at twenty-one years of age. Another dated 1660, in the same gallery, executed for the Archduke Leopold, is one of his best. The scene is a shop with a young woman showing a gentleman, who has taken her by the chin, various handkerchiefs and stuffs. In the Munich Gallery is _A Soldier_, dated 1662, of admirable transparency and softness. Also _A Lady_ in a yellow satin dress fainting in the presence of the doctor. In the Hague Gallery is _A Boy Blowing Soap-bubbles_, dated 1663. This is a charming little picture of great depth of the brownish tone. Also _The Painter and His Wife_, whose little shock dog he is teasing; very nave and lively in the heads, and most delicately treated in a subdued but clear tone. In the Dresden Gallery are Mieris again and his wife before her portrait. This is one of his most successful pictures for chiaroscuro, tone, and spirited handling.

NICOLAS MAES, already mentioned, born at

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XXIX.--GABRIEL METSU

THE MUSIC LESSON

_National Gallery, London_]

Dordrecht 1632, died 1693, was actually a pupil of Rembrandt. His much prized and rare _genre_ pictures treat very simple subjects, and consist seldom of more than two or three figures, generally of women. The navete and homeliness of his feeling, with the addition sometimes of a trait of kindly humour; the admirable lighting, and a touch resembling Rembrandt in impasto and vigour, render his pictures very attractive. In the National Gallery, besides _The Card Players_, are _The Cradle_, _The Dutch Menage_, dated 1655; and _The Idle Servant_: all these are admirable, and the last-named a _chef-d'oeuvre_.

PETER DE HOOGH (1629-1677) decidedly belongs to the numerous artistic posterity of Rembrandt, possibly through Karel Fabritius, and stands nearer to Vermeer and to Maes, than to any other painter. His biography can only be gathered from the occasional dates on his pictures, extending from 1658 to 1670. Although he impresses the eye by the same effects as Maes, yet he is also very different from him. He has not his humour, and seldom his kindliness, and his figures, which are either playing cards, smoking or drinking, or engaged in the transaction of some household duty,--with faces that say but little--have generally only the interest of a peaceful or jovial existence. If Maes takes the lead in warm lighting, Peter de Hoogh may be considered _par excellence_ the painter of full and clear sunlight. If, again, Maes shows us his figures almost exclusively in interiors, Peter de Hoogh places them most frequently in the open air--in courtyards. In the representation of the poetry of light, and in that marvellous brilliancy and clearness with which he calls it forth in various distances till the background is reached, which is generally illumined by a fresh beam, no other master can compare with him. His prevailing local colour is red, repeated with greater delicacy in various planes of distance. This colour fixes the rest of the scale. His touch is of great delicacy; his impasto admirable.

GERARD TERBURG, born at Zwol 1608, died 1681, learned painting under his father, and when still young visited Germany and Italy, painting numerous portraits on a small scale, and occasionally the size of life.

But his place in the history of art is owing princ.i.p.ally to a number of pictures, seldom representing more than three, and often only one figure, taken from the wealthier cla.s.ses, in which great elegance of costume, and of all accompanying circ.u.mstances, is rendered with the finest keeping, and with a highly delicate but by no means over-smooth execution. He may be considered as the originator of this cla.s.s of pictures, in which, after his example, several other Dutch painters distinguished themselves. With him the chief ma.s.s of light is generally formed by the white satin dress of a lady, which gives the tone for the prevailing cool harmony of the picture. Among his pictures we occasionally find some which, taken successively, represent several different moments of one scene. Thus in the Dresden Gallery, there are two good pictures: the one of an officer writing a letter, while a trumpter waits for it; the other of a girl in white satin washing her hands in a basin held before her by a maid-servant; while at Munich, is another fine work, in which the trumpeter is offering the young lady the letter, who owing to the presence of the maid, who evidently disapproves, is uncertain whether to take the missive. Finally, in the Amsterdam Gallery, the celebrated picture known by the t.i.tle of _Conseil paternel_, furnishes

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE x.x.x.--PIETER DE HOOCH

INTERIOR OF A DUTCH HOUSE

_National Gallery, London_]

the closing scene. The maid has betrayed the affair to the father, and he is delivering a lecture to the young lady, in whom by turning her back on the spectator, the painter has happily expressed the feeling of shame; good repet.i.tions are in the Berlin Museum, and in the Bridgewater Gallery. But Terburg's perfection as regards the clearness and harmony of his silvery tone is shown in a picture at Ca.s.sel, representing a young lady in white satin sitting playing the lute at a table.

