The Standard Galleries - Holland Part 17

=G. de Lairesse, Portrait-painter.=--Gerard de Lairesse was the son of an artist of some celebrity, studied under Bertholet Flemalle, and by the age of sixteen had become known as a portrait-painter. Some historical works for the Electors of Cologne and Brandenburg established his reputation, and when he settled in Amsterdam he was regarded as the greatest historical painter of his time. At the age of fifty he lost his eyesight. His style is grand and poetical, and his background enriched with architecture.

=More Mythological Pictures in the Rijks.=--The other mythological pictures in this gallery are: Hendrick van Balen (1575-1632), Bacchus's Homage to Diana; Jan Brueghel le Vieux (Velvet) (1568-1625), Latona in Caria; Caravaggio (1569-1609), The Death of Orion; Johannes Glauber (1646-1726), Mercury and Io, and Diana Bathing; Henricus Goltzius (1558-1616), The Dying Adonis (1603); Hendrick Heerschop (1620 or 21-72?), Erechthonius Found by the Daughters of Cecrops; Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678), A Satyr; Hendrik van Limborgh (1680-1759), Cupid and Psyche; W. Ossenbeeck (?-1678), Mercury and Io (1632); Hans Rottenhammer (1564-1623), Mars and Venus (1604); Adriaan van der Werff (1659-1722), Cupid Embracing Venus; Pieter van der Werff (1665-after 1721), Cupid Adorned with Flowers (1713), Young Hercules and Young Bacchus; Thomas Willeborts (1614-54), Mars Armed by Venus; Flemish School (1610-20), Dispute of Apollo and Pan; Dutch School (sixteenth century), Adonis (supposed to be by Jan van Scorel); and Dietz (living in 1830), Hebe.

Here must be mentioned Rembrandt's mythological picture known by the name of Narcissus.

=Painters of Exteriors and Painters of Interiors.=--No survey of Dutch art would be complete without a brief account of the painters of buildings; and these may be divided again into two cla.s.ses: those who painted the exteriors and those who painted the interiors.

=Murant and his Old Farm-house.=--The first of those who painted exteriors seems to have been Emanuel Murant (1622-1700), a pupil of Philips Wouwermans. He chose for his specialty Dutch village houses which he painted with vigor and warmth, and introduced figures and cattle into his foregrounds. These he painted himself. His works are rare, because he spent so much time on each work that he produced few pictures. He also spent much time in travel. His color is rich and silvery in tone; his impasto fine, and he gives the details with great truth and finish. By the aid of a magnifying-gla.s.s every stone in his buildings and every leaf on his trees may be counted. The Rijks possesses The Old Farm-house, which represents a dilapidated old house, where a man is feeding the chickens, and there are also pigs and an old woman at her spinning-wheel.

=Jan van der Heyden.=--Jan van der Heyden (1637-1712) was "the Gerard Dou of architectural painters." The Rijks owns View of the Town of Amersfoort, with delightful figures by A. van der Velde, A Drawbridge, A Stone Bridge, and A Ca.n.a.l in Holland. He loved to paint ca.n.a.ls bordered with trees. His tone is warm, and his execution soft and free.

=G. A. Berck-Heyde, Painter of German and Dutch Towns.=--Another skilful painter of exteriors, Gerrit Adriaensz Berck-Heyde (1638-98), is noted for his faithful representations of the princ.i.p.al towns of Germany and Holland. His perspective is extremely fine. The Rijks owns: View of the Dam at Amsterdam; View of the Heerengracht (1685); The Flower-Market, Amsterdam; The Ruins of the Castle of Egmont, near Alkmaar; and three Views of the Town-hall. In some of his works he was a.s.sisted by his brother.

=J. A. Berck-Heyde.=--Job Adriaensz Berck-Heyde (1630-93) was a pupil of Frans Hals and Jacob de Wet. He is represented in the Amsterdam Museum by The Spaarne at Haarlem, Interior of a Church (1674), and Interior of the Old Bourse at Amsterdam.

=J. van der Ulft the Versatile.=--The works of Jacob van der Ulft, so remarkable for his versatility, are rare. The Rijks, however, owns two pretty cabinet-pictures by him, representing an Italian town and an Italian port. A very interesting and valuable picture by him, representing the Town-hall on the Dam, completed in 1667, is in the present Town-hall.

