Chapter 16

ALBERT CUYP, born at Dortrecht 1620, died there about 1672. Of the life of this great painter little more is known with any certainty than that he was the scholar of his father, Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp. Cattle form a prominent feature in many of his works, though never so highly finished as in those of Paul Potter or Adrian van de Velde; indeed, in many of Cuyp's pictures, they are quite subordinate. His favourite subjects, a landscape with a river, with cattle lying or standing on its banks, and landscapes with horsemen in the foreground, were suggested to him no doubt by the country about Dortrecht and the river Maas: but he also painted winter landscapes, and especially views of rivers where the broad extent of water is animated by vessels. Sometimes, too, with great perfection, fowls as large as life, hens, ducks, etc., and still life. He also painted portraits, though less successfully. However great the skill displayed in the composition of his works, their principal charm lies in the beauty and truthfulness of their peculiar lighting. No other painter, with the exception of Claude, has so well understood the cool freshness of morning, the bright but misty light of a hot noon, or the warm glow of a clear sunset. The effect of his pictures is further enhanced by the skill with which he avails himself of the aid of contrasts; as for example, dark, rich colours of the reposing cattle as seen against the bright sky. In his own country no picture of his, till the year 1750, ever sold for more than thirty florins. Indeed, Kugler was informed by a Dutch friend, that in past times, when a picture found no bidder, the auctioneer would offer to throw in "a little Cuyp" in order to induce a sale. The merit of having first given him his due rank belongs to the English, who as early as 1785, gave at the sale of Linden van Slingelandt's collection at Dortrecht high prices for Cuyp's works; About nine-tenths of his pictures are consequently to be found in England.

One of his finest works is the landscape, in bright, warm, morning light, with two cows reposing in the foreground, and a woman conversing with a horseman, in the National Gallery (No. 53). The whole picture breathes a cheerful and rural tranquillity. In his mature time, these admirable qualities are seen in higher development. In the Louvre (No. 104), is another fine example--a scene with six cows, a shepherd blowing the horn, and two children listening to him. This is admirably arranged, of greater truthfulness as regards the form and colouring of the cattle than usual, and with the warm lighting of the sky executed with equal decision and softness. This picture is one of the master's chief productions, being also about 4 ft. high by 6 ft. wide. Another with three horsemen, and a servant carrying partridges, and in the centre a meadow with cattle, is also in the Louvre. This is less attractive in subject, but ranks equally high as a work of art. In Buckingham Palace are two pictures, one with three cows reposing, and one standing by a clear stream, near them a herdsman and a woman; other cows are in water near the ruins of a castle. In this picture, we see Cuyp in every respect at his culminating point of excellence. Not less fine, and of singular force of colour, is the landscape, with a broad river running through it, and a horseman under a tree in conversation with a countryman.

PAUL POTTER, born at Enckhuysen 1625, died at Amsterdam 1654. Although the scholar of his father, Pieter Potter, who was but a mediocre painter, he made such astonishing progress as to rank at the age of 15 as a finished artist. He removed very early to the Hague, where his talents met with universal recognition, including that of Prince Maurice of Orange, and where he married. In the year 1652, however, he removed to Amsterdam at the instance of one of his chief patrons, the Burgomaster Tulp. Of the masters who have striven pre-eminently after truth he is, beyond all question, one of the greatest that ever lived. In order to succeed in this aim, he acquired a correctness of drawing, a kind of modelling which imparts an almost plastic effect to his animals, an extraordinary execution of detail in the most solid impasto, and a truth of colouring which harmonises astonishingly with the time of day. In his landscapes, which generally consist of a few willows in the foreground, and of a wide view over meadows, the most delicate graduation of aërial perspective is seen. With few exceptions, his animals are small, and his pictures proportionately moderate in size. By the year 1647 he had attained his full perfection. Of this date is the celebrated group called _The Young Bull_, in the Hague Gallery. All the figures in this are as large as life, and so extraordinarily true to nature as not only to appear real at a certain distance, but even to keep up the illusion when seen near.

