Part 15

In their technical ability to present the life-like portrait of a real man, we can place Rembrandt, Velasquez, Hals, and Van Dyck on pretty much of a level; if we had _Van der Geest_, _Montanes_, the _Old Pole_ and the _Laughing Cavalier_ all in a row, we should find there was not much to choose between them for downright realization. But while in the work of Velasquez we see the working of a fine and sensitive appreciation of his friend's personality, and the most exquisite realization of what was before him, in that of Rembrandt we seem to see less of the Pole and more of Rembrandt himself. It is as though he were singing softly to himself while he was painting, thinking his own thoughts: while Velasquez was simply concerned with the appearance and the thoughts of his model.

That Rembrandt's pictures are self-revelations, or psychological documents, is certainly true; and a proof of it is in the extraordinary number of portraits of himself. The famous Dresden picture of himself with Saskia on his knee can only be regarded in that light, and that brings into the category all the numerous pictures of Saskia and of Hendrike Stoffels, who formed so great a part of his life. If to these we add, with Dr Muther, his Biblical subjects, we find that there is not so very much left, and when we turn to the life's work of Rubens, Titian, Velasquez, or in fact any of the great painters, the difference is at once apparent. So that in the pictures of Rembrandt we may expect to find less of what we look for in those of others in the way of display, but infinitely more of the qualities which, to whatever extent they exist in other artists, are bound to be sacrificed to display. When we are asked to a feast, we find the room brilliantly lit, and our host the centre of an assemblage for whom he has felt it his duty to make a display consistent with his means and his station. If we were to peep into his house one night we might find him in a room illumined only with his reading-lamp, absorbed in his favourite study; but instead of only exchanging a few conventional phrases with him, and passing on to mingle with his guests and to enjoy his hospitality, we might sit and talk with him into the small hours. That is the difference between the success of Hals with his _Feast of S. George_, and the failure of Rembrandt with _The Night Watch_. Hals was at the feast, and of it. Rembrandt was wrapped up in himself, and didn't enter into the spirit of the company--he was carried away by his own. That is why his pictures are so dark--not of deliberate technical purpose, like those of the _Tenebrosi_, but because to him a subject was felt within him rather than seen as a picture on so many square feet of canvas. When we call up in our own minds the recollection of some event of more than usually deep significance in our past, we only see the deathbed, the two combatants, the face of the beloved, or whatever it may be; the accessories are nothing, unless our imagination is stronger than the sentiment evoked, and sets to work to supply them. It is this characteristic which so sharply distinguishes the work of Rembrandt from that of his closest imitators. There is a large picture in the National Gallery, _Christ Blessing the Children_, catalogued as "School of Rembrandt," in which we see as near an approach to his manner as to justify the attribution, but that is all. I do not know why it has never been suggested that this is the work of NICOLAS MAES, who was actually his pupil, and who was one of the few Dutch artists to paint life-sized groups, as he is known to have done in his earlier days when still under the influence of Rembrandt. _The Card Players_, close beside it, has marked affinities in style, and especially in the very natural characterization of the faces, which is also apparent in that of the child in the other picture, and another on the extreme left of the picture. That it cannot be Rembrandt's is quite evident; the grouping and the lighting of it proclaim the picture seen on the canvas, and not felt within the artist's own consciousness.

The realistic tendency which, as has already been pointed out, was so characteristic of the whole art of the Netherlands, showed the most remarkable and original results in the work of an idealist like Rembrandt. Sandrart, one of the earliest writers on painting, says that Rembrandt "usually painted things of a simple and not thoughtful character, but which were pleasing to the eyes, and picturesque"--_schilderachtig_, as the Netherlanders called it. This combination of realism and picturesqueness, assisted by his marvellous technical power, put him far above and apart from all his compeers. In the absence of any pictures by his masters Van Swanenburg and Pinas, it is difficult to ascertain what, if anything, he learnt from them. From Peter Lastman we may be sure he learnt nothing in the way of technique. Kugler--who in these paragraphs is my principal authority--suggests that it is highly probable that in this respect he formed himself from the pictures of Frans Hals, with which he must have been early acquainted in the neighbouring town of Haarlem. At all events unexampled freedom, spirit, and breadth of his manner is comparable with that of no other earlier Dutch master. But all these admirable qualities would offer no sufficient compensation for the ugly and often vulgar character of his heads and figures, and for the total subversion of all the traditional rules of art in costume and accessory, and would fail to account for the great admiration which his works enjoy, if he had not been possessed, besides, of an intensely artistic individuality.

