The Standard Galleries - Holland Part 13

=Burger's Explanation of the River Scene.=--"The view of a river in the Van der Hoop Collection is the last expression of his magnificent and exalted manner. A better name for this picture would be The Windmill. In a few words here is the picture: A bit of the Meuse; on the right a piece of ground covered with trees and houses, and on the summit a black mill with its sails spread to the winds, extending high upon the canvas; a stockade, against which the waves of the river break gently, the water heavy, soft, and admirable; and a little corner of the almost lost horizon, very attenuated, very firm, very pale, yet very distinct, on which rises the white sail of a boat, a flat sail without the slightest wind in the canvas, but having a value tender and perfectly exquisite. Above, a great sky filled with clouds; through the rifts and holes the shining blue that they efface, the clouds all gray and filling the s.p.a.ce from the stockade to the top of the canvas; so that there is no light in any part of this powerful tonality, composed of dark brown and sombre slate colors. In the centre of the picture one ray of light glimmers like a smile upon the clouds. A great square _grave_ picture, of an extreme sonority in the deepest register, and my notes add _merveilleux dans l'or_."

=Karel Dujardin (1625-78).=--Of the Portrait of a Gentleman with a Dog and a Dead Hare (1670), Burger says:

=A Dead Picture of a Dead Hare.=--"The deadest one in the lot is not the hare; for if the hare were alive the dog certainly could not run after him, nor could the gentleman run after his dog. The gentleman is dressed in tin-plate and is represented to the knees and of natural size, with the background of a dark sky. The hands have been praised; but they do not look as if they could move."

=A Good Portrait of Gerard Reinst.=--A Portrait of Gerard Reinst, a celebrated art collector of Amsterdam, who died in 1658, and who was a patron of Dujardin, is painted sympathetically. He is bareheaded, with a blond wig, and is dressed in a grayish violet with chocolate tones. One hand rests on his hip; the other is marvellously represented. A landscape and sky form the background, and two greyhounds are at the gentleman's side.

=A Portrait of Himself.=--A portrait of himself is signed and dated 1660. This is only nine inches by six and one-half inches. It is only a bust showing a shaven face with a thread of a moustache, long black hair, brilliant eyes, and handsome mouth. He wears a grayish costume with puffed sleeves, and his right hand somewhat pretentiously holds the drapery of his cloak on his chest.

=Dujardin's Other Works.=--A Landscape, dated 1655, and showing a peasant winnowing corn, is noted for its silvery tone; A Trumpeter on Horseback shows a cavalier in a blue mantle and on a white horse, stopping before the door of an inn, and drinking from a gla.s.s offered by the hostess, who is standing at the door. His other works are an Italian Landscape with Animals and The Muleteers. Another Landscape in the Van der Hoop Collection was bought at the d.u.c.h.esse de Berry's sale in 1837 for 4,000 florins. A copy after Karel Dujardin shows an Italian Landscape with figures, and a white horse.

=Adam Pynacker.=--Adam Pynacker has four landscapes: Border of a Lake in Italy, Italian Landscape, Landscape, and Pilgrimage.

=Johannes Both's Pictures.=--Johannes Both may be studied in The Courtyard of a Farm; two Italian Landscapes, one of which is a luminous picture of a summer morning, with mountains on the horizon on the left, trees to the right in the foreground, and many small figures on the road; and in Painters Studying from Nature. Here we see on a canvas about six feet by seven, a vast landscape of much beauty, having the Apennines for a background. Beneath a tall oak tree on the right and among the rocks, Johannes Both himself is seated, with his back turned to the spectator. He has a sketch book before him and is talking to a beggar; his brother Andries is facing us; and the fourth person is talking to some one in the distance. The time is a beautiful Summer morning.

=Jan a.s.selijn.=--Jan a.s.selijn (1610-60) was a pupil of Esaias van de Velde, but went when young to Italy, where he was called by the band of Dutch painters "Krabbetje," on account of a contraction in his fingers.

