Part 16

=C. Dusart, Better in some Respects than his Master.=--Cornelis Dusart (1660-1704) adopted his master's (Ostade) style without servile imitation. He was a minute observer of details and had an astonishing memory that enabled him to use them to the best advantage in his interiors. His choice and treatment of scenes were rather more distinguished and less vulgar than some of his master's. His later pictures are inferior to his early ones: they lack spontaneity of conception, and that freshness and simplicity of impression that mark so many of his works. Five striking pictures worthily represent his abilities,--Wandering Musicians, The Fish Market (1683), The Village Kermesse, A Village Inn, and Maternal Happiness.

=Cornelis Bega.=--Cornelis Bega (1620-64), another pupil of Adriaen van Ostade, copied and improved upon him. A Concert of Peasants is full of color, light, movement, life, and gayety, with music, singing, and dancing. It is warmer in color than most of his works.

The Grace before the Meal (1663) shows a young woman with folded hands seated at the table, and on the other side an old man. On the window-sill is a flower-pot; in front, on the floor, a foot-warmer. This is a good picture, but a little too red in tone, as often happens with Bega.

=M. van Musscher's Lack of Originality.=--Michiel van Musscher (1645-1705) was completely lacking in individuality: he simply mirrored his successive masters, Martin Zaagmorlen, Abraham van den Tempel, Gabriel Metsu, and Adriaen van Ostade. Not only that, but he sometimes painted also in the style of Jan Steen, and even imitated the marvellous chiaroscuro of Pieter de Hooch. Sometimes also in subject and treatment his work resembles that of Netscher and Albert Cuijp. He has five portraits here, but is not represented by an example of his many interiors, feasts, or scenes of peasant or genteel life.

=Brakenburgh, a Clever Colorist.=--Richard Brakenburgh (1650-1702), a pupil of A. van Ostade, Hendrick Mommers, and probably Jan Steen, whom he imitated, lived in Haarlem. He also studied with B. Schendel, and became a clever painter and very able in the management of chiaroscuro. He is fond of merrymakings, drunken assemblies, doctors' visits, and children's feasts. He sometimes painted the figures in the landscapes of P. de Koninck and others. In his best works, some competent critics consider him worthy to rank with Ostade in the brilliance of his color, although it is always inferior in transparency. In form and modelling his subjects suffer by comparison with those of his master. The Rijks owns a jovial tavern scene, and The Feast of St. Nicholas, signed and dated 1665, which the student will be interested in comparing with Jan Steen's treatment of the same subject.

=Several Periods in the Career of D. Teniers the Younger.=--David Teniers the Younger (1610-90) has seven pictures here that illustrate his various styles. As with most other artists who reached old age, critics recognize several periods in the career of Teniers. At first, his figures, from twelve to eighteen inches high, are broadly painted in brownish and somewhat heavy tones. Toward 1640 his color becomes clearer and more luminous and golden. From 1640 to 1660 it assumes silvery tones of admirable lightness and limpidity; and, at the same time, his execution grows more careful and precise. The pictures of this last period are held in highest esteem. After that Teniers returned to a gamut of golden tones, in which he sometimes displayed great power. At the close of his life he became heavy and brownish in tone, and his touch lost some of its clearness. Not many of his pictures are dated. The earliest known date is 1641, on Our Corps de Garde, a medium-sized picture of no special interest, in which we note numerous military attributes. This is far inferior to a similar picture, now in St. Petersburg, painted two years later.

=His Relish for Pictures of the Supernatural.=--The Temptation of St. Anthony is one of many pictures he painted in his relish for the class of subjects painted two centuries earlier by Jerome Bosch--Dives in Hell, incantations, witches, phantasmagoria, etc.--for the simple purpose of assembling the most hideous and grotesque apparitions imaginable.

=His Pictures of other Kinds.=--The other pictures here are devoted to his villagers, drinking, playing bowls, dancing, singing, and fighting. A Landscape, with a rustic house, shows a gardener standing, spade in hand, talking to a woman with a child on her lap. On the left, on the ground, are some vegetables, also pots and other household utensils.