JAN VERMEER OF DELFT (1632-1675) was certainly a pupil of Fabritius, and thus "grandson" of Rembrandt. To cla.s.s him with painters of _genre_ seems almost a profanation of the exquisite sense of beauty with which, almost alone among the Dutch painters, he seems to have been endowed. It is like cla.s.sing Walter Pater with art critics. But as Vermeer had to express himself in some form, it is perhaps fortunate that the school had developed this kind of poetic portraiture, under Terburg, Metsu and others, to a point where a genius like Vermeer could use it as the vehicle of his fascinating self-revelations. In landscape we have the _View of Delft_, at the Hague, which has shown the nineteenth century painters more than they could ever see in their more famous predecessors; but it is in the simple compositions like _The Letter Reader_ at Amsterdam, _The Proposal_, at Dresden, or the _Lady at the Virginals_, in the National Gallery, that he displays his greatest power and charm.

IV

PAINTERS OF ANIMALS

As a link between the painters of _genre_ and the landscapists, we may here mention some of the numerous artists who either made landscape the background for groups of figures and animals, or peopled their landscapes with groups--it matters not which way we put it. Among these we shall find several of the most famous, or at any rate the most popular artists of the Dutch School.

PHILIPS WOUVERMAN (1619-1668), whose reputation during the last century was greater than that of almost any of the Dutch painters except Rembrandt and Dou, is said to have studied under Hals, but it is more certain that the master from whom he learnt most, if not all, was Jan Wynants at Haarlem, whose whole manner in landscape he quickly succeeded in acquiring, and surpa.s.sed him in his facility with hors.e.m.e.n and other figures.

Wouverman's works have all the excellences that may be expected from high finishing, correctness, agreeable composition and colouring. It does not appear that he was ever in Italy, or even quitted the city of Haarlem, though it would seem probable that his more elaborate compositions owed something to other influences than those of Hals or Wynants. In his earlier pictures there are no horses, but later in his career he generally subordinated his landscapes to the groups or subjects for which he is most famous. In the National Gallery, among eleven examples, are a _Halt of Officers_, _Interior of a Stable_, _A Battle_, _The Bohemians_, and _Shoeing a Horse_, all of which contain numerous figures, mounted and unmounted--and there is nearly always a white horse.

With all his success, he died a poor man, and it is related that in his last hours he burned a box filled with his studies and drawings, saying, "I have been so ill repaid for all my labours, that I would not have

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE x.x.xI.--JAN VERMEER

THE LACE MAKER

_Louvre, Paris_]

those designs engage my son to embrace so miserable a profession as mine." This son followed his advice, and became a Chartreux friar. Peter and Jan Wouverman were his brothers. The former painted hawking scenes, and his horses, though well designed, were not equal to those of Philips. The latter is represented in the National Gallery by a landscape in which the spirit of Wynant's, rather than that of Philips's, is discernible.

At Hertford House, out of seven examples, two are of more than usual excellence, and well represent his earlier and later manners. _The Afternoon Landscape with a White Horse_ (No. 226 in Room XIII), which Smith (in his Catalogue Raisonne), characterizes as possessing unusual freedom of pencilling, and powerful effect, dates from the transition from the early to the middle period, and is a very effective picture, as well as being very characteristic. The _Horse Fair_ (No. 65, in Room XVI), is not only much larger than the other--it measures 25 x 35 inches--but is a really important picture. Lord Hertford paid 3200 for it in 1854. It was engraved by Moyrean, for his series of a hundred prints after Wouverman, under the t.i.tle of _Le Grand Marche aux Chevaux_. It is thus described by Smith:--"This very capital picture exhibits an open country divided in the middle distance by a river whose course is lost among the distant mountains. The princ.i.p.al scene of activity is represented along the front and second grounds, on which may be numbered about twenty-four horses, exhibiting that n.o.ble animal in every variety of action, and nearly fifty persons. On the right of the picture is a coach, drawn by four fine grey horses, and in front of this object are a grey and a bay horse, on the latter of which are mounted a man and a boy. In advance of them is a group of four horses and several persons, among whom may be noticed a cavalier and a lady observing the paces of a horse which a jockey and his master are showing off. A gentleman on a black horse seems also to be watching the action of the animal. Near this person is a mare lying down, and a foal standing by it which a boy is approaching. On the opposite side of the picture is a gentleman on a cream-coloured horse, near two spirited greys, one of which is kicking, and a woman, a man and a boy are escaping from its heels. From thence the eye looks over an open s.p.a.ce occupied by men and horses, receding in succession to the bank of the river, along which are houses and tents concealed in part by trees. This picture is painted throughout with great care and delicacy in what is termed the last manner of the master, remarkable for the prevalent grey or silvery hues of colouring."