His pictures are highly valued, representing, as a rule, views of Rome, enriched with figures and cattle in the style of N. Berchem. He greatly resembles Jan Both.

His Italian Landscape in the Rijks is considered a very true and important landscape, with a background of bluish mountains, and a bridge on the left. The artist has introduced Italian ruins and some muleteers.

He is also represented by a Cavalry Combat, signed and dated 1646; and the Allegory on John de Witt.

=Philips Wouwermans's Hawking Scene.=--Of the thirteen pictures by Philips Wouwermans we may pause before the well-known Hawking Scene, noted as a specimen of his delicacy and precision on a small scale. It is only one foot high by eight inches wide. The exceedingly animated composition shows about a dozen people on horseback scattered through a delicate landscape. Other figures of men, women, and children enliven the scene. This is painted in his last and most prized period.

=His Horse-pond.=--The Horse-pond is a lovely picture, with a silvery sky filled with luminous morning clouds, and, far away in the distance, hills, trees, and women bleaching linen. In the centre of the picture, a lovely stream in which children are bathing, and a ferry with persons and animals pa.s.sing over in little boats. It is the moment when grooms and peasants are taking their horses and animals to water; and naturally, therefore, we have some beautiful groups: here a man is leading two horses, one of which is kicking at a barking dog; other horses are at the edge of the stream; others have plunged in. Among the eight horses, there is one splendid white one, and there are about twenty figures, including washerwomen and children. It is impossible, even with Wouwermans, who is so _spirituel_ and clever, to find a richer, more animated, more varied, and more brilliant composition.

A Landscape with Water belongs to the first period when Wouwermans followed Wijnants; The Camp shows hors.e.m.e.n and other people; a horseman turned to the right and mounted on a white and brown horse is very remarkable.

=Description of The Kicking White Horse.=--A celebrated canvas is The Kicking White Horse. Two mounted horses and one lead horse are under a tree in the foreground. The white horse, after having knocked over an old woman with a basket of fruit, is kicking the lead horse on the right, while a dog is snarling at his heels. On the extreme left, a richly dressed lady and gentleman are watching the affair with interest, and in the middle distance, on the right, two men are watering their horses at a ford. There is fine painting of distance in the low landscape and beautiful aerial perspective in the Summer sky with its floating clouds.

Besides landscapes, a camp, and others in his usual style, there are two pictures of fighting peasants.

His brother, Pieter Wouwermans (1623-82), is represented by two works: a.s.sault on the Town of Koevorden, 1672, and The Hunting Party. His works have frequently been mistaken for Philips's, though, as may be seen in these pictures, his brush work has less freedom, and his tones are heavier than his brother's.

=Jan Wijnants Unsuccessful in peopling his Scenery.=--Jan Wijnants (1600-79), who is said to have been the master of Philips Wouwermans, has eight pictures by which his qualities may be compared with those of that painter. These are Landscape in the Dunes, with Hunters; Mountainous Country; The Farm; and Flock in a Landscape; and four landscapes in the Van der Hoop Collection. He was a painter of extreme care and finish; and in painting nature he ranks among the highest. Like so many other Dutch landscape-painters, however, he was not successful with figures; and for peopling his scenery he availed himself of the a.s.sistance of his great pupil, Adriaen van de Velde (as in the case of the above-mentioned Landscape in the Dunes), Lingelbach, Wouwermans, Helt Stokade, and others.

=Jan Wijnants's Love of painting the Dunes.=--Durand Greville says:

"His dated pictures are of his last period, 1641-79, so that he may claim the honor of first having introduced into the landscape the neighboring dunes of Haarlem and of having been the first to love them. He faithfully translated in their blond harmony the dunes, gray or golden, with the sun, the trees with their pale foliage, and the skies with their light vaporous veilings. To his last hour he went back again and again to that inexhaustible theme in its apparent monotony. He put into the execution of the dazzle of the sand, tree-trunks, s.p.a.ces of moss and clumps of gra.s.ses an astonishing sincerity, perhaps even somewhat too minute from the point of view of the impression of the whole, but, even by that, quite accessible to the taste of the majority of people. None the less he remains to-day one of the most remarkable landscape-painters of Holland."

