The Standard Galleries - Holland Part 8

Although his two most important works are in the galleries of Vienna and Berlin, and splendid examples hang in the Louvre, Dresden, and Ca.s.sel, the Mauritshuis owns two very fine examples. One is a Table with Fruits, very tasteful in arrangement and soft in treatment; the other is a Garland of Flowers and Fruits, enlivened with insects.

When Sir Joshua Reynolds visited the Prince of Orange's collection, he saw these pictures and noted: "Fruits by De Heem, done with the utmost perfection."

=His Greatness as a Painter of Fruits, Flowers, and Insects.=--De Heem was one of the greatest painters of still life in Holland; no artist of his cla.s.s combined form and color more successfully. His drawing is correct, and his colors are brilliant and combined harmoniously. He is familiar with every object of stone and silver, every flower, whether humble or gorgeous, every fruit of Europe or the tropics, every twig and leaf and blossom. Burger has said of Heda, but it is true of De Heem, that "he glorified insects, b.u.t.terflies, and all the minute beings that swarm in vegetation, and made the moths drink in cups of chased gold."

=His Pictures that point a Moral.=--De Heem was also famous for his pictures that point a moral or ill.u.s.trate a motto--those canvases known as Vanitas. Here the snake lies coiled under the gra.s.s; there a skull rests on blooming plants. "Gold and silver tankards or cups suggest the vanity of earthly possessions; salvation is allegorized in a chalice amid blossoms; death, as a crucifix inside a wreath." Sometimes De Heem painted alone, or with men of his school, Madonnas or portraits surrounded by festoons of fruits and flowers. He was so fond of the festoon that he sometimes painted it alone. Sometimes, too, a nosegay is figured alone.

=Cornelis de Heem's Subjects like those of his Father.=--The Hague Gallery also owns Fruits by his son Cornelis (1631-95). The latter painted precisely the same subjects as his father and with scarcely less success. Still life, flowers, fruits, oysters, and lemons on a plate; cold hams, boiled lobsters, flowers, knives, forks, gla.s.ses, watches, clocks, etc., are all treated by him with the utmost cleverness. Crowe says:

"He is not inferior to his father in drawing and warmth of color, and with an equally solid impasto, almost surpa.s.ses him in melting softness of touch. He is, however, in rare instances, somewhat gaudier. Under these circ.u.mstances it is easy to understand that his works are often mistaken for those of his father."

=Abraham Mignon, Pupil and Imitator of De Heem.=--Another pupil was Abraham Mignon (1640-79), who is represented in the Mauritshuis by Flowers and Fruits, and two canvases called Summer Flowers, which show the influence of his master. Mignon's fruits and flowers have all the bloom of nature; his b.u.t.terflies and other insects seem to live and feed on the leaves, buds, and blossoms; and the dewdrops on the leaves and petals have all the transparency of real water. He was very popular in his day and was overwhelmed with commissions.

=Jacob Walscapelle.=--Jacob Walscapelle is also supposed to have been a pupil of De Heem, and many of his pictures have been attributed to one of the De Heems.

=Maria van Oosterwyck, an Excellent Painter of Flowers.=--Another pupil was Maria van Oosterwyck (1630-93), who usually painted flowers in vases or gla.s.ses, and occasionally fruits. In 1882 the Mauritshuis acquired a picture of Flowers, by this artist, who, perhaps, because of the rarity of her pictures, is not so widely known as she deserves to be. Although her flowers are not always arranged with taste and the colors are often gaudy, yet Crowe thinks she represents them with the

"utmost truth of drawing, and with a depth, brilliancy, and juiciness of local coloring unattained by any other flower-painter. At the same time, her execution, in spite of great finish, is broad and free, and the impasto excellent."

She was much admired in her day and received commissions from Louis XIV., William III. of England, Augustus I. of Poland, and the Emperor Leopold.

=Jan van Huysum, the Correggio of Flowers and Fruits.=--"If De Heem, by the harmony of his warm golden color, be called the t.i.tian of flowers and fruits, Jan van Huysum's bright and sunny treatment ent.i.tles him to the name of the Correggio of the same branch of art.

