Part 16

Although the great Dutch painter, Frans Hals (1580?-1666) was born at Antwerp, his parents were natives of Haarlem, whither he removed about 1600, and where he settled for the remainder of his eventful, irregular, and improvident career. This lusty and unromantic master by his forceful characterisation, his rapid wielding of his brush, and his frank realism, in a few years transformed the earlier portrait-making of Holland, and the rendering of the commonplace and obvious likeness of an individual, as seen in the works of Moreelse and others, into the region of great art. He was by about a quarter of a century the senior of Rembrandt, who is the greatest genius among Dutch painters, and developed his art on logical lines. It is, however, necessary to know the outstanding facts of his personal history, the fluctuating circumstances under which he worked, and the grinding poverty of his latest period. Perhaps no other painter in the whole range of art was so affected by his environment as Hals.

[Illustration: PLATE XXVII.—FRANS HALS

(1580?-1666)

DUTCH SCHOOL

No. 2384.—THE GIPSY GIRL

(La Bohémienne)

She wears a red dress, which is open at the neck; she smiles as she turns her eyes to the right; half-length figure.

Painted in oil on canvas.

2 ft. 6 in. × 2 ft. 3 in. (0·76 × 0·68.)]

Whether he was a pupil of Cornelis Cornelissen, Hendrick Goltzius, and Karel van Mander (the Dutch Vasari), is not known with any certainty, and no picture painted by him earlier than 1613, when he may have been thirty-three years of age, is known to-day. Early in the year 1616, when he painted his famous _Banquet of the Officers of the St. Joris Shooting Guild_, one of his early masterpieces still preserved in the small gallery at Haarlem, he was summoned before the Burgomaster of the “town of the tulip,” and reprimanded for his cruelty to his first wife. Exactly a year later he married a second time, and as the years went on he became the father of at least six sons who adopted the profession of the painter but earned no permanent success. The Louvre possesses no example of his Doelen-pieces of archer-groups which won him his earliest fame in his own country, but is fortunate enough to contain the famous _Gipsy Girl_ (No. 2384, Plate XXVII.), which alone would have earned for him the title of “the master of the laugh.” It passed through the Ménars sale in 1792 for 301 livres. The three pictures of the Beresteyn family were bought for £4000 in 1884, when his paintings were not as highly prized as they are to-day. They give an excellent idea of the virility his art had attained by about 1629. The best of these is the _Portrait of Nicolaes van Beresteyn_ (No. 2386), which is inscribed, “AETAT SUAE 40. 1629.” His hands are superbly painted; while the companion _Portrait_ (No. 2387) of his wife is equally striking. The large and imposing _Portrait-Group of the Beresteyn Family_ (No. 2388) is marred by the excessive use in places of a strong red, and has been enlarged by the addition down the right side of the canvas of a strip about fourteen inches broad, but yet shows a certain felicity of grouping, and a joyous and exuberant outlook. _The Portrait, of René Descartes, the French Philosopher_ (No. 2383) is so simple in treatment and so easy in pose, that it makes an instant appeal to the student. Another _Portrait of Descartes_ (No. 78), by Sébastien Bourdon, is in this gallery, and a third was in the Arsène Houssaye collection. The _Portrait of a Lady in a Black Dress_ (No. 2385, Plate XXVIII.) is unaffected and lifelike, while the subtle and hasty brushing in of the gloves could only have been done by a great painter. It seems to have been generally overlooked that a study for this picture is in the collection of Lord Ronald Gower, and has for some time past been on loan to the FitzWilliam Museum, Cambridge. In the study, however, the artist had not yet thought of the gloves.

In 1654, Hals had to appear before a public notary of Haarlem at the instance of his landlord, who sued him for debt. The great Dutch painter in his testimony affirmed that his only possessions were two pictures by Vermander and Van Heemskerck, and three by himself and one of his sons, as well as three mattresses and bolsters, a cupboard and a table! The Louvre exhibits no pictorial record of Hals’s latest phase, when he was deserted by his friends, neglected by art patrons, and no longer possessed any inner moral support.

The colouring of his early portraits is vigorous, the tone deep, and the execution careful; gradually he employs richer colouring, subordinates the local colours, and becomes broader in treatment. From about 1650 his olive-greens gradually take on a more ash-grey hue, until we are inclined to the belief that if the master had been able to dispense with colour altogether, he would have willingly done so. It is then that the colours on his palette, like the outer world, became grey and black for him.