=Cornelis van Poelenburg.=--Cornelis van Poelenburg has four characteristic pictures in his favorite Italian style: The Bathers, Women Coming from the Bath, Adam and Eve Expelled from Paradise, and The Bathers Spied Upon.

=Winter Scenes by A. van der Neer.=--The most noted painter of winter scenes and of the magic beauty of snow and ice is Aart van der Neer (1603-77), a friend of A. Cuijp, from whom he doubtless learned much, as they frequently worked together on the same canvas. His winter pieces are generally warm in their lighting. Two fine specimens hang in this gallery, one of which is brightened by numerous figures skating and playing ball on a frozen ca.n.a.l. The sky is full of dark snow-clouds. He may also be studied by a Landscape.

=His Moonlight Scenes.=--He is also famous for his beautiful towns on the ca.n.a.ls, lighted by the moon, and his conflagrations. No other painter has depicted the broad ma.s.ses of shadow, and the effects of light and tranquillity of character peculiar to a moonlight night, with so much truthfulness as Van der Neer. In his rendering of the warm glow of sunset he has been compared to his friend Cuijp.

=Hendrick Averkamp.=--In this connection The Skaters, by Hendrick Averkamp (1585-after 1663), should be noted. This artist was surnamed "the Mute of Kampen" because of his taciturnity. He produced many marines, landscapes, and festivals on the ice, which have, unfortunately, lost their color.

=Esais van de Velde's Pictures.=--Winter amus.e.m.e.nts by Esais van de Velde will afford pleasure to the student, who may also see this artist's Dutch Landscape, painted in 1623; The Surrender of Bois-le-Duc (1629-30), and an original replica of his curious satire on religious quarrels in 1618-19, Prince Maurice Fastening Bells on a Cat. Many of the architectural painters have depicted the well-known street scenes and buildings under the mantle of winter.

=Three Excellent Pictures by Hendrik Dubbels.=--Hendrik Dubbels (1620-76?), about whom comparatively little is known, has three pictures of great excellence: A Marine, a Calm, and a River Scene. Dubbels is supposed to have taught Ludolf Bakhuysen (1631-1708), who was also a pupil of Allart van Everdingen.

=Bakhuysen, Painter of Stormy Seas.=--Bakhuysen loved the ocean in its angry moods, and used to hire fishermen to take him out in their boats in the fury of storms. His works are highly valued, and some critics prefer them to the more placid pictures of Willem van de Velde. The Rijks owns two views of The Ij (or Y) near Amsterdam; The Port of Amsterdam, painted in 1673; Agitated Water: Haarlemmer Meer (for which 3,500 florins was paid in 1840); Stormy Sea After the Storm (1672); Embarkation of Jan de Witt on the Dutch Fleet; and Portrait of the Painter by himself.

=Van de Velde, the Elder and the Younger.=--Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611-93), who was Court Painter to Charles II. and James II. of England, is represented in the Rijks by eleven marine drawings. We have already seen fine examples of his more famous son, Willem van de Velde, at the Mauritshuis, but thirteen splendid examples hang in this gallery.

=Some Notable Pictures of Naval Warfare.=--The Ij (or Y) at Amsterdam, dated 1686, which formerly hung in the Schreierstoren in Amsterdam, was described by Sir Joshua Reynolds as follows:

"At the office of the Commissary of the Wharfs is one of Vandervelde's most capital pictures: it is about twelve feet long; a view of the port of Amsterdam with an infinite quant.i.ty of shipping."