In masterly drawing and truth of single objects, both masters may be cla.s.sed on the same level, only that De Heem's princ.i.p.al subjects were fruit; Van Huysum's were flowers, in which he entered into greater detail; for instance, in the gloss of the tulip, the pollen of the auricula, and the dewdrop on the petal. It is to these merits, fitted as they are to the capacity of the greater number of admirers of art, that Van Huysum owed the eager demand for, and high payment of his pictures by princes and wealthy amateurs, even in his own day, and also that of all painters of his cla.s.s he still commands the highest prices."[22]

=Van Huysum's Pictures in The Hague.=--Jan van Huysum (1682-1749) is not so well represented in his own country as in the Louvre (which contains eleven fine examples), Berlin, St. Petersburg, Munich, Hanover, and Dresden. The Rijks owns but six, and The Hague only three,--an Italian Landscape, Fruits, and Flowers. The two latter are such beautiful examples of Van Huysum's art that they deserve study. In the one are found that marvellous blush and downy bloom for which he was so famous, while the other reveals his delicate treatment of petals and his graceful arrangement. In Fruits, a peach, two plums, a small bunch of grapes and some gooseberries are beautifully grouped, as to form and color, on a marble table. Its pendant, Flowers, is an exquisite picture of a full-blown rose and a rosebud, a pink and a convolvulus, placed on a marble console. A b.u.t.terfly of the admiral variety has alighted on the rosebud.

=His Earliest Works.=--In his earliest period he painted landscapes representing views of imaginary lakes and harbors, woods with tall, lifeless trees, and cla.s.sic buildings and ruins--finished in a glossy and smooth style--which are now of little value in comparison with his fruit and flower pieces. The Italian Landscape, which the Mauritshuis acquired in 1816, is a very good example of this style.

=Fruits and Flowers his Forte.=--It is doubtful if any artist ever surpa.s.sed Van Huysum in the representation of fruits and flowers, to which he finally devoted himself with the greatest success. He set himself the task of surpa.s.sing De Heem and Abraham Mignon; and he studied the most exquisite fruits and flowers known. His taste in the arrangement of his groups in elegant vases, of which the ornaments and bas-reliefs were finished in the most polished and beautiful manner, and in graceful baskets on marble tables, is generally considered to be superior to that of any other flower-painter. He also shows great art in relieving flowers of various colors against each other, and often they stand out from a light transparent background. His fame rose to the highest pitch, and the first florists of Holland were ambitious of supplying him with their choicest flowers for subjects. Naturally, therefore, we find on his canvases beautiful groups and bunches of hyacinths, roses, pinks, primroses, and other garden buds and blossoms.

=His Skill in depicting Dewdrops and Insects.=--With marvellous skill he frequently introduces dewdrops of incomparable transparency that trickle down the leaves or sprinkle the fresh delicate petals. b.u.t.terflies and other insects are also depicted with a truthfulness and precision that give a perfect illusion, and often a bird's nest with eggs is introduced.

=His Exquisite Taste.=--Jan van Huysum's pictures are so bright that they have even been accused of being gaudy; but no critic has yet found fault with his exquisite taste and faultless velvet-like finish that seems to rival nature. His fruit pieces are inferior to his flowers, though they are worthy of great admiration. Those painted on a clear or yellow background are the most esteemed, and are distinguished from his early works, which are usually on a dark one, by a superior style of pencilling and a more harmonious color.

=Rachel Ruijsch.=--Another charming flower and fruit painter,--noted especially for her flowers,--Rachel Ruijsch (1664-1750), is represented in The Hague Gallery by two Bouquets. In 1693 she was married, but she always signed her maiden name, and in several ways,--Ruijsch, Ruysch, and Ruisch. She took great pains with her pictures, and the amount of time spent on them limited their number. She is said to have given seven years to two pictures, Flowers and Fruits, which she gave to one of her daughters for a wedding present.

Blanc has most sympathetically described her qualities. He says:

=Her Truthfulness to Nature.=--"Whether she is painting the flowers of the gardens or those of the field, which she groups so beautifully on marble tables and calls around them fluttering b.u.t.terflies and droning bees, or beautiful ripe fruits that refresh the eyes and mind, Rachel is always truthful, graceful, and clever. A colorist, she frankly selects the brightest tones and combines them marvellously; a draughtsman, she reproduces splendidly the most complicated forms, while preserving to each plant its individual elegance, its aspect, its way of holding itself, and foreshortening."