A picture dated 1649, now in Buckingham Palace, of two cows and a young bull in a pasture, combines with his customary fidelity to nature a more than common power of effect, and breadth and freedom of treatment. To the same year belongs also The _Farmyard_, formerly in the Cassel Gallery, now in that of S. Petersburg, which, according to Smith, fully deserves its celebrity both for the clearness and warmth of the sunset effect, as well as for its masterly execution. To 1650 belongs the picture of _Orpheus_, charming the animal world by the strains of his lyre, in the Amsterdam Museum. Here we see that the master had also studied wild animals. He is most successful in the bear. In the same gallery is another _chef-d'oeuvre_ of the same year--a hilly landscape with a shepherdess singing to her child, a shepherd playing on the bagpipe, and oxen, sheep, and goats around.

The names of Weenix and Hondecoeter are so inseparably associated in the popular mind as painters of birds, whose respective works are not readily distinguishable moreover by the casual observer, that a short excursion into their family histories is advisable, for the purpose of showing how it was that this particular branch of the art was so successfully practised by the two. Moreover, as there were three Hondecoeters and two Weenixes who were painters, it is necessary to say something about each of them.

MELCHIOR HONDECOETER, the best known, was of an ancient and noble family. He was instructed till the age of seventeen by his father Gysbert, who was a tolerable painter. Giles Hondecoeter, his grandfather, painted live birds admirably, but chiefly cocks and hens in the taste of Savery and Vincaboom. Melchior was born in 1636, and studied for a time with his father; but meantime his aunt Josina had married Jan Baptist Weenix, and a son was born to them, Jan Weenix, who inherited from old Giles Hondecoeter, his grandfather, his talent for painting poultry, and from his father, Jan Baptist Weenix, he acquired the benefit of several influences which were not shared by his cousin Melchior.

JAN BAPTIST WEENIX, who was nicknamed "Rattle," was born at Amsterdam about 1621. His father was an architect, who bred his son up to that profession, but he was afterwards put to study painting under Abraham Bloemart. Soon after his marriage with Josina he was seized with the desire to visit Italy, and he set off alone to Rome, promising to return in four months. In Rome, however, he was so well received that he stayed there four years, and Italianized himself to an extent that may be seen in a picture in the Wallace Collection, a _Coast Scene with Classic Ruins_, which he signs _Gio. Batta. Weenix_. Though he returned to Holland and settled near Utrecht, his manner was sensibly modified by his sojourn in Rome.

JAN WEENIX, who was born at Amsterdam in 1649, though he succeeded in so far assimilating his father's style that his earlier works are often confused with those of "Giovanni Battista," did not acquire the energy or the dramatic force displayed by Melchior Hondecoeter in representing live birds and animals, though he sometimes surpassed him in the finish and the harmony of his decorative arrangements of dead game and still life. Accordingly the one usually painted dead and the latter live birds. In other respects there is not much to distinguish their works.

NICHOLAS BERCHEM was the only other pupil of Jan Baptist Weenix of whom we know anything. Berchem had other masters, beginning with his father, who was a painter of fish and tables covered with plates, china dishes, and such like. Having given his son the first rudiments of his art he found himself unequal to the task of cultivating the excellent disposition he observed in him, and therefore placed him with Van Goyen, Nicholas Moyaert, Peter Grebber, Jan Wils, and lastly with Jan Baptist Weenix, all of whom had the honour of assisting to form so excellent a painter. Indefatigable at his easel, Berchem acquired a manner both easy and expeditious; to see him work, painting appeared a mere diversion to him.