[Illustration: PLATE XXVIII.—FRANS HALS

(1580?-1666)

DUTCH SCHOOL

No. 2385.—PORTRAIT OF A LADY IN A BLACK DRESS

(Portrait de Femme)

A middle-aged woman wearing a black dress, with white collar, cuffs and cap, is seen at three-quarter length, standing and turned three-quarters to the left; in her hands, which are superposed, she holds her gloves.

Painted in oil on canvas.

3 ft. 3½ in. × 2 ft. 7½ in. (1·00 × 0·80.)]

This great master of the brush some time before his death had to avail himself of poor relief granted by the municipality of Haarlem, and after his death, in 1666, his widow received an allowance of fourteen sous a week! Such was the tragic end of one of the most accomplished of portrait painters in the whole range of art.

DUTCH INDEPENDENCE

Holland after a terrible struggle had ultimately succeeded in throwing off the Spanish yoke before the art of Hals was on the wane. Dutch art then became gradually more independent, self-centred, democratic in outlook, and Protestant in tendency. Religious subjects became less frequent, and domestic scenes dealing with indoor and outdoor life were before long largely on the increase. Before we pass to the detailed study of the most striking characteristics of art in Holland in the last half of the seventeenth century, we must examine at some length the far-reaching influence and the world-famous achievements of Rembrandt, for whom Hals may be said to have prepared the way.

REMBRANDT

As his name denotes, Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (1606-1669) was born on the banks of the Rhine, his father being a miller at Leyden. When fourteen years of age he entered the university of his native town and had a classical education, which stood him in good stead through his long and troubled career. Although he was at first placed as a pupil of Jacob van Swanenburgh, he at an early age removed to Amsterdam. There he worked under Pieter Lastman (1583-1633), whose _Abraham’s Sacrificing Jacob_ (No. 2443A) of 1616 is hung opposite the works of his illustrious pupil. The independent spirit of Rembrandt soon asserted itself, and as early as 1627 he placed his name on pictures which still exist, notably in the Berlin and Stuttgart museums. His earliest picture in the Louvre is the _Old Man Reading_ (No. 2541A), which is signed and dated 1630, and was presented by M. Kaempfen, a former Director of this gallery, on his retirement. Three years later came the two small and very similar versions (No. 2540 and No. 2541) of the _Philosopher in Meditation_, the former of which is signed and dated; in 1633 was painted the _Portrait of the Artist_ (No. 2552), while another oval picture of the same subject (No. 2553) is inscribed 1634. In this early period the artist was in the habit of portraying members of his own family, who were naturally his most accessible models.

At this moment of his career Rembrandt had to measure himself with many rivals in Amsterdam, notably with Thomas de Keyser (1596?-1667), whose _Portrait of a Man_ (No. 2438A) was formerly in the Rodolphe Kann collection, while a half-length _Portrait of a Man_ (No. 2438B), also by de Keyser, was formerly at Versailles. From the trammels and restrictions which the art of de Keyser would have been likely to impose on a less gifted and original mind, Rembrandt readily set himself free; and he must have had great hopes for the future when, in 1634, he took to wife the wealthy Saskia van Uylenborch. However, the oval _Portrait of Himself wearing a black cap_ (No. 2554), dated 1637, is of marked inferiority to the dignified and deeply religious panel, _The Archangel Raphael leaving Tobias and his Father Tobit_ (No. 2536), of the same year. A year later he must have painted the _Portrait of an Old Man_ (No. 2544), and his first pure landscape.

The influence of domestic bereavements on Rembrandt’s art is clearly reflected in the choice of his subjects, in their more intimate setting, and in the deep feeling which evidently inspired them. No better example of this side of his character and his art could be found than the _Holy Family in the Carpenter’s Shop_ (No. 2542), which he painted in 1640. In that year his mother died, an event which followed rapidly on the death of his two infant daughters and his son, and his wife’s frequent illness. He, however, still went on painting such varied compositions as the _Portrait of a Man_ (No. 2546), of 1645, and the _Woman Bathing_ (No. 2550), which he achieved two years later.

[Illustration: PLATE XXIX.—REMBRANDT

(1606-1669)

DUTCH SCHOOL

No. 2539.—THE PILGRIMS AT EMMAUS

(Les Pèlerins d’Emmaüs)

In a lofty room in front of a shallow niche in a wall, Christ and the two disciples sit at table; a young serving-man enters from the right, carrying a dish. Christ, whose bare feet are seen underneath the table, gazes heavenward as He breaks bread, by which act the disciples recognise Him as their Lord. The room is lit from the left.