=Peter Balten.=--Peter Balten (fl. 1540-71) is represented by a large picture, St. Martin's Fair. His figures are full of spirit, and his touch is sure. Little is known of him except that he was one of the greatest wits of his day. He studied under Pierre Brueghel, whom he resembles in style.

=B. van Bassen.=--A contemporary of his was Bartholomeus van Bassen (d. 1652), who has a fine Interior with figures supplied by Esais van de Velde. His specialty was portraits, with studies of perspective, and church and other interiors.

=Three Pictures by Hendrick Bloemaert.=--Hendrick Bloemaert (1601-72) was probably the son of Abraham. The Rijks has three of his pictures, signed and dated: Winter (1631), Portrait of Johannes Puttkamer (1671), and The Eggseller (1632). The latter is in the Van der Hoop Room.

=Three Popular Artists.=--Jan van der Meer the Younger (1656-1705) is represented by a charming picture, The Sleeping Shepherd, dated 1678. Frans van Mieris the Elder is represented by The Letter, The Lute Player, Jacob's Dream, The Lost Bird, and Fragility. His son, Willem van Mieris, is represented by The Poulterer (1733), A Landscape with Shepherds and Shepherdesses (1722), and a Lady and a Gentleman.

=The Grocer's Shop by F. van Mieris the Younger.=--Willem's son and pupil, Frans van Mieris the Younger (1689-1763), who carried on the family traditions in Leyden, although somewhat inferior to his father and grandfather, is represented by A Hermit (1721), A Chemist's Shop (1714), and The Grocer's Shop (1715). This latter picture presents an interesting scene of the day. Note the beautiful painting of the sculptured bas-relief of the counter, at which stand the purchasers--an old woman and a child. The shopkeeper holds scales and two baskets, about the contents of which there seems to be some contention. In the shop there is a larder, on the shelves of which various articles are seen; baskets hang on the wall; and tubs, barrels, and casks are also visible. Over the shop has grown a grape-vine, and its graceful festoons of leaves make a beautiful effect.

=Several of Karel Dujardin's Pictures.=--Karel Dujardin may also be studied by his Portrait of a Man; Portrait of Gerard Reinst, a celebrated art collector of Amsterdam and also a patron of the painter; The Muleteers; The Laborer on his Farm (1655), in which a peasant is seen winnowing corn; A Trumpeter on Horseback; a Portrait of Himself (1660); an Italian Landscape with Animals; and a Landscape, which was purchased at the Duchesse de Berry's sale in 1837 for 4,000 florins.

=Burger on A Woman Reading.=--"Again the sphinx! Here we have an interior with a woman standing in profile to the left. She is reading a letter; she wears a light blue jacket and a grayish-blue skirt. Before her are a table and a chair with a blue back. Behind her is another blue chair. Decidedly Van der Meer has an affection for the blue sky. The wall of the background is a pale moonlight blue, and the woman's figure stands out against a geographical map a little tinted with _bistre_, which hangs on the wall.

"The execution of this picture is very delicate, indeed almost trivial: the paint is laid on very lightly, the color is weak and even a little dry. It is true that this picture is a little rubbed. On the contrary, Van de Meer's touch was frank and the _pate grasse_ abundant, even somewhat exaggerated in the View of Delft at The Hague; there is an incomparable firmness of design and modelling in The Milkmaid in the Six Gallery; and in the Facade of a Dutch House in the same gallery, the color is extremely warm and harmonious. These differences of practice make us hesitate for a time regarding the parentage of The Woman Reading in the Van der Hoop Collection. However, the physiognomy of this woman is of an exquisite delicacy; her bare arms and the hand that holds the paper are marvellously drawn.... This pale light and these delicate blues betray Van der _Meer_. This artist probably had several styles.

"This picture is signed: an open book on the table bears the word Meer."

=Van der Meer's Later Style.=--In later pieces his style is reminiscent of De Hooch and Metsu, but it is brighter and the tone more enamelled. In most instances the scene is in a small room lighted by a casement window. Sometimes the painter himself is seated in a studio; sometimes a girl and her lover are together; sometimes a woman is seated at the clavecin. The Milkmaid in the Six Collection is noted for its brilliancy of tone, harmonious distribution of tints, delicacy of gradations, and solidity of touch.

