Part 14

Besides landscapes, a camp, and others in his usual style, there are two pictures of fighting peasants.

His brother, Pieter Wouwermans (1623-82), is represented by two works: Assault on the Town of Koevorden, 1672, and The Hunting Party. His works have frequently been mistaken for Philips's, though, as may be seen in these pictures, his brush work has less freedom, and his tones are heavier than his brother's.

=Jan Wijnants Unsuccessful in peopling his Scenery.=--Jan Wijnants (1600-79), who is said to have been the master of Philips Wouwermans, has eight pictures by which his qualities may be compared with those of that painter. These are Landscape in the Dunes, with Hunters; Mountainous Country; The Farm; and Flock in a Landscape; and four landscapes in the Van der Hoop Collection. He was a painter of extreme care and finish; and in painting nature he ranks among the highest. Like so many other Dutch landscape-painters, however, he was not successful with figures; and for peopling his scenery he availed himself of the assistance of his great pupil, Adriaen van de Velde (as in the case of the above-mentioned Landscape in the Dunes), Lingelbach, Wouwermans, Helt Stokade, and others.

=Jan Wijnants's Love of painting the Dunes.=--Durand Greville says:

"His dated pictures are of his last period, 1641-79, so that he may claim the honor of first having introduced into the landscape the neighboring dunes of Haarlem and of having been the first to love them. He faithfully translated in their blond harmony the dunes, gray or golden, with the sun, the trees with their pale foliage, and the skies with their light vaporous veilings. To his last hour he went back again and again to that inexhaustible theme in its apparent monotony. He put into the execution of the dazzle of the sand, tree-trunks, spaces of moss and clumps of grasses an astonishing sincerity, perhaps even somewhat too minute from the point of view of the impression of the whole, but, even by that, quite accessible to the taste of the majority of people. None the less he remains to-day one of the most remarkable landscape-painters of Holland."

=Cornelis van Poelenburg.=--Cornelis van Poelenburg has four characteristic pictures in his favorite Italian style: The Bathers, Women Coming from the Bath, Adam and Eve Expelled from Paradise, and The Bathers Spied Upon.

=Winter Scenes by A. van der Neer.=--The most noted painter of winter scenes and of the magic beauty of snow and ice is Aart van der Neer (1603-77), a friend of A. Cuijp, from whom he doubtless learned much, as they frequently worked together on the same canvas. His winter pieces are generally warm in their lighting. Two fine specimens hang in this gallery, one of which is brightened by numerous figures skating and playing ball on a frozen canal. The sky is full of dark snow-clouds. He may also be studied by a Landscape.

=His Moonlight Scenes.=--He is also famous for his beautiful towns on the canals, lighted by the moon, and his conflagrations. No other painter has depicted the broad masses of shadow, and the effects of light and tranquillity of character peculiar to a moonlight night, with so much truthfulness as Van der Neer. In his rendering of the warm glow of sunset he has been compared to his friend Cuijp.

=Hendrick Averkamp.=--In this connection The Skaters, by Hendrick Averkamp (1585-after 1663), should be noted. This artist was surnamed "the Mute of Kampen" because of his taciturnity. He produced many marines, landscapes, and festivals on the ice, which have, unfortunately, lost their color.

=Esais van de Velde's Pictures.=--Winter amusements by Esais van de Velde will afford pleasure to the student, who may also see this artist's Dutch Landscape, painted in 1623; The Surrender of Bois-le-Duc (1629-30), and an original replica of his curious satire on religious quarrels in 1618-19, Prince Maurice Fastening Bells on a Cat. Many of the architectural painters have depicted the well-known street scenes and buildings under the mantle of winter.

=Three Excellent Pictures by Hendrik Dubbels.=--Hendrik Dubbels (1620-76?), about whom comparatively little is known, has three pictures of great excellence: A Marine, a Calm, and a River Scene. Dubbels is supposed to have taught Ludolf Bakhuysen (1631-1708), who was also a pupil of Allart van Everdingen.