=Other Painters of Exteriors.=--Among the other artists and pictures represented are: Kornelis Beelt (seventeenth century), Dutch Flotilla at the Herring Fishery and View of the Haarlem Market; Anthonie Beerstraten (seventeenth century), View of Regulierspoort in Amsterdam in Winter, and Interior of a Town in Winter; Johannes Bosboom (1817- ), Notre-Dame, Breda, Great Church, Edam, and Aire in Guelders; F. der Braekeleer, Ruins of the Citadel of Antwerp (1832); Hendrik Gerrit Ten Cate (1803-56), The Tower, Jan Rodenpoort in Amsterdam (1829), and the City in Moonlight; Jan Ten Compe (1713-61), View of the Quay called Keizersgracht, in Amsterdam; Constantinus Coene (1780-1841), the Porte de Hal in Brussels (1823); Croos (seventeenth century), View of the Castle of Egmont, near Alkmaar; Claes Dircksz van der Heck (seventeenth century), The Castle of Egmont and The Abbey of Egmont (1638); Edward A.

Hilverd.i.n.k, View of the Singel in Amsterdam; Johannes Janson (1729-84), The Chateau de Heemstede (1766); Kasparus Karssen (1810-?), Interior of the Old Bourse at Amsterdam (1837); J. C. K. Klinkenberg (1852- ), The Market at Nimeguen; Everhardus Kloster (1817- ), Amsterdam; Dirk Jan van der Laen (1759-1829), View of a Town: A Snow Scene; Francois de Momper (1603-60), The Valkenhof at Nimeguen; Isaac de Moucheron (1670-1744), View of Tivoli, near Rome, and View in the Hortus Medicus at Amsterdam; Isaak Ouwater (1747-93), Unfinished Tower of the New Church at Amsterdam and Le Poids St. Anthony at Amsterdam; Antoon Sminck Pitloo (1791-1837), St. Georgis Church, Rome (1820); P. J. Poelman (1801-?), The Town Hall at Oudenarde (1824); J. H. Prins (1758-1806), View of a City (1793); Cornelis Springer (1817-91), Town-hall and Vegetable Market at Vere (1861), and Town-hall, Cologne (1874); Abraham Storck (1630?-1710?), View of the Dam; Pieter George Westenberg (1791-1873), View of Amsterdam in Winter (1817); and Jan Wildens (1586-1653), View of Amsterdam (1636).

=Painters of Interiors--P. H. van Steenwyck.=--Turning now to those painters who devoted their attention chiefly to interiors, the first to be noticed is Pieter Hendrik van Steenwyck the Elder (1550-about 1604), the pupil of Jan Vredeman de Vries, who has never been surpa.s.sed in this particular field. He usually painted the interiors of Gothic churches and other buildings. He also won distinction with torchlight effects.

The figures were usually supplied by the Franckens and others. Van Steenwyck lived in Antwerp and also in Frankfort. The Interior of a Catholic Church, in the Rijks, is a good example of his style.

=His Pupil, Pieter Neeffs the Elder.=--Among his pupils was Pieter Neeffs the Elder (1577-between 1657-61), who followed his master closely, but with a heavy touch. His colors are not so pleasing as Steenwyck's, but his mechanical skill is great. F. Francken, Teniers, Velvet Brueghel, and Van Thulden are responsible for the figures in his pictures. In the Rijks we may study him by his Church of the Dominicans in Antwerp (1636), A Church: Effect of Candle-light (1636), and Interior of a Church.

=P. J. Saenredam, Painter of Church Interiors.=--Next must be mentioned Pieter Jansz Saenredam (1597-1665), who painted the interior of churches in a large and luminous manner. His pictures were highly esteemed, but are now very rare. The Rijks owns: two Interiors of the Church of St.

Bavon, Haarlem; three Interiors of St. Mary's, Utrecht; and View of the Church in a.s.sendelft. Adriaen van Ostade contributed the figures in the latter. Pieter Saenredam was a pupil of his father, a celebrated engraver, and of Frans de Grebber in Haarlem.

=Emanuel de Witte's Beautiful Work.=--Emanuel de Witte (1617-92), a pupil of Evert van Aelst, bears the same relation to the representation of interiors that Ruisdael does to landscape, and Willem van de Velde to marine painting. Beautiful modelling, fine color, linear and aerial perspective, masterly treatment of chiaroscuro, and animated figures are all at his command. The Vestibule in the Prinsenhof in Delft and two Interiors of a Church are picturesque canvases that exhibit the rich talents of this painter.

=H. C. van Vliet.=--Hendrik Cornelisz van Vliet (1608-66?), a pupil of his father, Willem van Vliet (1584-1642), paints under the influence of De Witte as is shown in the Interior of Part of the Old Church at Delft, signed "H. van Vliet, 1654." Here the treatment of sunlight is very reminiscent of Emanuel de Witte.

=Egbert van der Poel.=--In this connection may be mentioned Egbert van der Poel (1621-64), whose specialty was conflagrations. The effects of lurid light are seen in his Ruins in Delft after the Explosion of a Powder Magazine (1654) and Interior of a Farm-house (1646).