ALBERT CUYP, born at Dortrecht 1620, died there about 1672. Of the life of this great painter little more is known with any certainty than that he was the scholar of his father, Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp. Cattle form a prominent feature in many of his works, though never so highly finished as in those of Paul Potter or Adrian van de Velde; indeed, in many of Cuyp's pictures, they are quite subordinate. His favourite subjects, a landscape with a river, with cattle lying or standing on its banks, and landscapes with hors.e.m.e.n in the foreground, were suggested to him no doubt by the country about Dortrecht and the river Maas: but he also painted winter landscapes, and especially views of rivers where the broad extent of water is animated by vessels. Sometimes, too, with great perfection, fowls as large as life, hens, ducks, etc., and still life.

He also painted portraits, though less successfully. However great the skill displayed in the composition of his works, their princ.i.p.al charm lies in the beauty and truthfulness of their peculiar lighting. No other painter, with the exception of Claude, has so well understood the cool freshness of morning, the bright but misty light of a hot noon, or the warm glow of a clear sunset. The effect of his pictures is further enhanced by the skill with which he avails himself of the aid of contrasts; as for example, dark, rich colours of the reposing cattle as seen against the bright sky. In his own country no picture of his, till the year 1750, ever sold for more than thirty florins. Indeed, Kugler was informed by a Dutch friend, that in past times, when a picture found no bidder, the auctioneer would offer to throw in "a little Cuyp" in order to induce a sale. The merit of having first given him his due rank belongs to the English, who as early as 1785, gave at the sale of Linden van Slingelandt's collection at Dortrecht high prices for Cuyp's works; About nine-tenths of his pictures are consequently to be found in England.

One of his finest works is the landscape, in bright, warm, morning light, with two cows reposing in the foreground, and a woman conversing with a horseman, in the National Gallery (No. 53). The whole picture breathes a cheerful and rural tranquillity. In his mature time, these admirable qualities are seen in higher development. In the Louvre (No.

104), is another fine example--a scene with six cows, a shepherd blowing the horn, and two children listening to him. This is admirably arranged, of greater truthfulness as regards the form and colouring of the cattle than usual, and with the warm lighting of the sky executed with equal decision and softness. This picture is one of the master's chief productions, being also about 4 ft. high by 6 ft. wide. Another with three hors.e.m.e.n, and a servant carrying partridges, and in the centre a meadow with cattle, is also in the Louvre. This is less attractive in subject, but ranks equally high as a work of art. In Buckingham Palace are two pictures, one with three cows reposing, and one standing by a clear stream, near them a herdsman and a woman; other cows are in water near the ruins of a castle. In this picture, we see Cuyp in every respect at his culminating point of excellence. Not less fine, and of singular force of colour, is the landscape, with a broad river running through it, and a horseman under a tree in conversation with a countryman.

PAUL POTTER, born at Enckhuysen 1625, died at Amsterdam 1654. Although the scholar of his father, Pieter Potter, who was but a mediocre painter, he made such astonishing progress as to rank at the age of 15 as a finished artist. He removed very early to the Hague, where his talents met with universal recognition, including that of Prince Maurice of Orange, and where he married. In the year 1652, however, he removed to Amsterdam at the instance of one of his chief patrons, the Burgomaster Tulp. Of the masters who have striven pre-eminently after truth he is, beyond all question, one of the greatest that ever lived.

In order to succeed in this aim, he acquired a correctness of drawing, a kind of modelling which imparts an almost plastic effect to his animals, an extraordinary execution of detail in the most solid impasto, and a truth of colouring which harmonises astonishingly with the time of day.

In his landscapes, which generally consist of a few willows in the foreground, and of a wide view over meadows, the most delicate graduation of aerial perspective is seen. With few exceptions, his animals are small, and his pictures proportionately moderate in size. By the year 1647 he had attained his full perfection. Of this date is the celebrated group called _The Young Bull_, in the Hague Gallery. All the figures in this are as large as life, and so extraordinarily true to nature as not only to appear real at a certain distance, but even to keep up the illusion when seen near.

A picture dated 1649, now in Buckingham Palace, of two cows and a young bull in a pasture, combines with his customary fidelity to nature a more than common power of effect, and breadth and freedom of treatment. To the same year belongs also The _Farmyard_, formerly in the Ca.s.sel Gallery, now in that of S. Petersburg, which, according to Smith, fully deserves its celebrity both for the clearness and warmth of the sunset effect, as well as for its masterly execution. To 1650 belongs the picture of _Orpheus_, charming the animal world by the strains of his lyre, in the Amsterdam Museum. Here we see that the master had also studied wild animals. He is most successful in the bear. In the same gallery is another _chef-d'oeuvre_ of the same year--a hilly landscape with a shepherdess singing to her child, a shepherd playing on the bagpipe, and oxen, sheep, and goats around.

The names of Weenix and Hondecoeter are so inseparably a.s.sociated in the popular mind as painters of birds, whose respective works are not readily distinguishable moreover by the casual observer, that a short excursion into their family histories is advisable, for the purpose of showing how it was that this particular branch of the art was so successfully practised by the two. Moreover, as there were three Hondecoeters and two Weenixes who were painters, it is necessary to say something about each of them.

MELCHIOR HONDECOETER, the best known, was of an ancient and n.o.ble family. He was instructed till the age of seventeen by his father Gysbert, who was a tolerable painter. Giles Hondecoeter, his grandfather, painted live birds admirably, but chiefly c.o.c.ks and hens in the taste of Savery and Vincaboom. Melchior was born in 1636, and studied for a time with his father; but meantime his aunt Josina had married Jan Baptist Weenix, and a son was born to them, Jan Weenix, who inherited from old Giles Hondecoeter, his grandfather, his talent for painting poultry, and from his father, Jan Baptist Weenix, he acquired the benefit of several influences which were not shared by his cousin Melchior.

JAN BAPTIST WEENIX, who was nicknamed "Rattle," was born at Amsterdam about 1621. His father was an architect, who bred his son up to that profession, but he was afterwards put to study painting under Abraham Bloemart. Soon after his marriage with Josina he was seized with the desire to visit Italy, and he set off alone to Rome, promising to return in four months. In Rome, however, he was so well received that he stayed there four years, and Italianized himself to an extent that may be seen in a picture in the Wallace Collection, a _Coast Scene with Cla.s.sic Ruins_, which he signs _Gio. Batta. Weenix_. Though he returned to Holland and settled near Utrecht, his manner was sensibly modified by his sojourn in Rome.

JAN WEENIX, who was born at Amsterdam in 1649, though he succeeded in so far a.s.similating his father's style that his earlier works are often confused with those of "Giovanni Battista," did not acquire the energy or the dramatic force displayed by Melchior Hondecoeter in representing live birds and animals, though he sometimes surpa.s.sed him in the finish and the harmony of his decorative arrangements of dead game and still life. Accordingly the one usually painted dead and the latter live birds. In other respects there is not much to distinguish their works.

NICHOLAS BERCHEM was the only other pupil of Jan Baptist Weenix of whom we know anything. Berchem had other masters, beginning with his father, who was a painter of fish and tables covered with plates, china dishes, and such like. Having given his son the first rudiments of his art he found himself unequal to the task of cultivating the excellent disposition he observed in him, and therefore placed him with Van Goyen, Nicholas Moyaert, Peter Grebber, Jan Wils, and lastly with Jan Baptist Weenix, all of whom had the honour of a.s.sisting to form so excellent a painter. Indefatigable at his easel, Berchem acquired a manner both easy and expeditious; to see him work, painting appeared a mere diversion to him.