=Bakhuysen, Painter of Stormy Seas.=--Bakhuysen loved the ocean in its angry moods, and used to hire fishermen to take him out in their boats in the fury of storms. His works are highly valued, and some critics prefer them to the more placid pictures of Willem van de Velde. The Rijks owns two views of The Ij (or Y) near Amsterdam; The Port of Amsterdam, painted in 1673; Agitated Water: Haarlemmer Meer (for which 3,500 florins was paid in 1840); Stormy Sea After the Storm (1672); Embarkation of Jan de Witt on the Dutch Fleet; and Portrait of the Painter by himself.

=Van de Velde, the Elder and the Younger.=--Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611-93), who was Court Painter to Charles II. and James II. of England, is represented in the Rijks by eleven marine drawings. We have already seen fine examples of his more famous son, Willem van de Velde, at the Mauritshuis, but thirteen splendid examples hang in this gallery.

=Some Notable Pictures of Naval Warfare.=--The Ij (or Y) at Amsterdam, dated 1686, which formerly hung in the Schreierstoren in Amsterdam, was described by Sir Joshua Reynolds as follows:

"At the office of the Commissary of the Wharfs is one of Vandervelde's most capital pictures: it is about twelve feet long; a view of the port of Amsterdam with an infinite quantity of shipping."

The Four Days' Combat is a picture of the moment when the English flag-ship, the "Prince Royal," is striking her colors in the fight with the Dutch fleet in 1666; and its companion, The Capture, shows four English men-of-war brought in as prizes in the same fight. Here the painter has represented himself in a small boat, for in such a position he actually witnessed the battle. An Agitated Sea, with various sailing-vessels, is delightful because of the warm lighting and movement of the waves; two Calms represent the painter in the mood he best loves to paint the sea. Other canvases represent the sea under squalls, light breezes, etc. The Canon Shot, with a large ship in the foreground, was bought in 1834 for 3,000 florins.

=A Beautiful Picture of the Dutch Coast.=--View on the Coast of Scheveningen shows the dunes on the right, above which rises the steeple of a church; on the left is the calm sea under a lovely afternoon light. Two fishing-boats are seen in the distance; a boat lies on the beach; a fisherman walks by with his nets, and in the foreground are three men. The sea, the dunes, the tiny figures, and the light all combine to make a beautiful picture.

=How some Painters helped each Other.=--The great geniuses could do everything well--portraits, landscapes, marines, figure subjects, architecture, interiors, and still life. Some, however, excelled in one particular branch, and, sometimes against their will bowed to the popular demand for their works in that line, and devoted themselves entirely to it. This specialization was carried to great lengths; and it seems strange to us to find one master of landscape calling upon a famous figure-painter to people his landscapes _a la mode_, and _vice versa_, as happened in numberless instances. Sometimes even cattle were supplied; and, more particularly, live and dead game, flowers, fruits, household stuff, and all kinds of still life.

=The Effect of this on their Reputation.=--Sometimes a young artist's facility in a certain field was detrimental to high esteem. Paul Potter, for example, had to live down the reproach that he was nothing but a painter of animals,--which he very quickly did. Those who made a specialty of live animals apart from landscape are very few. With the exception of the works of Snyders, hunting scenes are rare. Wouwermans's hunts are confined to the start and the return of the cavalcades.

=Blanc's Description of Weenix's Style.=--J. B. Weenix must have loved hunting also, for it forms one of the familiar motives in his landscapes in the Italian style. However,

"as he painted above all for the pleasure of painting, his usual custom was to group in the foreground of his composition the products of the chase rather than to represent the hunt itself. It is only in the distance that hounds and huntsmen are seen hunting the hare, while the poor animal is already dead and hanging by its foot to a branch of a tree in the foreground. A brilliant gamecock, one or two partridges, some ribbons and flowers, and a big garden vase will accompany the hare and form a charming picture for the mere delight of the eyes. Truth, finesse of local color, delightful light and shade, exquisite handling, and the whole technique of art are employed to make us admire this still life. We cannot help noticing the masterly manner in which the artist has rendered the fur of his dead hare, crimsoned with blood; and how lovingly he has caressed the plumage of the neck and crop of his partridges, and reproduced the beautiful lustrous black of the cock, whose wings are splashed with white; how he has made us feel the velvet of the skin at the joining of the muscles, and accentuated the feet and claws. But the final luxury of the palette seems to have been reserved for a superb hunting-dog with delicate ears, that watches with an eye full of life over his master's gun and the glorious trophies of the chase; and distends his nostrils as if to snuff the odor of the gunpowder, the aroma of the gin, and the strong scents of the venison."