=Her Love of Nature.=--"In all justice, therefore, the Dutch rank Rachel Ruijsch among their most excellent painters. She retained her love of nature in all its freshness; it even seems as if she had a weakness for rustic beauty, and that she found the same pleasure in wandering about the country that others have in gardens and greenhouses. Sometimes she even mingles thistles with her field flowers, which she carelessly throws on a table; sometimes she chooses an old tree-trunk overgrown with moss, upon which she places her bunch of spring blossoms, while the insects hum around them, and the wings of a beetle gleam through the shadow. Sometimes she brings a green frog from some pool in the neighboring meadow and gives him a place in her picture. In the infinite little world of great nature Rachel finds no creature unworthy of her brush--not even the snail that crawls on the leaf and is hunted away by the gardener, nor the little worm who moves his variegated rings and spins his thread, destined to clothe magnificent ladies, as he elevates himself into the air. Those insects that we deem vile she honors in her paintings: she lets them lie on her marble tables, crawl on the stem of the gla.s.s in which her peonies and pinks are arranged; and she even allows them to devour the plums and grapes of her picturesque collations. Nothing, however, is more charming than her birds' nests, lined with lightest down and tiny blades of gra.s.s, moss, and straw, expressed with the art and industry of a wren or a tomt.i.t."

The larger picture in The Hague Gallery is a charming group of roses and tulips, with b.u.t.terflies and insects.

Rachel Ruijsch was a pupil of Willem van Aelst (1626-83?), whose Flowers (dated 1663) and Still Life (dated 1671) hang in The Hague Gallery.

=Description of One of Willem van Aelst's Pictures.=--M. de Burtin has described a picture by Willem van Aelst which gives an idea of all the works of this master:

"A table covered with a crimson velvet carpet bordered with golden fringe, on which stands a drinking-vessel of antique shape half filled with Rhine wine. The sides of this gla.s.s cup reflect several times and in different views the street with the most magical and astounding way, and in the very centre you see the reflection of the painter himself, holding his palette. On one side of the cup are placed, on a gla.s.s dish, four superb peaches and some roasted chestnuts; on the other side are bunches of red and white grapes. b.u.t.terflies and other insects add to the illusion, and the vine and peach leaves are artistically used to decorate the beautiful pyramidal group that stands out from a looped-back curtain of brownish yellow."

=Resemblance of his Work to that of Van Huysum.=--Although his name is less celebrated than that of Van Huysum, Willem Aelst is not very far removed from him in his beautiful productions; and certainly he surpa.s.ses Evert van Aelst (1602-58) who was his uncle and master.

Without carrying finish to excess and preserving a certain freedom of touch, he knows how to express marvellously the delicate wings of a b.u.t.terfly, the down of a peach, the dewdrops on a bunch of grapes, the feathers of a dead bird, and the wrinkles of a game-pouch.

=In Favor with Princes and Cardinals.=--Many of his works are in France, where he spent four years, and in Italy, where he lived seven years filling orders for princes and cardinals. He was only thirty years old when he returned to his native town, Delft; but he removed to Amsterdam, where his works brought high prices.

=His Favorite Subjects.=--The pictures by him representing dead birds are, as respects picturesque arrangement, finely balanced harmony of cool but transparent color, perfect nature in every detail, and delicate, soft treatment, admirable types of the perfection of the Dutch School. Specimens of this cla.s.s are a picture in the Munich Gallery of two dead partridges and instruments of the chase, and another in the Berlin Museum signed "W. v. Aelst, 1653," representing a marble table with two woodc.o.c.ks and other small birds, and two French partridges suspended above. His favorite subjects, however, were fruit and other eatables, herrings, oysters, bread, etc., with gla.s.ses and gorgeous vessels in gold and silver. Although Willem van Aelst owed much to his uncle Evert van Aelst, so famous for his dead birds and instruments of the chase, perhaps he owed still more to his other teacher, Otho Marcellis van Schrieck (1613-73), who acquired celebrity, excelling in a singular branch of art. He painted the humblest creatures,--frogs, snails, lizards, worms, serpents, and curious plants. The name of his master is unknown; but he painted entirely from nature and is said to have kept a kind of museum of serpents, vipers, insects and other curiosities. These he studied with great attention, and drew them with extraordinary fidelity and care, reproducing also their glowing and metallic hues.