=Collections on the Ground-floor and Bas.e.m.e.nt.=--After lunching in the pleasant little restaurant in the west wing on the ground-floor we take a rapid view of the collections here. The East and West Courts contain military, naval, and colonial collections, weapons, uniforms, and models of ships, which need not detain us long; nor will the department of Ecclesiastical Architecture and the Hall of the Admirals, where there is a collection of modern French paintings. In the western half of the building there are splendid collections of engravings, porcelain, lacquer, and textiles, two seventeenth century rooms furnished by the Antiquarian Society, and in the bas.e.m.e.nt a collection of old Dutch costumes, carriages, and doll houses. On the east side are a number of correctly furnished Dutch rooms, one a "Chinese Boudoir" from the Stadtholder's Palace at Leeuwarden (seventeenth century), and a great collection of civic and industrial domestic art. Silver occupies a conspicuous place, and one of the cases contains drinking-horns, among which is the original drinking-horn of the Guild of St. Joris, which appears in Van der Helst's painting.

The visitor will seldom see a more wonderful collection of gla.s.s of all shapes and forms, and beautifully engraved, cut, and mounted; and the display of jewelry, trinkets, and children's toys will also claim attention.

=The Garden.=--We now enter the garden at the south side of the building. This is laid out in the Dutch style of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with clipped hedges of beech and box, and adorned with flowers, vases, statues, and busts. There is also a maze, and fragments of old Dutch buildings, such as the old Bergpoort of Deventer (1619) and the Heerenpoort of Groningen (1621). Various old gables, pilasters, columns, walls, tympanums, and gates have been grouped; and in the eastern part of the garden is the house of the Director of the Museum.

FOOTNOTES:

[23] J. F. White.

[24] Burger.

[25] J. A. Crowe.

[26] Blanc.

THE STEDELIJK MUSEUM

=Ground-floor of the Stedelijk Museum.=--A short walk from the Rijks down Paulus Potter Straat brings us to the Stedelijk (Munic.i.p.al) Museum, built in 1892-95. The ground-floor is devoted to uniforms, weapons, and pictures of the Schutterij of Amsterdam, and a series of rooms furnished in the style of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, including an old Dutch kitchen.

=Its Pictures of the History of the Netherlands.=--An extraordinary collection of pictures by Allebe, Israels, Rochussen, and other well-known painters, treating of the history of the Netherlands, deserves a pa.s.sing glance, for there are no less than 250 small canvases, all of the same dimensions and similar treatment. A more curiously monotonous effect would be impossible to imagine; but, to use a Dutch term, they are decidedly _symmetrisch_.

=The Gallery of Modern Pictures.=--Ascending the stairs we reach the gallery of modern pictures. The collection consists of about 200 paintings gathered by a society founded in 1874, and is very rich in fine examples of the modern Dutch school.

=Mauve's Sheep on the Dunes.=--One of the gems of the modern landscapes is Mauve's Sheep on the Dunes. The sheep, all of which have their backs to the spectator, the rolling dunes with their tall, waving gra.s.s, the shepherd boy and his dog, are all painted with equal skill; and over the still landscape hovers a poetic feeling that communicates itself instantly to the spectator.

Mauve is also represented by A Fold and Woodmen.

=Anton Mauve.=--Anton Mauve (1838-89) was a native of Zaandam, and the son of a clergyman. He studied under the cattle-painter, Van Os, who was not particularly pleased with his pupil. After his apprenticeship was over, he began to paint little pictures in the neat manner and conventional style of his master. Mauve lived in Oosterbeck, "the Barbison of Holland," for a time, and at a later period spent his winters in Amsterdam and his summers in The Hague, where he could enjoy Scheveningen and the dunes.

A Dutch writer, A. C. Loffelt, says:

=His Style.=--"The poetry of Mauve's art, its tenderness, the un.o.btrusive, quiet sadness of the scenery and people which attracted him most; the homeliness, humor, and domestic happiness which he interpreted in his interiors and scenes of country and village life, can only be appreciated by people of the same descent."

The same critic tells us that Mauve lived for a time in a farm-house, near Dekkersdinn.

=His Favorite Themes.=--"Here Mauve found some of his most important and favorite themes, such as poor cots built in or near the downs, where slender, poorly nurtured women tended a few sheep or a goat, or occupied themselves in bleaching linen. His painting had not yet gained that transparency and brilliancy of tone which the artist acquired in subsequent years. At this time his work was gray, but not always pellucid or silvery. Thus it came to pa.s.s that critics and public began to talk of 'The Gray School,' for a few other artists painted in the same neutral scale of tints.