=Painters of Still Life.=--Usually the painters of inanimate objects take the trouble to arrange their inert models, just as a historical painter would dispose his living figures. The human figures in Snyders's pictures were painted by Rubens, Jordaens, or Martin de Vos. His pupils were Jan Fyt, Nicasius Bernarts, and Pieter Boel. The Rijks Gallery has two splendid pictures by him: one, a dish garnished with fruits and dead game; and the other, a dead roebuck, a wild boar's head, and vegetables.

=Snyders's Dead Game and Vegetables.=--Beautiful in composition and color is his Dead Game and Vegetables. On a shelf are placed choice specimens of china, glass, earthenware, fruit stands, etc., and these are balanced on the left by a beautiful glass vase of roses and iris standing in a niche. A large basket of apples, peaches, melons, pears, and grapes, a hung deer, a boar's head, a lobster, a few artichokes, and a bunch of asparagus show the artist's wonderful arrangement of form and color.

=Savery's Landscapes and other Pictures.=--Roelandt Savery (1576-1639) was famous as a landscape-painter. The landscapes are somewhat artificial, and really are used as framework for the animal life he loved to introduce. His execution is sometimes rather heavy but with strong tones. The landscapes usually consist of grassy swards with brownish-green trees and shrubs in the foreground, while the background is bathed in the bluish tints so dear to Brueghel. Animals and birds of all kinds animate Savery's pictures, as well as human figures, all drawn with much talent. The Hague has a famous picture, by this artist, of Orpheus Charming the Animals; and the Rijks owns Elijah Fed by the Ravens (1634) and A Stag Hunt in a Rocky Landscape (1626).

=Adriaen van Utrecht and his Still Life.=--Adriaen van Utrecht was ten years ahead of Jan Fyt in painting those pictures of live or dead animals, game, fruits, and implements of the chase that we still admire so much. Although his lights are sometimes somewhat heavy and his brush work is not so fine as Fyt's, yet he equals the latter in certainty of touch and especially in his feeling for life and nature. His pictures are very scarce: Amsterdam possesses only one, called Still Life, signed and dated 1644. On a canvas eight by ten feet the painter has grouped pies, hams, a lobster, grapes, peaches, and lemons on a table. On the left, on the floor, are some musical instruments; on a chair some golden vases; above, a parrot; on the right a great sculptured basin and a little white spaniel, and in the centre a monkey playing with some fruit from an overturned basket.

=Ten Pictures by M. Hondecoeter.=--Melchior d' Hondecoeter can be studied to great advantage in the Rijks, which owns several pictures of the first order: The Floating Feather, The Philosophical Magpie, Animals and Plants, The Country House, The Duck Pond, The Frightened Hen, The Menagerie, Dead Game, and two of birds.

=Hondecoeter's Father and Grandfather.=--The great Hondecoeter was a pupil of his father, Gijsbert d' Hondecoeter (1604-53), the pupil of his father Gillis d' Hondecoeter (1583-1638), a painter of portraits and landscapes in the manner of R. Savery and David Vinck Boons. Gijsbert followed his father's style of landscapes; but he attained a great reputation for his birds, and particularly his ducks. Both styles may be seen in the Rijks: A Landscape with Figures, dated 1652, and Aquatic Birds, dated 1651. In the duck pond, where ducks and pigeons are sporting, is also a feather floating on the water, for the artist was fond of repeating this little touch.

The Philosophical Magpie regards from a tree-trunk a dead heron, a goose, and ducks; its pendant shows a living peacock near a large vase and a dead hare and pheasant. Dead Game, a small picture, exhibits a dead partridge and a string of four little birds, and the others represent parrots and other exotic birds, flowers, and plants, and some monkeys. The Frightened Hen is defending her chickens against the attack of a pea-hen. The most famous of all, however, is The Floating Feather.

=Burger's Criticism of The Floating Feather.=--"To make a pilgrimage to Amsterdam without admiring The Floating Feather, would be committing the crime of _lese-peinture_. Hondecoeter has painted this most carefully and in his happiest vein. In a park luxuriantly decorated with beautiful trees and springing fountains, he has grouped strange and rare birds with domestic fowls. On the left in the foreground may be recognized a pelican, a crane, a flamingo, and a cassowary; on the right are ducks and geese of various breeds; a magpie cleaves the air with rapid wings; and, lastly, a light feather floats on the surface of a quiet pool, and this detail has given the picture its name."