=His Portrait-painting.=--Van der Meer was also a splendid portrait-painter and excelled in landscapes, in which he sacrificed figures to trees, cottages, and lanes. There is a charming little picture of this class in the Six Collection, representing a row of brick houses with people, in the style of Pieter de Hooch. It is said that he was killed by the fall of his house at the time when Simon Decker, a vestryman of the Delft Church, was sitting to him for his portrait.

=Pieter de Hooch (1635-78).=--This master who was so long neglected and is now regarded as at least the equal of Ter Borch, Metsu, and Van Mieris, is well represented in the Rijks, though absent from The Hague Gallery. His talent is exhibited chiefly in his Conversations. Burger says he has never seen a single picture by De Hooch that is not of the first rank.

=Burger on De Hooch's Choice of Subjects.=--"Sometimes he paints interiors--people are playing at cards, or having a family concert, or reading, or drinking, or conversing. Sometimes he paints exteriors; then the painter introduces us to domestic occupations, and the innocent recreations of private life, as, for instance, a servant washing linen in a back yard, or cleaning fish, or plucking a fowl; or perhaps there are ladies and their cavaliers playing at bowls in a garden with trim gravelled walks."

=His Excellent Painting of Interiors.=--"When he paints interiors, this artist rarely neglects to show, on the right or left, doors opening on a staircase or revealing a leafy alley, or the trees along a quay, so that his pictures almost always seem to be the antechamber of another picture. In this characteristic style of De Hooch, when the interior of the apartment is moderately lighted, the sun shines outside, and we feel its heat and brilliance in the vistas gradually lost to view in the background, so inimitably managed in the artist's manner.... Pieter de Hooch seems to have been in Rembrandt's secrets, and knew how to adapt the genius of that great master to familiar scenes, just as Gonzales Coques had adapted the genius of Rubens."

=Seven Fine Examples of his Work in the Rijks.=--The Rijks Museum owns seven fine examples of this master's work. The Portrait of a Man is said to be that of the painter at the age of nineteen; but this is doubtful. One of the most celebrated interiors shows a woman about to let a child drink from a jug of beer at the entrance to a cellar. This picture is very attractive for the simple attitudes, and for the depth of the equally sustained warm harmony. "The execution," says Crowe, "is a model of softness and juiciness." The most glowing example, however, of this warm lighting is a woman cleaning the hair of a child, in the Van der Hoop Room. The woman wears a skirt of deep blue and a bodice of red, bordered with white fur, while the child has a skirt of green and a gray bodice. Behind them is an alcove bed with green curtains, and to the right, in the foreground, a little chair. An open door on the left allows you to see into another room with a passage and courtyard beyond. A little black dog seen from behind lies on the reddish tiles. The picture is beautiful in its treatment of three successive planes of light.

Another picture in the same collection represents apparently a pair of lovers who seem to be teasing each other. The lady seen in profile is squeezing a lemon into a glass, and the young man sitting opposite with his elbow on the table looks at her with a subtle smile. The costumes are elegant--the lady wears a straw-colored skirt and a rose-colored jacket. The man has on a garnet-colored doublet, scarlet knee-breeches, and white stockings. He is bareheaded and wears a wig. If it were not for the pipe in his hand he would remind you of Moliere's gentlemen. They are sitting in a kind of courtyard of a house with a red-tiled roof, and a window with red shutters is also visible. At the door of the house a woman is standing with a glass in her hand. A servant is busy with a kettle by the window. On the right there is an opening into a clump of trees, suggesting a park, and to the left another enclosure.