In his earliest pictures his touch is already masterly and free, but still careful, while the colour of the flesh is warm and clear and the light full. _Dr Tulp's Anatomy_, painted in 1632, is the most famous of this period. In _The Night Watch_, at Amsterdam, dated 1642, the light is already restricted, falling only on isolated objects; the local tone of the flesh is more golden; the touch more spirited and distinct. Later, that is to say from about 1654 onwards, the golden flesh tones become still more intense, passing sometimes into a brown of less transparency, and accompanied frequently with grey and blackish shadows and sometimes with rather cool lights. The chief picture of this epoch, dated 1661, is _The Syndics_, also at Amsterdam, a group of six men. This, in the depth of the still transparent golden tone, in the animation of the heads, and in body and breadth of handling, is a true masterpiece.

With respect to his treatment of Biblical subjects, two older writers, Kolloff and Guhl, accord him an honour which, as we shall see, Kugler gives to Dürer a century earlier, namely that of being the painter of the true spirit of the Reformed Church. Though it is certain, Kugler admits, that no other school of painting in Rembrandt's time--neither that of Rubens, nor that of the Carracci, nor the French nor Spanish schools--rendered the spiritual import of Biblical subjects with the purity and depth exhibited by the great Dutch master. Here the kindly element of deep sentiment combines most happily with his feeling for composition, as in the _Descent from the Cross_, at Munich, in _The Holy Family_, in the Louvre, and above all in _The Woman taken in Adultery_, in the National Gallery. In this last, a touching truthfulness and depth of feeling, with every other grand quality peculiar to Rembrandt, are seen in their highest perfection. Of hardly less excellence, also, is our _Descent from the Cross_.

Endowed with so many admirable qualities, it follows that Rembrandt was a portrait painter of the highest order, while his peculiar style of lighting, his colouring and treatment, distinguish his portraits from those by all other masters. Even the works of his most successful pupils, who followed his style in this respect, are far behind him in energy of conception and execution. The number of his admirable portraits is so large that it is difficult to know which to mention as most characteristic. No other artist ever painted his own portrait so frequently, and some of these may first be mentioned. That in the Louvre, dated 1633, represents him in youthful years, fresh and full of hope. It is spiritedly painted in the bright tone of his earlier period. Another in the same gallery, of the year 1660, painted with extraordinary breadth and certainty of hand of that later period, shows a man weighed down with the cares of life, with grey hair and deeply furrowed forehead.

[Illustration: PLATE XXVII.--REMBRANDT

PORTRAIT OF AN OLD LADY

_National Gallery, London_]

The one at Hertford House, already mentioned, and two in the National Gallery, fall between these extremes. Of other portraits we have already mentioned the two Pellicorne groups in the Wallace Collection; and another of this earliest period, the very popular _Old Woman_, in the National Gallery, dated 1634. This is of greater interest as showing, if anything does, whether it is fair to attribute any of his training to the influence of Hals. At any rate this picture is a highly important proof that at the early age of twenty-six, the painter was already in the full possession of that energy and animation of conception, and of that decision of the "broad and marrowy touch" which are so characteristic of him. Of his later period--probably about 1657--a fine example is _The Jewish Rabbi_, and of his latest the _Old Man_, both in the National Gallery.

III

PAINTERS OF GENRE

The painters of _genre_, by the number, quality, and diversity of whose pictures the Dutch School is specially distinguished, may be roughly divided into three classes; namely, those who studied the upper, the middle, and the lower classes respectively. But as Holland was a republic, and the great stream of its art welled up from the earth and was not showered upon it from above, it will be found convenient to reverse the social order in considering them, and begin with the immediate successors of Frans Hals, whose influence was without doubt a very considerable factor in the development of Adrian Brouwer and Adrian and Isaac Ostade.