Painted in oil on panel.

Signed below on the left:—“_Rembrandt f. 1648._”

2 ft. 2¾ in. × 2 ft. 1¾ in. (0·68 × 0·65.)]

The famous _Night-Watch_, in the Amsterdam Gallery, testifies to his inventive faculty in 1642, the year in which the death of his beloved Saskia caused him intense grief. From this he never really recovered, as we see from the frequency with which during the remainder of his life he painted pathetic subjects. What artist in the whole history of painting has been able to impart to his rendering of the _Good Samaritan_ the kindly solicitude of the principal character in this parable, and the feeling of complete collapse seen in the body of the wounded man, as Rembrandt has done in his superb canvas (No. 2537) of 1648 in this gallery? No less poignant is the grief depicted on the face of the barefooted Man of Sorrows in the _Christ and the Pilgrims at Emmaus_ (No. 2539, Plate XXIX.) of the same year. Here we see convincing proof of the dexterous use that the Dutch “magician-painter” could make of chiaroscuro, which he has handled with such masterly effect in the _Portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels_ (No. 2547, Plate XXX.). All these paintings belong to the same period as the soul-moving _Polish Rider_, which in 1910 passed from the collection of Count Tarnowski at Dzikow in Galicia into that of Mr. H. C. Frick in New York for £60,000. The _Portrait of a Man holding a Bâton_ (No. 2551), in the La Caze collection in this gallery, was painted three years later than the _Bathsheba_, or _Woman Bathing_ (No. 2549), of 1654. The wonderfully realistic and in no way repellent _Carcase of an Ox_ in this gallery (No. 2548), like the picture of the same subject at Glasgow, is an achievement of a very different kind, and belongs to the year 1655.

The Louvre authorities have been well advised in recent years in hanging all the pictures by Rembrandt in this collection in one Bay of the Long Gallery. Here now we may study the _Portrait of a Young Man_ (No. 2545), the wonderful and rather later _Portrait of the Artist at his Easel at the age of Fifty-four_ (No. 2555), and the striking _St. Matthew_ (No. 2538) of 1661. Before these three works were painted, the great Dutch master had been declared bankrupt, the sale of his most treasured possessions realising a ridiculously small sum in the winter of 1657.

Although Rembrandt’s own standard of morality offended his neighbours, and his relations with Hendrickje Stoffels seem to have caused much scandal in Amsterdam, we are not concerned with the morals of one of the greatest and most esteemed of the world’s painters, but only with his _œuvre_, a high place in which must be accorded to the _Portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels and her Child as Venus and Cupid_ (No. 2543), which was painted in 1662, the year that the large _Syndics_, now in the Amsterdam Gallery, was completed.

He is also to be credited with the alternative version of the _Pilgrims at Emmaus_ (No. 2555A), a painting of the same date, which for many years was at Compiègne, where, however, it passed only as a school picture. This profoundly creative painter, who learnt as time went on to handle his chiaroscuro with increased effect, was also an etcher of the highest order.

We may here note that the art of Jan Lievens (1607-1674), a fellow-pupil with Rembrandt under Pieter Lastman, is seen in the large but far from imposing _Visitation_ (No. 2444).

[Illustration: PLATE XXX.—REMBRANDT

(1606-1669)

DUTCH SCHOOL

No. 2547.—PORTRAIT OF HENDRICKJE STOFFELS

(Portrait de Hendrickje Stoffels)

She is seated, and looks at the spectator. Over her rich brown hair she wears a grey cap with narrow red ribbons; pearl pendants are in her ears, and she wears a brooch on her breast. Life-size half-length figure.

Painted in oil on canvas.

2 ft. 4½ in. × 1 ft. 11¾ in. (0·72 × 0·60.)]

THE PUPILS OF REMBRANDT

That Govaert Flinck (1615-1660) was a pupil of Rembrandt, is evident from his _Announcement to the Shepherds_ (No. 2372) rather than from his _Portrait of a Young Lady_ (No. 2373), a signed work of 1641. Ferdinand Bol (1617-1680) was a pupil and imitator of the great Dutch master, and his _Portrait of a Mathematician_ (No. 2330) is one of his best paintings; but his _Philosopher in Meditation_ (No. 2328) compares most unfavourably with Rembrandt’s two early pictures of the same subject which hang opposite it.