One of the most beautiful pictures in the collection, a marvel very difficult to describe because its superlative value lies in its luminous effect, is thus described:

=A Picture Highly valued for its Luminous Effect.=--"We are in a room, the door of which, in the background on the left, opens onto the quay of a canal. A girl passes along the path; next we see a tree, a stretch of the canal, and on the opposite bank another street, flooded with sunlight, in which two cloaked men have halted in front of a house. Above the door, which is slightly arched, is a large window with small panes in four compartments, one of which is open. Under the light falling from the window, in the corner of the room, a girl in a blue bodice and white apron is seated, with her head turned toward a youth who is entering through on the extreme right in the foreground. In one hand he holds his hat, and presents a letter with the other."[26]

=A Pleasing Sunlight Effect.=--Another picture shows a sunlight effect, in which both De Hooch and Vermeer of Delft delighted. There is a window on the left, above a table covered with a Turkey-red table-cloth, which is silhouetted brightly on the lower part of the opposite wall, close to a chimney piece. A servant is sweeping in front of the latter. Another woman, almost full-face, is seated, holding a baby in a yellow frock, with a child's cradle beside her. She wears a blue velvet jacket and red skirt. Behind her a door opens into a courtyard, and gives us a glimpse of the town. The rest of the background consists of a gray wall, on which hangs a picture. There is also a picture over the fireplace.

=The Sick Lady.=--Very similar to the pictures by Jan Steen and Metsu is Hooghstraten's The Sick Lady, who, very pale and with drooping head, sits by a table on which her left elbow rests. On the red cloth, which is covered with a piece of white linen, stand a pot and a phial. She wears a white cap, a yellow jacket bordered with ermine, a Persian-blue skirt, and a white apron. Her hands are clasped at her waist, and her feet rest on a foot-warmer. Behind the table stands the doctor in his conventional costume of black. The bed, draped with green curtains, is seen in the background, where, to the left, a short flight of stairs leads to a series of rooms opening one into another in the style of Pieter de Hooch. The figures, about a foot high, are very finely drawn. Burger says:

"The general harmony of color is strange, distinguished, and original. There are tones of straw-color, tones of pearl-color, and silvery tones, happily brought together, a clever distribution of light, and lightness in the shadows."

=Jan Steen's Style patterned after Hals and A. van Ostade.=--Jan Steen shows the influence of his models, Hals and Adriaen van Ostade, in several of the seventeen pictures of this artist owned by the Rijks Museum. His own portrait and those in the Oostwaard picture (dated 1659) are strong, bright, and clear with the qualities he admired in Hals. The other pictures are all distinguished by correct drawing, admirable freedom and spirit of touch, and clear and transparent color. They range in subject from the stately interiors of grave and opulent burghers to tavern scenes of jollity and debauch.

=Some of the Seventeen of his Pictures owned by the Rijks.=--There are two pictures of the charlatan who puffs his pills, draws teeth, and sells everything helpful to those sick in body or in mind, from a love-philtre to the Elixir of Life. Here, also, we see doctors and patients, card-parties, marriage-feasts, and the festivals of St. Nicholas and Twelfth Night. His delightful rendering of children is also fully exemplified here. In detail, the pictures are as follows: A Portrait of Himself, showing a rather handsome man with oval face, arched brows, and well-cut mouth; A Charlatan Selling his Wares, in which the chief figure is standing on a platform beneath the shade of a tree, while around him are many little figures variously grouped, forming comic episodes; The Baker Oostwaard with his Wife and a Son of the Painter (1659). The baker is arranging his wares, and the little boy is blowing on a horn. The Scullion represents a woman scouring a pewter pot. She is in a kitchen, and wears a white jacket and a blue skirt. On the table by which she stands are utensils and a lantern.

=Description of The Parrot Cage.=--The Parrot Cage is a domestic scene, in what appears to be a tavern or a middle-class hall, in which there is a bed, a chair, and a table, at which two men are playing backgammon, while a third looks on smoking a pipe. At the big fireplace an old woman is broiling oysters, which are likely to spoil, as she is taking more interest in the backgammon than in her own task. A boy seated on a low stool is feeding a kitten with milk from a spoon, and watching a woman of graceful figure who is offering a biscuit to a parrot in a cage.

The Orgy is famous for the dash and abandon with which it is painted.