[Ill.u.s.tration: W. VAN DE VELDE The Ij or Y at Amsterdam]

The Four Days' Combat is a picture of the moment when the English flag-ship, the "Prince Royal," is striking her colors in the fight with the Dutch fleet in 1666; and its companion, The Capture, shows four English men-of-war brought in as prizes in the same fight. Here the painter has represented himself in a small boat, for in such a position he actually witnessed the battle. An Agitated Sea, with various sailing-vessels, is delightful because of the warm lighting and movement of the waves; two Calms represent the painter in the mood he best loves to paint the sea. Other canvases represent the sea under squalls, light breezes, etc. The Canon Shot, with a large ship in the foreground, was bought in 1834 for 3,000 florins.

=A Beautiful Picture of the Dutch Coast.=--View on the Coast of Scheveningen shows the dunes on the right, above which rises the steeple of a church; on the left is the calm sea under a lovely afternoon light.

Two fishing-boats are seen in the distance; a boat lies on the beach; a fisherman walks by with his nets, and in the foreground are three men.

The sea, the dunes, the tiny figures, and the light all combine to make a beautiful picture.

=How some Painters helped each Other.=--The great geniuses could do everything well--portraits, landscapes, marines, figure subjects, architecture, interiors, and still life. Some, however, excelled in one particular branch, and, sometimes against their will bowed to the popular demand for their works in that line, and devoted themselves entirely to it. This specialization was carried to great lengths; and it seems strange to us to find one master of landscape calling upon a famous figure-painter to people his landscapes _a la mode_, and _vice versa_, as happened in numberless instances. Sometimes even cattle were supplied; and, more particularly, live and dead game, flowers, fruits, household stuff, and all kinds of still life.

=The Effect of this on their Reputation.=--Sometimes a young artist's facility in a certain field was detrimental to high esteem. Paul Potter, for example, had to live down the reproach that he was nothing but a painter of animals,--which he very quickly did. Those who made a specialty of live animals apart from landscape are very few. With the exception of the works of Snyders, hunting scenes are rare. Wouwermans's hunts are confined to the start and the return of the cavalcades.

=Blanc's Description of Weenix's Style.=--J. B. Weenix must have loved hunting also, for it forms one of the familiar motives in his landscapes in the Italian style. However,

"as he painted above all for the pleasure of painting, his usual custom was to group in the foreground of his composition the products of the chase rather than to represent the hunt itself. It is only in the distance that hounds and huntsmen are seen hunting the hare, while the poor animal is already dead and hanging by its foot to a branch of a tree in the foreground. A brilliant gamec.o.c.k, one or two partridges, some ribbons and flowers, and a big garden vase will accompany the hare and form a charming picture for the mere delight of the eyes.

Truth, finesse of local color, delightful light and shade, exquisite handling, and the whole technique of art are employed to make us admire this still life. We cannot help noticing the masterly manner in which the artist has rendered the fur of his dead hare, crimsoned with blood; and how lovingly he has caressed the plumage of the neck and crop of his partridges, and reproduced the beautiful l.u.s.trous black of the c.o.c.k, whose wings are splashed with white; how he has made us feel the velvet of the skin at the joining of the muscles, and accentuated the feet and claws. But the final luxury of the palette seems to have been reserved for a superb hunting-dog with delicate ears, that watches with an eye full of life over his master's gun and the glorious trophies of the chase; and distends his nostrils as if to snuff the odor of the gunpowder, the aroma of the gin, and the strong scents of the venison."

=Painters of Still Life.=--Usually the painters of inanimate objects take the trouble to arrange their inert models, just as a historical painter would dispose his living figures. The human figures in Snyders's pictures were painted by Rubens, Jordaens, or Martin de Vos. His pupils were Jan Fyt, Nicasius Bernarts, and Pieter Boel. The Rijks Gallery has two splendid pictures by him: one, a dish garnished with fruits and dead game; and the other, a dead roebuck, a wild boar's head, and vegetables.