The ineffectual productions of Jan Victoors (1620-1670) include the _Portrait of a Young Lady_ (No. 2371), a typical example of the “niche” portrait which became so popular, and a large _Isaac blessing Jacob_ (No. 2370), which vividly recalls his small canvas in the Dulwich College Gallery that in less critical days passed as a Rembrandt.

G. van den Eeckhout (1621-1674) in his picture (No. 2364) shows his dependence on Rembrandt; and Cornells Drost’s repulsive _Bathsheba_ (No. 2359A) has no claim to be regarded as a “_fort bonne peinture_,” as a French critic has thought fit to term it.

VAN DER HELST

Bartholomeus van der Heist (1612-1670), a native of Haarlem, who painted under the early Dutch master, Nicholas Elias, surnamed Pickenoy, and subsequently worked at Amsterdam, has fully signed his _Shooting Prize_ (No. 2394, Plate XXXI.), which is dated 1653. It has been regarded as a replica on a very reduced scale of _The Officers of the Brotherhood of St. Sebastian at Amsterdam_, in the Amsterdam Gallery, which, curiously enough, bears the date 1657, and is also signed on a slate.

Pieter van der Faes, who is better known as Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680), after painting at Haarlem in the school of Pieter de Grebber, went to England in 1641. He there succeeded Van Dyck as Court painter, and at the Restoration became the favourite Royal painter. The affectation and mannerism of his _Windsor Beauties_, now at Hampton Court, is well known. He had a certain facility in painting

“The sleepy eye that spoke the melting soul.”

Three pictures (Nos. 2367-2369) are placed to his credit here, but

“The bugle eyeball and the cheek of cream”

have done their magic now.

The name of H. van Vliet (1611?-1675) is, doubtless, correctly connected with two portraits on canvas (Nos. 2605 and 2605A), while his contemporaries, Cornelis Saftleven (1606-1681) and D. van Santvoort (1610-1680), are represented by _The Artist’s Portrait_ (No. 2562) and the _Pilgrims at Emmaus_ (No. 2564) respectively. Jakob van Loo (1614-1670), who became a naturalised Frenchman, may be judged by his diploma picture (No. 2451) and a very poor _Nude Female_ (No. 2452).

Such mediocre producers of uninspired and unconvincing panels as Dirk Hals (1591-1656), the brother and pupil of Frans Hals, whose _Festive Repast_ (No. 2389) hangs in Room XXIII.; Cornelis van Poelenburg (1586-1667), whose art is here admirably illustrated (Nos. 2518-2523); Hendrick Pot (1585-1657), who evidently derived some satisfaction from the elaborate inscription he has placed on his quite ineffectual, but fortunately diminutive, _Portrait of Charles I._ (No. 2525); and the little-known and less-esteemed L. F. Zustris (1526-1600), whose absurd _Venus and Love_ (No. 2640) shows what a waste of time it was for him to study under Titian in Italy—these and many more worked as “business artists” for undiscriminating patrons. In the same category come Adriaen van de Venne (No. 2601), Pieter Codde (No. 2339A), Jacob Duck (No. 2360-2361), and A. Palamedesz (No. 2515A).

[Illustration: PLATE XXXI.—VAN DER HELST

(1613-1670)

DUTCH SCHOOL

No. 2394.—THE SHOOTING PRIZE

(Les Chefs de la Gilde des arbalétriers)

The four officers of the Brotherhood of St. Sebastian at Amsterdam are seated at a table in the foreground, with the insignia of the Brotherhood displayed before them. By the side of the officer who, seated to the right, is addressing his companions, is a slate on which are inscribed their names. In the background to the right are three young men with bows and arrows. From the left enters a maid-servant with a drinking-horn.

Signed on the slate:—“BARTHOLOMEUS VAN DER HELST FECIT, 1653.”

Painted in oil on canvas affixed to panel.

1 ft. 7¾ in. × 2 ft. 2½ in. (0·50 × 0·67.)]

GENRE PAINTERS

This rough sketch must suffice for our study of the History and Portrait Painters of Holland. Although, of course, portraiture played a most important part throughout the whole range of Dutch art, we must now deal with those of their contemporaries and successors who are classed as painters of genre subjects, Interiors, Conversation-pieces, and Rustic Scenes. The compositions of these men at first show high technical excellence, and a refined feeling for light and shade; they depict simple scenes and homely incidents which make a wide appeal in any age. By the end of the seventeenth century their scenes become festive, and eventually boisterous, and so degenerate into unimaginative renderings of far-fetched incidents which are treated with a parade of mere imitative skill. In the last phase of their art the subjects become even more uninviting, the panels are smoothly painted, and all originality disappears.