His wife was the daughter of his instructor, Jan Wils, and was so avaricious that she allowed him no rest. Busy as he was by nature, she used to sit under his studio, and when she neither heard him sing nor stir, she struck upon the ceiling to rouse him. She got from him all the money he earned by his labour, so that he was obliged to borrow from his scholars when he wanted money to buy prints that were offered him, which was the only pleasure he had. _The Musical Shepherdess_ at Hertford House is a good example of his style, and the description of it in Smith's catalogue shows in what estimation the artist was held in early Victorian days:--"This beautiful pastoral scene represents a bold rocky coast under the appearance of the close of day. The rustics have ended their labours and are recreating with music and dancing. A group composed of two peasants and a like number of women occupies the foreground; one of the latter, attired in a blue mantle, is gaily striking a tambourine, and dancing to the music; her companion in a yellow dress sits near her; the shepherds also are seated, and one of them appears to have just ceased playing a pipe which he holds. The goats are browsing near them. Painted in the artist's most fascinating style."

That Berchem had been to Italy is pretty certain, and though no authentic account of his visit is recorded, there is a story that when Jacob Ruisdael went to Rome as a young man, Nicholas Berchem was the first acquaintance he met, and that their friendship was of long standing. Their frequent walks round about Rome gave them the opportunity of working together from Nature, and one day a cardinal seeing them at work, inquired what they were doing. His eminence was agreeably impressed with their drawings, and invited them to visit him in Rome. The painters returned to their work, where they met with a second _rencontre_ of a very different nature; a gang of thieves robbed and stripped them of their clothes. They returned in their shirts to the city, and called on the cardinal, who took pity upon them, ordered them clothes, and afterwards employed them in several considerable works in his palace.

Berchem at one time took up his abode in the Castle of Bentheim, and as both he and Ruisdael have left several pictures of this castle it may be inferred that they worked there together, as at Rome.

Apart from personal friendship there is nothing to connect Berchem with Ruisdael, the popularity of the former being derived from qualities of a totally different nature from those which raise Ruisdael far above any of his contemporaries as a landscape painter.

JAN VAN HUYSUM was born at Amsterdam in 1682. His father, Justus Van Huysum, who dealt in pictures, was himself a middling painter in most kinds of painting. He taught his son to paint screens, figures and vases on wood, landscape, and sometimes flowers; but the son being arrived at a reasoning age perceived that to work in every branch of his art was the way to excel in none, therefore he confined himself to flowers, fruit, and landscape, and quitting his father's school set up for himself.

No one before Van Huysum attained so perfect a manner of representing the beauty of flowers and the down and bloom of fruit; for he painted with greater freedom than Velvet Breughel and Mignon, with more tenderness and nature than Mario di Fiori, Andrea Belvedere, Michel de Campidoglio or Daniel Seghers; with more mellowness than de Heem, and with more vigour of colouring than Baptist Monoyer.

His pictures of flowers and fruit pleasing an English gentleman, he introduced them into his own country, where they came into vogue and yielded a high price. To express the motions of the smallest insects with justice he used to contemplate them through the microscope with great attention. At the times of the year when the flowers were in bloom, and the fruit in perfection, he used to design them in his own garden, and the Sieur Gulet and Voorhelm sent him the most beautiful productions in those kinds they could pick up.

His reputation rose to such a height that all the curious in painting sought his works with great eagerness, which encouraged him to raise his prices so high that his pictures at last grew out of the reach of any but princes and men of the greatest fortune. He was the first flower painter that ever thought of laying them on light grounds, which requires much greater art than to paint them on dark ones.

Van Huysum died at Amsterdam in 1749. He never had any pupil but a young woman named Haverman, and his brother Michael. Two other brothers have distinguished themselves in painting, one named Justus, who painted battles, and died at twenty-two years old, the other named James, who ended his days in England in 1740. He copied the pictures of his brother John so well as to deceive the connoisseurs: he had usually £20 for each copy. For the originals, it may be noted, from a thousand to fourteen hundred florins was paid.