=Snyders's Dead Game and Vegetables.=--Beautiful in composition and color is his Dead Game and Vegetables. On a shelf are placed choice specimens of china, gla.s.s, earthenware, fruit stands, etc., and these are balanced on the left by a beautiful gla.s.s vase of roses and iris standing in a niche. A large basket of apples, peaches, melons, pears, and grapes, a hung deer, a boar's head, a lobster, a few artichokes, and a bunch of asparagus show the artist's wonderful arrangement of form and color.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRANS SNYDERS Dead Game and Vegetables]

=Savery's Landscapes and other Pictures.=--Roelandt Savery (1576-1639) was famous as a landscape-painter. The landscapes are somewhat artificial, and really are used as framework for the animal life he loved to introduce. His execution is sometimes rather heavy but with strong tones. The landscapes usually consist of gra.s.sy swards with brownish-green trees and shrubs in the foreground, while the background is bathed in the bluish tints so dear to Brueghel. Animals and birds of all kinds animate Savery's pictures, as well as human figures, all drawn with much talent. The Hague has a famous picture, by this artist, of Orpheus Charming the Animals; and the Rijks owns Elijah Fed by the Ravens (1634) and A Stag Hunt in a Rocky Landscape (1626).

=Adriaen van Utrecht and his Still Life.=--Adriaen van Utrecht was ten years ahead of Jan Fyt in painting those pictures of live or dead animals, game, fruits, and implements of the chase that we still admire so much. Although his lights are sometimes somewhat heavy and his brush work is not so fine as Fyt's, yet he equals the latter in certainty of touch and especially in his feeling for life and nature. His pictures are very scarce: Amsterdam possesses only one, called Still Life, signed and dated 1644. On a canvas eight by ten feet the painter has grouped pies, hams, a lobster, grapes, peaches, and lemons on a table. On the left, on the floor, are some musical instruments; on a chair some golden vases; above, a parrot; on the right a great sculptured basin and a little white spaniel, and in the centre a monkey playing with some fruit from an overturned basket.

=Ten Pictures by M. Hondecoeter.=--Melchior d' Hondecoeter can be studied to great advantage in the Rijks, which owns several pictures of the first order: The Floating Feather, The Philosophical Magpie, Animals and Plants, The Country House, The Duck Pond, The Frightened Hen, The Menagerie, Dead Game, and two of birds.

=Hondecoeter's Father and Grandfather.=--The great Hondecoeter was a pupil of his father, Gijsbert d' Hondecoeter (1604-53), the pupil of his father Gillis d' Hondecoeter (1583-1638), a painter of portraits and landscapes in the manner of R. Savery and David Vinck Boons. Gijsbert followed his father's style of landscapes; but he attained a great reputation for his birds, and particularly his ducks. Both styles may be seen in the Rijks: A Landscape with Figures, dated 1652, and Aquatic Birds, dated 1651. In the duck pond, where ducks and pigeons are sporting, is also a feather floating on the water, for the artist was fond of repeating this little touch.

The Philosophical Magpie regards from a tree-trunk a dead heron, a goose, and ducks; its pendant shows a living peac.o.c.k near a large vase and a dead hare and pheasant. Dead Game, a small picture, exhibits a dead partridge and a string of four little birds, and the others represent parrots and other exotic birds, flowers, and plants, and some monkeys. The Frightened Hen is defending her chickens against the attack of a pea-hen. The most famous of all, however, is The Floating Feather.

[Ill.u.s.tration: M. D'HONDECOETER The Floating Feather]

=Burger's Criticism of The Floating Feather.=--"To make a pilgrimage to Amsterdam without admiring The Floating Feather, would be committing the crime of _lese-peinture_. Hondecoeter has painted this most carefully and in his happiest vein. In a park luxuriantly decorated with beautiful trees and springing fountains, he has grouped strange and rare birds with domestic fowls. On the left in the foreground may be recognized a pelican, a crane, a flamingo, and a ca.s.sowary; on the right are ducks and geese of various breeds; a magpie cleaves the air with rapid wings; and, lastly, a light feather floats on the surface of a quiet pool, and this detail has given the picture its name."

Dr. Bredius says: