Part 9

=Blanc on Troost's Style.=--"What we admire in him to-day is the talent of the painter properly so-called, the art of enlightening and grouping his figures and placing them on the stage, the brush-work, the selection and quality of the tones,--in other words, order, chiaroscuro, color, and touch. A man of wit, he shines in composition; although adroitly calculated, his own humor always appears spontaneous and natural. Troost never introduces useless personages nor superfluous ornaments into his pictures. He clearly sets forth what he wants to show; and, contrary to the habits of the other masters of his nation who take pleasure in the accumulation of accessories, he only puts into his interiors necessary furniture and significant utensils; and in his open-air Conversations the surroundings are not overloaded with detail, but simple and agreeable, being calculated to achieve the idea of the picture, so admirably are they connected with the action of the figures. Troost and Terburg, of all the Dutch masters of _genre_, are the ones who best understood the concentration of the interest of a picture, and what is called the repose of the composition."[18]

=A Picture Illustrative of the Concentration of its Interest.=--"On looking over his pictures in the little room devoted to his work in the Mauritshuis, we find more than one example of this intelligent sobriety. Take for instance _L'Amour mal assorte_. Here we have an old man declaring his love to a young widow. He has thrown on the floor his cane, hat, and gloves; and, in his senile ardor, he clasps the facilely chaste Susanna. What a pretty interior! A Slingelandt, a Gerard Dou, or a Mieris would have multiplied here the details of domestic comfort; here there is not a detail, not a single piece of furniture too much; but yet there is nothing lacking that should be there,--neither the clock, the canary in its cage, the portrait of the deceased husband whose place the guest desires to fill, nor the flower-vase with its full-blown rose, like the charmer whom the admirer wants to gather."

=Pictures of Love and Intrigue.=--"Again we have The Deceived Tutor, a scene anticipated from 'The Barber of Seville.' Here we see coming down the street a maiden led prisoner by her tutor, a jealous bear clothed all in black. While she occupies his attention with a sweet smile, her little hand receives the kiss of a lover whom chance has led that way. Other scenes of similar intrigue treated in this light vein are The Lover in Disguise and The Lover Artist. The scenes are taken from the comedies and vaudevilles of Langendijk, Lingelbach, Asselijn, Van der Hoeven, Van Paffenrode, and D. Buysero."

=The Dispute of the Astronomers.=--"A picture that does not deal with love and intrigue, but is full of a different kind of humor is The Dispute of the Astronomers, from a comedy by P. Langendijk, in which two astronomers in the heat of their discussion on the systems of Copernicus and Ptolemy make use of the plates and bottles on the supper table to illustrate the sun and the planets. Another interesting pastel is one depicting the old Dutch custom of a band of men and children singing hymns before the doors of the village on Twelfth Night, carrying a huge paper star, lighted within."

=Hondecoeter, Painter of Living Birds.=--The great Melchior d'Hondecoeter (1636-95) began his career with marines; but it was not long before he acquired celebrity as a painter of birds only, which he represented not exclusively like Fyt, after a day's shooting, or as stock in a poulterer's shop, but as living beings with passions of joy and fear and anger. Though without Fyt's brilliant tone and high finish, his birds are always full of action. William III. employed him to paint his menagerie at Loo, and this picture shows that he could overcome the difficulty of painting India's cattle, elephants, and gazelles. Hondecoeter's best pictures have remained in Holland, and The Hague and Amsterdam galleries possess his most interesting canvases. The four at the Mauritshuis are: Geese and Ducks, Hens and Ducks, The Menagerie of William III. at Loo, and The Jackdaw Stripped of his Borrowed Feathers. All these are worthy of study, although Hondecoeter's most celebrated picture, The Floating Feather, hangs in the Rijks.

Blanc says:

"In one of these the artist has amused himself with making his usual heroes play a scene of human comedy; and, as a professional fabulist would have imagined it, he has shown a jackdaw stripped of the borrowed plumes with which he had adorned himself in his vanity. This is a very fine picture, although it has somewhat blackened in certain parts. Hondecoeter seems to us to have been happier in another canvas in which he has grouped various birds. It seems as if on this occasion he wanted to prove what prodigies he was capable of in the touch of divers plumages; and the effect he has obtained is, in truth, astonishing. We could not find the equivalent of this lightness of touch and of this coloring either in Gryff[19] or in the two Weenixes, or in any of the masters who have tried to paint birds, with the possible exception of Giacomo Victor."[20]

=His Preparation for Bird-painting.=--"It is true that before having succeeded so well in the representation of the bird, Hondecoeter made a long study, not only of its external form, but of its habits, customs, and manner of life. His studio had been turned into a menagerie, or, rather, a game preserve. He had paid particular attention to the education of a handsome cock, which seemed to comprehend every word and gesture of his master; and who, at the slightest sign, came near the easel and posed, often in very fatiguing attitudes, for hours."