"As we walk in the rural lanes, beneath the slender birches wrapped in their mantle of silver-gray haze, or watch the chequered sunlight dancing into the secluded nooks of some emerald meadow, when we hear the echoes of the tinkling sheep-bells on the moors, we think 'There lives Mauve!'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAUVE Sheep on the Dunes]

=His Truthful Painting of Sheep and Cattle.=--Mauve is, perhaps, best known by his flocks of sheep painted under all conditions and at all seasons and times of day; but not less true to nature are his cows in the _Melkbocht_, that paddock or reserved spot in the meadow where the cows are gathered for milking. His horses ploughing, or at rest, and his coast scenes, showing Dutch fishing-boats about to be pulled across the sands by teams of horses, are no less remarkable performances.

=The Early Training of Josef Israels.=--For a whole generation Josef Israels has stood at the head of modern Dutch art. Born in 1827, at Groningen, the son of a money-changer, he carried money-bags in his early years to the banking-house of Mesdag. He studied under Jan Adam Kruseman, and at first painted historical pictures; lived in the Ghetto in Amsterdam, and nearly starved in Paris, where he studied in the Delaroche school.

=The Themes of his Paintings.=--It was in Zandvoort, near Haarlem, that he discovered his true bent, and began to depict the seafaring man and the peasant in their homely every-day life. His people are all humble, and most of them are broken by poverty and sorrows. For more than thirty years his pictures have occupied the place of honor in all the Dutch exhibitions; and on his seventieth birthday he was made Commander of the Order of Orange-Na.s.sau, and was the recipient of many gifts and congratulations. In this gallery hang a number of pictures dating from various periods. Among them are Fisherman's Children, Rustic Interior, After the Storm, Pa.s.sing the Mother's Grave, Margaret of Parma and William of Orange (one of his earliest efforts), Old Jewish Peddler, and a Study of a Head.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ISRAeLS Fisherman's Children]

=Veth's Appreciation of Israels.=--The artist himself is represented in a statuette by F. Leenhoff, which stands in one of the rooms, and also in a portrait by J. Veth, who sympathetically writes:

"The choicest pictures by this master are painted in a truly mysterious way, simply by the nervous vigor of an untaught hand with heavy, sweeping shadows and thick touches of paint, which stand out in a wonderful mixture of sharp relief and dim, confused distance; with soft hesitation and touches of crudely decisive certainty; with broad outlines and incisive emphasis. Ruggedness and tenderness, corruption and sweetness, whimsicality and decision, are magically mingled there in dignified depth, with the most refined feeling--the most ductile language of the brush that is known to me.

"And yet, notwithstanding, all this exists, as far as possible, in the clear, simple execution of the old Dutch painters, and there is one great family resemblance between the nineteenth century master and those who are the cla.s.sics among the _pet.i.ts maitres_."

=Each of his Pictures a Harmonious Whole.=--"The resemblance--the revived tradition--is to be seen in the fact that Israels, like the old Dutch painters, nay, even more than they, always aims at the sober, general harmony of the whole work. It is wonderful how discreet the effect is of a picture, for instance, by Pieter de Hooch, with all its elaborate execution; how splendidly it holds together, how strong yet delicate the construction is. It is this great quality of presenting an absolutely organic whole at one impulse which seems to have pa.s.sed into Israels from his precursors, who otherwise painted so utterly differently. Indeed, it is in this concentrated power, in this self-contained harmony, the outcome of one glance, as it were, and of one impetus, that we may discern one of the princ.i.p.al features of Israels's art. There is nothing in his work that a.s.serts itself alone, nothing detached, nothing that plays any part but that of strengthening the whole."

=His Aim to paint the Truth, rather than to produce Studied Effects.=--"Those who really understand the sincerity of his art know that he rejects everything approaching to working for effect--everything that looks like rule of thumb; and that he in fact never consciously troubles his head about studied effects or beauty.

Beauty to him lies in the silent woe with which the survivors stand in a house of death; in the att.i.tude of the old wife left alone, who spreads her hands stiffly out to the fire, as though she might win a spark of life from the smouldering hearth; in the way in which the decrepit old man sits with resigned dejection in his gloomy hovel, staring into his old dog's eyes; in the stupefied wretch who sits on a broken bench, where, behind him, his dead wife lies stretched on her bed; in the woful gleam in the eyes of the huckster who sits in front of his dirty booth, with a motley collection of rags above his head, watching us so mysteriously; in the sad old woman who, with elbows wide apart on her table, her hands quietly folded, sits weary and alone in front of her meal; in the kindly but hard-set woman, who, through wind and weather, tramps along field and road by her jolting dog-barrow, in a cruel struggle for existence; in the business of the fisherman and seafaring folk and their hard and simple labor; in the dignity of the patriarchal peasant family that gathers round the dish; he sees beauty in everything which lays bare what lies mysteriously latent in poverty and privation and suffering, at the very roots of human life."