ADRIAN BROUWER, now generally classed under the Flemish School, was born at Oudenarde in 1606. But he went early to Haarlem, and it was not until about 1630 that he settled at Antwerp, where he died in 1641. He was a pupil of Frans Hals, and acquired from him not only his spirited and free touch, but also a similar mode of life. His pictures, which for the most part represent the lower orders eating and drinking, often in furious strife, are extraordinary true and life-like in character, and display a singularly delicate and harmonious colouring, which inclines to the cool scale, an admirable individuality, and a _sfumato_ of surface in which he is unrivalled; so that we can well understand the high esteem in which Rubens held them. Owing to his mode of life, and to its early close, the number of his works is not large, and they are now seldom met with. No gallery is so rich in them as Munich, which possesses nine, six of which are masterpieces. _A Party of Peasants at a Game of Cards_, affords an example of the brightness and clearness of those cool tones in which he evidently became the model of Teniers. _Spanish Soldiers Throwing Dice_, is equally harmonious, in a subdued brownish tone. _A Surgeon Removing the Plaster from the Arm of a Peasant_ is not only most masterly and animated in expression, but is a type of his bright, clear, and golden tone, and is singularly free and light in touch. _Card-players Fighting_, is in every respect one of his best pictures. The momentary action in each figure, all of them being individualized with singular accuracy even as regards the kind of complexion, is incomparable, the tenderness of the harmony astonishing, and the execution of extraordinary delicacy. The only example in the National Gallery is the _Three Boors Drinking_, bequeathed by George Salting in 1910; and at Hertford House the _Boor Asleep_, though of this we may without hesitation accept the description in the catalogue, "our painting is of the highest quality, and in the audacity of its realism rises almost to grandeur."

ADRIAN VAN OSTADE, said to have been born at Lubeck, was baptized in 1610 at Haarlem, where he studied under Frans Hals, and he formed a very good taste in colouring. Nature guided his brush in everything he undertook; he devoted himself almost entirely to painting peasants and drunkards, whose gestures and most trifling actions were the subject of his most serious meditation. The subjects of his little pictures are not more elevated than those of Brouwer, and considerably less than those of Teniers--they are nearly always alehouses or kitchens. He is perhaps one of the Dutch masters who best understood chiaroscuro. His figures are very lively, and he sometimes put them into the pictures of the best painters among his countrymen. Nothing can excel his pictures of stables, in which the light is spread so judiciously that all one could wish is a lighter touch in his drawing, and a little more height in his figures. Many of his brother Isaak's pictures are improperly attributed to him, which, though painted in the same manner, are never of the real excellence of Adrian's.

The _Interior with Peasants_ at Hertford House, and _The Alchymist_ at the National Gallery are a characteristic pair of his pictures, which were sold in the collection of M. de Jully in 1769 for £164, the former being purchased by the third Marquess of Hertford and the latter passing into the Peel Collection. _Buying Fish_, at Hertford House, dated 1669--when the artist was nearly sixty years old, is remarkable for its breadth of effect and brilliancy of colour.

JAN STEEN, born at Leyden about the year 1626, died 1679. He first received instruction under Nicolas Knupler; and afterwards it is said worked with Jan van Goyen, whose daughter he married. An extraordinary genius for painting was unfortunately co-existent in Jan Steen with jovial habits of no moderate kind. The position of tavern-keeper in which he was placed by his family, gave both the opportunity of indulging his propensities and also that of depicting the pleasures of eating and drinking, of song, card-playing and love-making directly from nature. He must have worked with amazing facility, for in spite of the time consumed in this mode of life, to which his comparatively early death may be attributed, the number of his pictures is very great. His favourite subjects were groups like the _Family Jollification_; the _Feast of the Bean King_; and that form of diversion illustrating the proverb, "_So wie die Alten sungen, so pfeifen auch die Jungen_"; fairs, weddings, etc.; he also treated other scenes, such as the Doctor's Visit, the Schoolmaster with a generally very unmanageable set of boys--of which is a charming example at Dublin. The ludicrous ways of children seem especially to have attracted him; accordingly, he depicts with great zest the old Dutch custom on St. Nicholas's Day, September 3rd, of rewarding the good, and punishing the naughty child; or shows a mischievous little urchin teasing the cat, or stealing money from the pockets of their, alas!--drunken progenitors.

Jan Steen is the most genial painter of the whole Dutch School. His humour has made him so popular with the English, that at least two-thirds of his pictures are in their possession.

A peculiar cluster of masters, belonging to the Dutch

[Illustration: PLATE XXVIII.--TERBORCH

THE CONCERT

_Louvre, Paris_]

School, was formed by Gerard Dou. However careful in execution were such painters as Terburg, Metsu, and Netscher, yet Gerard Dou and his scholars and imitators surpassed them in the development of that technical finish with which they rendered the smallest detail with meticulous exactitude.

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 classes. 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 naïve 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

[Illustration: 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 naïvete 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 Ménage_, 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 principally to a number of pictures, seldom representing more than three, and often only one figure, taken from the wealthier classes, in which great elegance of costume, and of all accompanying circumstances, 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 class of pictures, in which, after his example, several other Dutch painters distinguished themselves. With him the chief mass 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 title of _Conseil paternel_, furnishes

[Illustration: PLATE XXX.--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 repetitions 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 Cassel, representing a young lady in white satin sitting playing the lute at a table.