Dr. Bredius says:

"The pelican on the left is particularly remarkable; but the ducks do no less credit to this artist, who has expressed with such penetration the life of the feathered world, the movements of these creatures, I should indeed say their expression; and he has rendered their physiognomy and character with such profound truth that no other artist can approach Hondecoeter in this respect."

The Philosophical Magpie, the Country House, and, better still, the modest frame in which the artist, putting aside for a moment his usual style, has brought together lizards, butterflies, and sparrows amid shrubs and large-leaved plants, are Hondecoeters of the most admirable quality, whether in frankness of detail, or for the mastery of execution and accent of color.

=Asselijn's Allegorical Bird Picture.=--The curious Allegory of the Vigilance of the Grand Pensionary John de Witt by Jan Asselijn is a bird picture. Here a great white swan is defending her nest against the attack of a black dog swimming rapidly toward it. Beneath the swan is the Dutch legend The Grand Pensionary; on the eggs, Holland; and under the dog, The Enemy of the State (intended for England). The feather lost by the bird is beautifully painted, and has challenged comparison with Hondecoeter's Floating Feather.

=Eckhout.=--G. van der Eckhout (1621-74) has a Huntsman with Two Greyhounds, painted about 1670. The huntsman, wearing a red vest, is seated on the grayish earth. The general tone of the picture is chocolate or chestnut.

=Jan Vonck.=--Jan Vonck (1630-?), another painter who devoted himself principally to still life, especially dead birds, sometimes was responsible for the birds in Ruisdael's pictures. His brush work is that of a master; his color is strong and agreeable with a transparent touch. The Rijks owns one example, Dead Birds.

=Jan Weenix.=--Jan Weenix (1640-1719) was the pupil of his celebrated father during the latter's lifetime; and later he studied still life under his uncle G. Hondecoeter, Elias Vonck (brother of Jan), and Matthys Bloem. He surpassed his father in his pictures of dead game, one of which hangs in this gallery. His animals--swans, hares, and various birds, arranged with flowers and fruits around sumptuous antique vases--are not so strong in character as those in Hondecoeter's works; but they are very true to nature and have the great charm of harmony and picturesqueness. They richly deserve their original popularity which their wonderful finish and execution have preserved till the present day.

=Coninck a Good Animal-painter.=--David de Coninck (1636-87), who had many affinities with Fyt, also painted landscapes, animals, and birds. He received the nickname Ramelaer from his fondness for painting rabbits especially. He was quite at home in hunting scenes, two of which are in the Rijks,--The Bear Hunt and The Stag Hunt.

Another painter of this period, Pieter Jan Ruijven (1651-1716), has a fine picture of a cock and hens.

=Bosch, an Early Painter of Flowers.=--One of the early Dutch painters of flowers was L. J. van den Bosch (?-1517), who painted with a transparent color and a light touch. He treated fruits, flowers, and insects with sympathy and truth. He often represented flowers in vases; his insects are so minute that they have to be examined with a magnifying glass.

=Delff's Poultry Seller.=--Pictures of this school, however, do not abound in the Dutch galleries till we come to the artists who lived a century later. The first of these who appears in the Rijks is Cornelis Jacobsz Delff (1571-1643), a pupil of Cornelis Cornelisz. Delff was renowned for his pictures of still life. He is represented in the Rijks by The Poultry Seller.

=Other Still-life Painters in this Gallery.=--Other still-life painters born in the sixteenth century, who are represented in this gallery, are Ambrosius Bosschaert (1570-?), Pieter Noort (1592-1650), Pieter Symonsz Potter (1597-1652), Adriaen van Utrecht (1599-1652), and Hans Boulengier (1600-45). Bosschaert has a picture, Flowers, dated 1619. He had a son of the same name who also painted flowers.

Of Pieter Noort little is known beyond the fact that he painted still life, and especially Fish, as in the two pictures here signed P. van Noort.

P. S. Potter painted on glass and was the manager of a gilded leather establishment at Amsterdam. His model was Hals. Besides portraits and landscapes, his preference was for still life. The Straw Cutter and Still Life (signed and dated 1646) are worthy of attention.

=Two Pictures by Heem of Utrecht.=--Jan Davidsz de Heem (1606-84) of Utrecht was a son of David de Heem, so famous for his _dejeuners_ spread with game, oysters, lobsters, fruits, wine, china, glass, and silver. Jan inherited his father's tastes, and much of his talent, as is evidenced by two pictures in the Rijks. One shows flowers and fruits of natural size; and the other represents a table on which are a cup, a glass, and a vase of wrought silver loaded with fruits.

=Greville on his Style.=--"At Antwerp, under Seghers, he enriched his palette and learned the art of composing a delicious harmony by setting flowers and fruits and glass and silver vases on an Oriental table-cloth. To the most minute exactitude and almost microscopic details, he added the most brilliant coloring and an unfailing taste in the arrangement of his flowers and still life."

=Pieter de Ring.=--A picture of a table covered with blue velvet and spread with lobsters, oysters, bread, fruit, etc., is typical of the work of Pieter de Ring (1615-60), one of De Heem's pupils, a Fleming, who spent his whole life in Holland, and was noted for his picturesque arrangement and fine execution.

Hans Boulengier has a flower piece signed 1625. He painted still life, _genre_, and sometimes "fantasmagories." Little is known about him.

=Still-life Painters in the Latter Half of the Seventeenth Century.=--A generation later this school was in full blossom. Pictures of fruits, flowers, and dead game, by artists who flourished in the second half of the seventeenth century, are fairly plentiful.

Abraham Hendricksz van Beyeren (1620-74) painted with fine composition and strong color breakfast pictures in the style of David de Heem, and delighted in portraying fish as in the Rijks example.

Cornelis Brise (1622-7-) painted portraits; this gallery possesses one of his pictures of flowers, signed C. Brise, 1665. On the wall beside it hangs another flower piece by the brush of Elias van Broeck (?-1708).

=De Snuffelaer.=--Otto Marseus van Schrieck (1619-78) was nicknamed De Snuffelaer (the ferreter), by the Dutch art colony in Rome, because of his frequent country walks to discover new plants, insects, and reptiles as models for his compositions. He painted with wonderful finish, good drawing, and truth to nature, as may be seen in his Insects, Lizards, etc., here signed O. M. V. S.

Jacob Marrel (1614-81) has a flower piece signed and dated 1634. Among other masters in Utrecht, Frankfort, Brussels, and Antwerp, he studied with J. D. de Heem.

=Kalff, a Good Painter and a Brilliant Talker.=--Willem Kalff (1622-93) was the pupil of Henry Pot, and as soon as he left the master he abandoned his manner, choosing for his subjects vegetables, fruits, kitchen utensils, and sometimes handsome vases. Houbraken says he spent whole days before a lemon, a beautiful orange, and the agate or mother-of-pearl handle of a dessert-knife; and the vessels of Holland never brought home a single shell, the strange form and splendid colors of which he did not copy.

Unlike many of the Dutch painters of his day, who spent most of their time in the tavern, Kalff was a man of charming and distinguished manner and a brilliant talker, and he possessed a witty and cultivated mind. His friends would spend the entire night listening to his conversation, and when he died from an accidental fall from the bridge at Bantem, the poet Willem van der Hoeven wrote a eulogy in which he said that Willem Kalff "knew how to paint golden vases and silver cups and all the treasures of opulence, but no treasures could outweigh his merit, for he had no equal in his line."

=His Favorite Subjects.=--The kitchen with Kalff became a heroic subject, and over it he threw the most subtle effects of chiaroscuro, throwing a gleam of light upon a well, a scoured saucepan, or a bunch of vegetables. Who is the hero or heroine of the scene? A fine cauldron or saucepan or kettle shining with a thousand reflected lights that come through a window of thick glass or yellow paper. An old cask stands by, interesting us with all its details of decay,--its swollen staves, its rusted hoops, and the insects that lodge in the rotten wood. A big nail, an earthen pot, a skimmer, a few onions with their shining skins, a broom, a jug of water, and a towel lying on a barrel,--with such simple things he makes a beautiful picture. Perhaps in the background the cook and her dog are discerned. Kalff never allows figures to become too prominent, for he wishes his still life to catch and hold the spectator's interest.