=Two Pictures by Beijeren, and Two by Seghers.=--Another famous Flowers is that by Abraham van Beijeren (1620 or 1621-75), which was acquired at the Van Pappelendam sale in Amsterdam in 1889. A fine Fish and Lobster by the same painter should also be studied. The visitor will perhaps notice as he pa.s.ses two pictures by Daniel Seghers (1590-1661), one a garland of flowers around a statuette of the Virgin; the other, a garland of flowers around the bust of William III. The bust was a later addition.

=Other Painters belonging to the Same Group.=--An interesting and curious work is Sh.e.l.ls, by Balthasar van der Ast (?-1656). There is also a still life (1644) by Pieter Claez. To this group should be added Pieter Roestraeten (1627-1700), famous for his great vases of gold and silver, bas-reliefs, musical instruments, etc., which he designed with precision. He spent most of his time in London, where he was injured in the Great Fire (1666). Belonging to the same group are Pieter de Ring and Willem Kalf, whom we shall see in the Rijks, and the strange Christoffel Pierson, whose specialty was still life (particularly the attributes of the chase) and portraits. His works are very rare; but a peculiar combination of portraiture and still life hangs in The Hague Gallery, representing the pastor of the Protestant Church at Hoorn, Joris Goethals, and noticeable for the number of hunting implements and objects hanging on the wall. Though sombre and monotonous in tone, his touch and drawing are masterly. He thoroughly understood composition and distributed lights and shadows with skill. Pierson was turned aside from painting historical subjects and portraits by the success of Leemens, a painter of dead game, guns, etc., and speedily surpa.s.sed his model.

Jan van Os, Georgius Jacobus Johannes van Os, and Marie Margrita van Os we shall see in the Rijks.

=Portrait of Rubens's Second Wife.=--Although Holland is not the land where we can study Rubens (1577-1640) in all his greatness, yet the Amsterdam Gallery and more particularly The Hague Gallery possess some splendid pictures by his hand. In the latter hang the portraits of his two wives. That of his second wife, the buxom Helena, whom he married on December 6, 1630, and who bore him five children, is a masterpiece of the first rank; certainly an entirely individual work of the artist's later period.

=Much of Rubens's Work done by his Pupils.=--Thus we immediately come to the question: What has the master himself and what have his pupils done on it? No master has left behind him a larger amount of painted surface of canvas and wood; but how unequal is the artistic value of all this material! We know how that happened. Overwhelmed with pressing orders and surrounded by a large throng of sometimes very able pupils, he often only made a sketch, leaving the chief work to his best pupils, and finally adding a few corrections; perhaps here or there a head or a figure that particularly interested him. Rubens made no secret of this fact; he often openly acknowledged what he and what his scholars had done on a work.

=Dr. Sperling's Visit to Rubens's Studio.=--An eye-witness, the Danish physician, Otto Sperling, who visited Rubens's studio in 1621, describes the master as walking up and down in his vast hall among his many pupils, making remarks and going over a picture here and there finally with a few brush-strokes. The Doctor jocularly adds: "It is supposed that everything is the work of Rubens, by which this man has ama.s.sed enormous wealth, and has been rewarded by kings and princes with great gifts and many jewels."

=His Pupils not very often allowed to a.s.sist him in Portraits.=--One should remember that this a.s.sistance of his pupils was generally confined to his greater historical pictures and church pieces; but the portraits that Rubens painted are not always entirely the work of his hand. Sometimes an order for a portrait was repeated, and his students made the replica of a well-known personality. Rubens painted portraits of small dimensions and then left them to be enlarged by able pupils; but he himself added the final touches.

=Dr. Bredius on the Portraits of Rubens's Two Wives.=--"Even in the case of the portrait of one of his wives, we are not quite sure whether the work is exclusively his own. There exist such a marvellous number of these portraits, and, moreover, of such varied artistic value, that we must at last conclude that the family and friends of these ladies, who belonged to the best families in Antwerp, all ordered portraits from Rubens, who painted some of them entirely and others only in part.