=The Village Wedding and Other Pictures.=--The Rijks owns also The Birthday of the Prince of Orange, The Happy Return, The Rake, The Dancing Lesson, in which merry children are teaching a cat to dance; The Village Wedding, a little masterpiece, in which the light is treated as if by Ostade, and where the bride and groom are seated at a table with friends, while musicians play for many dancers.

=Description of The Happy Family.=--In The Happy Family we see a simply furnished room, in which is a bed, and next it a cupboard, on the top of which stand a mortar, some platters, and a vase of flowers; a happy family group is seated at a table. Hanging on the bed curtains is the legend in Dutch, "As the old ones sing so will the young ones pipe." This is the keynote of the picture. Every one is singing, piping, and making merry. Their gaiety is infectious. The father, seated at the end of the table, has a viola in one hand, while the right holds a glass of wine. Next him stands a boy playing bagpipes. Then the grandmother, singing, with a jolly expression on her face; next, the merry mother, with a merry baby, the image of her; next, a boy with a flute, another with a pipe; next, a girl about to smoke a pipe, in front two children, and at the open window a boy with a pipe. A dog stands by the master, near an empty platter, that shows he too has shared in the feast. There is a handsome table-carpet on the table, protected by a napkin, and on it a ham and a loaf of bread.

=A Family Scene on Twelfth Night.=--Nearly all the same persons, only grown older, appear in A Family Scene on Twelfth Night: Margarita van Goyen, Steen's wife, seen this time from behind, with her profile upturned, and wearing a red skirt and a blue jacket trimmed with ermine, and ten other figures, including the old father and the painter himself, who are smoking in the background. "Delicious in color and vivacity!" is Burger's comment.

=A Doubtful Picture of Steen and his Wife.=--The Couple Drinking is said to be Steen and his wife. The latter with a white handkerchief on her head, a dark blue jacket, red skirt, and white apron is drinking from a tall glass. The man in black behind her and talking to her is about to drink from a mug. The ages of the couple make it doubtful if the painter and his wife are represented.

=The Young Lady who is Ill.=--The Young Lady who is Ill, seated languidly in a red arm-chair, with her head on a pillow, may be compared with similar pictures in The Hague Gallery. She wears a yellow silk skirt, and a jacket of lilac velvet bordered with ermine. The doctor is one of Steen's best creations of this type.

=Steen's Most Popular Picture.=--The most popular of all Steen's pictures, however, is the Eve of St. Nicholas, which shows a room in Jan Steen's house, and himself, his first wife, and their children. Beside the chimney sits the mother in lilac skirt and green velvet jacket bordered with ermine, and on her left is a low table, on which is a variety of cakes, fruits, and other holiday sweets. In the background sits the father, who is enjoying the scene. Seven children are present. The oldest, holding a baby with a rag doll in its arms, is pointing up the chimney, explaining to the open-mouthed and staring little boy at his side whence St. Nicholas came. On the extreme left a boy is crying because all that St. Nicholas has rewarded him with is a birch rod, which his sister is presenting to him in his wooden shoe, and with evident pleasure. A little boy, with his father's cane in his hand, is enjoying his brother's disappointment and probable future punishment. In the background, the grandmother, drawing the curtains of the bed and tauntingly beckoning to the crying boy, seems to invite him to spend his St. Nicholas festival in bed. In the very centre of the picture is the pet of the family--a little girl, the very image of her mother. She has a pail full of toys, fruits, and cakes on one arm, and in her tiny hands she holds the figure of St. Nicholas, whose head is surrounded with a nimbus.

A basket of wafers, cakes, waffles, buns, crullers, etc., stands on the floor on the left; and leaning against the little table on the right is an enormous flat loaf of bread or cake iced in lines and decorated with figures of the cock at the four corners and in the centre that of St. Nicholas.

=Early and Later Styles of Jan Miense Molenaer.=--Jan Miense Molenaer (1610-68) was either a pupil or a very skilful imitator of Jan Steen in his early works, which are painted in strong, clear color with bold execution. About 1650, however, he adopted a brown tone with a light and transparent execution, and concentrated his effects of light after the manner of Ostade when the latter was under the influence of Rembrandt.