V

PAINTERS OF LANDSCAPE

Coming now to the landscape painters we find that JAN VAN GOYEN, born at Leyden in 1596, was destined to exert a really powerful influence, inasmuch as he was the founder, as is generally acknowledged, of the Dutch school of homely native landscape. Beginning with figure subjects, he discovered in their landscape backgrounds his real _métier_, and seems only to have realized his great gifts when he looked further into nature than was possible when painting a foreground picture. He appears to have been by nature or by inclination long-sighted, and he is never so happy as when painting distance, either along the banks of a river or looking out to sea. This extended gaze taught him something of atmosphere that few painters beside himself ever acquired, and helped him to the mastery of tone which appears to have influenced so many of his followers, as for example Van de Velde in the painting of sea-pieces.

JAN WYNANTS, born at Haarlem about 1620, and still living in 1677, was the first master who applied all the developed qualities of the Dutch School to the treatment of landscape painting. In general his prevailing tone is clear and bright, more especially in the green of his trees and plants, which in many cases, merges into blue. One of his characteristics is a fallen tree trunk in the foreground, as may be seen in three out of the six examples in the National Gallery. The carefulness of his execution explains how it was that in so long a life he only produced a moderate number of pictures. Smith's catalogue contains about 214. These differ much according to their different periods. In his first manner peasants' cottages or ruins play an important part, and the view is more or less shut in by trees of a heavy dark green, the execution solid and careful. In his middle time he generally paints open views of a rather uneven country, diversified by wood and water. That Wynants retained his full skill even in advanced life is proved by a picture dated 1672, in the Munich Gallery, representing a road leading to a fenced wood and a sandhill, near which in the foreground are some cows (by Lingelbach) being driven along. In his last manner a heavy uniformly brown tone is often observable.

It is his genuine feeling for nature that makes Wynant's pictures so popular in England, where we meet with a considerable number of his best works.

JACOB RUISDAEL (born at Haarlem 1628, died there 1682) is supposed to have developed under the influence of a school there that was opposing Van Goyen's tone treatment by local colour. Though not always the most charming, Ruisdael is certainly the greatest and the most profound of the Dutch landscape painters. His wide expanses of sky, earth or sea, with their tender gradations of aërial perspective, diversified here and there by alternations of sunshine and shadow, attract us as much by the pathos as by the picturesqueness of their character. His scenes of mountainous districts with foaming waterfalls; or bare piles of rock and sombre lakes are imbued with a feeling of melancholy. Ruisdael's work may be well studied in the six examples at Hertford House, and the fourteen in the National Gallery. Among his finer works in Continental collections the following are some of those selected by Kugler for description. At the Hague is one of his wide expanses--a view of the country around Haarlem, the town itself looking small on the horizon, under a lofty expanse of cloudy sky in the foreground a bleaching-ground and some houses reminding us, by the manner in which they are introduced, of Hobbema. The prevailing tone is cool, the sky singularly beautiful, and the execution wonderfully delicate. A flat country with a road leading to a village, and fields with wheatsheaves, is in the Dresden Gallery. This is temperate in colouring and beautifully lighted. Equally fine is an extensive view over a hilly but bare country, through which a river runs; in the Louvre. The horseman and beggar on a bridge are by Wouvermans: here the grey-greenish harmony of the tone is in fine accordance with the poetic grandeur of the subject. A hill covered with oak woods, with a peasant hastening to a hut to escape the gathering shower, is in the Munich Gallery. The golden warmth of the trees and ground, and the contrast between the deep clear chiaroscuro and soft rain-clouds, and the bright gleam of sunshine, render this picture one of the finest by this master.