"While, for example, the present portrait of Rubens's first wife, Isabella Brandt, whom he married in 1609, betrays the master's own hand in the head and in part of the costume, the hands look to me to be so extraordinarily like Van Dijck's work that I ask myself whether the latter (about 1618) might not have had some part in this portrait.

On the other hand, the portrait of Helena Fourment, whom he married in 1630 (Isabella Brandt died in 1626) is handled with such a gush, although very rapidly and with such geniality that hardly anybody would say that this spirited portrait is not all his own.

"What flesh! what brilliance! what glow of color! what virtuosity in the painting of the details and the material! What life streams from this warm, youthful, proud wife upon her husband!"

Sir Joshua Reynolds describes these portraits thus: "Two portraits, Kitcat size, by Rubens, of his two wives, both fine portraits, but Eleanor Forman is by far the most beautiful and the best colored."

[Ill.u.s.tration: RUBENS Helena Fourment]

=Description of Helena's Portrait.=--This is one of the most beautiful of all Rubens's portraits of his second wife. Her face and figure are not only wonderfully modelled and painted, but her red mouth has a sweet, half-smiling expression, and dimples are ready to break out at any moment and render the brilliant face even more brilliant. The eyes are l.u.s.trous and handsome, beneath finely arched brows. The light silky hair is roped with pearls, and a long plume falls gracefully from the coquettish toque of velvet adjusted at an angle that suits the face exactly. A pearl necklace and earrings adorn the ears and snowy neck, a magnificent jewel with three pear-shaped pearls for pendants clasps the front of the dress, jewels ornament the sleeves, and a great rope of goldsmith's work pa.s.ses from shoulder to shoulder. She wears a light blue satin dress the sleeves of which are slashed with white, and a black velvet cloak with gold b.u.t.tons and a fur collar. The sleeves end with delicate filmy frills at the wrist, and she gracefully holds in her hand a couple of beautiful pink roses. The background is gray and the curtain is red. This picture was painted in 1634, four years after Rubens's marriage to the daughter of Daniel Fourment.

After Rubens's death the beautiful Helena was married to Jan B.

Broekhoven, Baron of Bergeijck. She died in 1673.

=Burger's Admiration for the Portrait of the First Wife.=--Not far away from her portrait hangs that of Isabella Brandt, painted in 1620. Burger admired it more than that of Helena, and went into ecstasies over the "beautiful hands" crossed over her girdle. Isabella is dressed in black, with a square and low-cut bodice and a gauze fichu. Her hair is adorned with pearls.

=Portrait of Father Ophovius.=--The Mauritshuis possesses also a famous portrait by Rubens of quite another character; this is that of a friend whom he had sufficient influence to have made Bishop of Bois-le-Duc, the Rev. Father Michael Ophovius, a Dominican monk. He is seen full face in the costume of his order. He has an energetic head and is in robust health. It is a broad and vigorous painting, and formerly adorned the Dominican monastery at Antwerp.

=Two Pictures painted Partly by Rubens.=--Two other pictures by Rubens should be studied. Adam and Eve in Paradise, in which, however, only the figures are by Rubens (Dr. Bredius thinks the horse also); while the landscape and other animals are by Jan Brueghel, also called Velvet Brueghel. The latter also painted the landscape in the Naiads Filling the Horn of Plenty, a picture that was once attributed to Van Bolen, but now to Rubens. It is interesting to compare the landscape of the Terrestrial Paradise by Jan Brueghel (Velvet) with the landscapes in the above-mentioned pictures.

Copies of six pictures by Rubens are also owned by this gallery.

=Portraits by Van Dijck in The Hague.=--There are only three portraits by Van Dijck (1599-1641) in The Hague Gallery: Portrait of Sir ---- Sheffield, painted in 1627; a Portrait of Anna Wake, his Wife, painted in 1628; and a Portrait of the painter, Quintijn Simons. Of the latter, Sir Joshua Reynolds said:

"A portrait by Van Dyck of Simon the painter. This is one of the very few pictures that can be seen of Van Dyck which is in perfect preservation; and on examining it closely it appeared to me a perfect pattern of portrait-painting: every part is distinctly marked, but with the lightest hand and without destroying the breadth of light; the coloring is perfectly true to nature, though it has not the brilliant effect of sunshine, such as is seen in Rubens's wife; it is nature seen by common daylight."