ADRIAEN VAN OSTADE

Adriaen van Ostade (1610-1685), as a pupil of Frans Hals at Haarlem, occupies an important position in his school. He is seen to very great advantage at the Louvre. From his early _Interior of a Cabaret_ (No. 2506), which is signed on a form

“A. V. OSTADE 1641,”

we see the direction his life’s work was to take; and his _Interior of a Cottage_ (No. 2498) of the following year, strengthens that view. Although _Reading the Gazette_ (No. 2505), of 1653, is painted on a very small panel, it heightens our appreciation of this able and careful painter, who, a year later, must have spent a long time in the completion of a _Family Group_, which traditionally passes as the _Family of the Artist_ (No. 2495). The _Toper_ (No. 2401), of 1668, and the intensely realistic _Smoker_ (No. 2500), are highly characteristic, while the _Schoolmaster_ (No. 2496) shows great observation. The _Fish Market_ (No. 2497), the _Business Man in his Study_ (No. 2499), the _Man Drinking_ (No. 2502), the _Man Reading_ (No. 2503), the _Reading_ (No. 2504), and the _Interior of a School_ (No. 2507), are both in subject and handling good examples of his methods, which were affected by a study of Adriaen Brouwer and Rembrandt.

Adriaen van Ostade was the elder brother and the master of Isack van Ostade (1621-1649), who is equally well represented at the Louvre. Although he painted two _Interiors_ (Nos. 2512 and 2514), a _Toit à porcs_ (No. 2513), a _Halt_ (No. 2509), and an overcrowded _Travellers Halting_ (No. 2508), his best works, here as elsewhere, represent landscapes and frozen river scenes.

Adriaen van Ostade had also as pupils Cornelis Bega (1620-1664), by whom the Louvre possesses a very late _Rustic Interior_ (No. 2312), of 1662; and H. M. Sorgh, called Rokes (1611?-1670), three of whose panels (Nos. 2571-2573) are exhibited.

GERARD DOU

Gerard Dou (1613-1675) was in his day a highly popular and prosperous painter of petty tragedies. As a boy of fifteen he entered the studio of “the skilled and far-famed Mr. Rembrandt,” who was, however, his senior by only seven years. One is apt to tire of his irritating parade of cleverness in the manipulation of light and shade effects, and over-scrupulous and niggling treatment of detail. Yet it is these very qualities that brought him financial success when in later life Rembrandt was receiving scanty treatment at the hands of the art patrons of Holland. The _Dentist_ (No. 2355) is an early work. Dou’s _Portrait of an Old Lady_ (No. 2358) is now held to be a _Portrait of Rembrandt’s Mother_, and is regarded as the companion picture to the _Old Man Reading_ (No. 2567), by Dou’s pupil, Godfried Schalcken. The _Grocer’s Shop_ (No. 2350), which has been, with needless precision, “ranked about the seventh best of this master’s productions,” is signed in full on the slate, and dated 1647 on the mortar, while the _Cook with a Dead Cock_ (No. 2353) is signed on the window-sill, and dated 1650.

[Illustration: PLATE XXXII.—GERARD DOU

(1613-1675)

DUTCH SCHOOL

No. 2348.—THE DROPSICAL WOMAN

(La Femme Hydropique)

In a well-appointed room, lighted by an arched window on the left, an old woman is seated in an arm-chair. The sick woman, who raises her eyes to heaven and is taking a spoonful of medicine from a young woman, gives her right hand to a girl who kneels on the left by her side. Towards the right stands the doctor, who holds up to the light a glass full of liquid. A chandelier hangs in the centre, and on the right are a large tapestry curtain and a wine-cooler.

Signed on the edge of the book placed on the reading-desk in the left foreground:—

“1663. G. DOV. OVT. 65 JAER.”

Painted in oil on panel.

2 ft. 8¾ in. × 2 ft. 2½ in. (0·83 × 0·67.)]

The _Trumpeter_ (No. 2351) is perhaps the pendant to the _Girl at a Window_, of 1657, now in the Rothschild collection at Waddesdon Manor. On the window-ledge in the _Trumpeter_ we see the same silver flagon and a dish that also appear in the _Dropsical Woman_ (No. 2348, Plate XXXII.), a world-famous, but not on that account a great, picture. It bears a somewhat enigmatical inscription:

“1663. G. DOV. OVT. 65 JAER”