His wife was the daughter of his instructor, Jan Wils, and was so avaricious that she allowed him no rest. Busy as he was by nature, she used to sit under his studio, and when she neither heard him sing nor stir, she struck upon the ceiling to rouse him. She got from him all the money he earned by his labour, so that he was obliged to borrow from his scholars when he wanted money to buy prints that were offered him, which was the only pleasure he had. _The Musical Shepherdess_ at Hertford House is a good example of his style, and the description of it in Smith's catalogue shows in what estimation the artist was held in early Victorian days:--"This beautiful pastoral scene represents a bold rocky coast under the appearance of the close of day. The rustics have ended their labours and are recreating with music and dancing. A group composed of two peasants and a like number of women occupies the foreground; one of the latter, attired in a blue mantle, is gaily striking a tambourine, and dancing to the music; her companion in a yellow dress sits near her; the shepherds also are seated, and one of them appears to have just ceased playing a pipe which he holds. The goats are browsing near them. Painted in the artist's most fascinating style."

That Berchem had been to Italy is pretty certain, and though no authentic account of his visit is recorded, there is a story that when Jacob Ruisdael went to Rome as a young man, Nicholas Berchem was the first acquaintance he met, and that their friendship was of long standing. Their frequent walks round about Rome gave them the opportunity of working together from Nature, and one day a cardinal seeing them at work, inquired what they were doing. His eminence was agreeably impressed with their drawings, and invited them to visit him in Rome. The painters returned to their work, where they met with a second _rencontre_ of a very different nature; a gang of thieves robbed and stripped them of their clothes. They returned in their shirts to the city, and called on the cardinal, who took pity upon them, ordered them clothes, and afterwards employed them in several considerable works in his palace.

Berchem at one time took up his abode in the Castle of Bentheim, and as both he and Ruisdael have left several pictures of this castle it may be inferred that they worked there together, as at Rome.

Apart from personal friendship there is nothing to connect Berchem with Ruisdael, the popularity of the former being derived from qualities of a totally different nature from those which raise Ruisdael far above any of his contemporaries as a landscape painter.

JAN VAN HUYSUM was born at Amsterdam in 1682. His father, Justus Van Huysum, who dealt in pictures, was himself a middling painter in most kinds of painting. He taught his son to paint screens, figures and vases on wood, landscape, and sometimes flowers; but the son being arrived at a reasoning age perceived that to work in every branch of his art was the way to excel in none, therefore he confined himself to flowers, fruit, and landscape, and quitting his father's school set up for himself.

No one before Van Huysum attained so perfect a manner of representing the beauty of flowers and the down and bloom of fruit; for he painted with greater freedom than Velvet Breughel and Mignon, with more tenderness and nature than Mario di Fiori, Andrea Belvedere, Michel de Campidoglio or Daniel Seghers; with more mellowness than de Heem, and with more vigour of colouring than Baptist Monoyer.

His pictures of flowers and fruit pleasing an English gentleman, he introduced them into his own country, where they came into vogue and yielded a high price. To express the motions of the smallest insects with justice he used to contemplate them through the microscope with great attention. At the times of the year when the flowers were in bloom, and the fruit in perfection, he used to design them in his own garden, and the Sieur Gulet and Voorhelm sent him the most beautiful productions in those kinds they could pick up.

His reputation rose to such a height that all the curious in painting sought his works with great eagerness, which encouraged him to raise his prices so high that his pictures at last grew out of the reach of any but princes and men of the greatest fortune. He was the first flower painter that ever thought of laying them on light grounds, which requires much greater art than to paint them on dark ones.

Van Huysum died at Amsterdam in 1749. He never had any pupil but a young woman named Haverman, and his brother Michael. Two other brothers have distinguished themselves in painting, one named Justus, who painted battles, and died at twenty-two years old, the other named James, who ended his days in England in 1740. He copied the pictures of his brother John so well as to deceive the connoisseurs: he had usually 20 for each copy. For the originals, it may be noted, from a thousand to fourteen hundred florins was paid.