The peculiar charm which is seen in Holland by the combination of lofty trees and calm water is fully represented in the following works:--_The Chase_; in the Dresden Gallery. Here in the still water in the foreground--through which a stag-hunt (by Adrian van de Velde) is passing--clouds, warm with morning sunlight, appear reflected. In this picture, remarkable as it is for size, being 3 ft. 10-1/2 in. high, by 5 ft. 2 in. wide, the sense even of the fresh morning is not without a tinge of gentle melancholy. A noble wood of oaks, beeches and elms, about the size of the last-mentioned picture, is in the Louvre. In the centre, through an opening in the woods, are seen distant hills. The cattle and figures upon a flooded road are by Berchem. In power, warmth, and treatment, this is also nearly allied to the preceding work. Of his waterfalls, the most remarkable are--A picture at the Hague, which is particularly striking for its warm lighting, and careful execution. Another with Bentheim Castle, so often repeated by Ruisdael, is at Amsterdam. In the same collection is a landscape, with rocks, woods, and a larger waterfall. This has a grandly poetic character which, with the broad and solid handling, plainly shows the influence of Everdingen. The same remark may be applied to the waterfall, No. 328, in the Munich Gallery. Here the dark, rainy sky, enhances the sublime impression made by the foaming torrent that rushes down the rocky masses. Another work worthy to rank with the fore-going is _The Jewish Cemetry_, in the Dresden Gallery: a pallid sunbeam lights up some of the tombstones, between which a torrent impetuously flows.

The _Landscape with Waterfall_ at Hertford House is a good example; the _Landscape with a Farm_ in the same collection is another, though in this the figures and cattle are by Adrian Van der Velde. Ostade and Wouverman are also said to have helped him with his figures, and it is possible that one or other of them ought to have some of the credit for the beautiful _View on the Shore at Scheveningen_ in the National Gallery (No. 1390). The _Landscape with Ruins_ (No. 746) is perhaps the finest of the others there.

WILLEM VAN DE VELDE, the younger, born at Amsterdam 1633, died at Greenwich 1707. His first master was his father, Willem van de Velde the elder, but his principal instructor was Simon de Vlieger. The earlier part of his professional life was spent in Holland, where, besides numerous pictures of the various aspects of marine scenery, he painted several well-known sea-fights in which the Dutch had obtained the victory over the English. He afterwards followed his father to England, where he was greatly patronized by Charles II. and James II. for whom, in turn, he painted the naval victories of the English over the Dutch. He was also much employed by amateurs of art among the English nobility and gentry. There is no question that Willem van de Velde the younger is the greatest marine painter of the whole Dutch School. His perfect knowledge of lineal and aërial perspective, and the incomparable technique which he inherited from his school, enabled him to represent the sea and the sky with the utmost truth of form, atmosphere and colour, and to enliven the scene with the purest feeling for the picturesque, with the most natural incidents of sea-faring life.

Two of his pictures at Amsterdam are particularly remarkable; representing the English flagship _The Prince Royal_ striking her colours in the fight with the Dutch fleet of 1666; and its companion, four English men-of-war brought in as prizes at the same fight. Here the painter has represented himself in a small boat, from which he actually witnessed the battle. This accounts for the extraordinary truth with which every particular of the scene is rendered in such small pictures, which, combined with their delicate greyish tone, and the mastery of the execution, render them two of his finest works. A view of the city of Amsterdam, dated 1686, taken from the river, is an especially good specimen of his large pictures. It is about 5 ft. high by 10 ft. wide. The vessels in the river are arranged with great feeling for the picturesque, and the treatment of details is admirable. His greatest successes, however, are in the representation of calm seas, as may be seen in a small picture at Munich. In the centre of the middle distance is a frigate, and in the foreground smaller vessels. The fine silvery tone in which the whole is kept finds a sufficient counter-balance of colour in the yellowish sun-lit clouds, and in the brownish vessels and their sails. Nothing can be more exquisite than the tender reflections of these in the water. Of almost similar beauty is a picture of about the same size, with four vessels, in the Cassel Gallery, which is signed and dated 1653. As a contrast to this class of works, may be mentioned _The Gathering Tempest_, in the Munich Gallery. This is brilliantly lighted, and of great delicacy of tone in the distance, though the foreground has somewhat darkened.