=Hondecoeter's Skill in painting Farmyard Scenes.=--"In painting, Melchior d'Hondecoeter was a very able man without leaving the poultry yard, and was satisfied with painting on the spot either the bloody dramas or the peaceful scenes of the farmyard--the hen teaching her chickens to scratch for grubs, the duck giving her little ones their first swimming lesson, the superb cock keeping watch over his seraglio, the peacock spreading his magnificent tail, and those memorable combats in which for a fine-plumaged Helen, two rivals spur one another while awaiting the hawk's talons. He painted 'the crested gentry' and knew how to interest us in them by means of picturesque truth, rustic grace, color, and spirit.

"Melchior, after the death of his father, found an excellent guide in his uncle, J. B. Weenix, and followed his manner till his death in 1660 without servility."[21]

Burger says:

=His Pictures of Bird Families.=--"No one has painted better than he cocks and hens, ducks and drakes, and particularly little chicks and ducklings. He has understood such families as the Italians have the mystical Holy Family; he has expressed the motherhood of the hen as Raphael has the motherhood of the Madonna. In fact, the subject is more naturally treated because it has less sublimity. Hondecoeter gives us here a mother-hen, who could face the Madonna of the Chair. She bends over with solicitude, with outspread wings, beneath which peep the excited heads of the little chickens; while on her back is perched the privileged _bambino_: she does not dare move, the good mother!"

A picture of Cock and Hens by his father, Gijsbert d'Hondecoeter (1604-53), was acquired in 1876. He was the teacher of his more talented son, who also studied with his uncle, Jan Baptist Weenix (1621-60), no pictures of whom are owned by the Mauritshuis.

=Jan Weenix's Tasteful Compositions.=--Two pictures of Jan Weenix (1640-1719) hang in this gallery and are good examples. One is The Dead Swan, the other is Game. Though Weenix painted portraits, landscapes, and even seaports, his chief works represent dead animals, the size of life. Peacocks, pheasants, partridges, geese, and most frequently swans, figure in his pictures. Sometimes, too, he introduces a living dog and paints it in the most spirited manner. Weenix had great taste in composition and arranged his models (more often dead than living) around the base of a handsome vase or urn in a beautiful park.

=Reynolds and Blanc on Jan Weenix's Paintings.=--"What excellence in coloring and handling is to be found in the dead game of Weenix!" exclaimed Sir Joshua Reynolds, who declared that he saw no less than twenty dead swans by this painter during his walks through the Holland galleries. "In his works of small dimensions," says Blanc, "his execution is delicate and caressing; but it is broad and accentuated in his decorative paintings. At his best he was the equal of his father, which is no small praise."

=Jan David de Heem, the Greatest of the Group of Fruit and Flower Painters.=--First in this group comes Jan David de Heem (1606-03 or 04), the pupil of his father, David de Heem, and not only the first to develop the art of fruit-painting, but the greatest master of the class that the school produced. In the beautiful arrangement of his subjects he has been compared to Giovanni da Udine. He is also a great colorist; some of his early works approach Rembrandt in their golden tone.

Although his two most important works are in the galleries of Vienna and Berlin, and splendid examples hang in the Louvre, Dresden, and Cassel, the Mauritshuis owns two very fine examples. One is a Table with Fruits, very tasteful in arrangement and soft in treatment; the other is a Garland of Flowers and Fruits, enlivened with insects.

When Sir Joshua Reynolds visited the Prince of Orange's collection, he saw these pictures and noted: "Fruits by De Heem, done with the utmost perfection."

=His Greatness as a Painter of Fruits, Flowers, and Insects.=--De Heem was one of the greatest painters of still life in Holland; no artist of his class combined form and color more successfully. His drawing is correct, and his colors are brilliant and combined harmoniously. He is familiar with every object of stone and silver, every flower, whether humble or gorgeous, every fruit of Europe or the tropics, every twig and leaf and blossom. Burger has said of Heda, but it is true of De Heem, that "he glorified insects, butterflies, and all the minute beings that swarm in vegetation, and made the moths drink in cups of chased gold."

=His Pictures that point a Moral.=--De Heem was also famous for his pictures that point a moral or illustrate a motto--those canvases known as Vanitas. Here the snake lies coiled under the grass; there a skull rests on blooming plants. "Gold and silver tankards or cups suggest the vanity of earthly possessions; salvation is allegorized in a chalice amid blossoms; death, as a crucifix inside a wreath." Sometimes De Heem painted alone, or with men of his school, Madonnas or portraits surrounded by festoons of fruits and flowers. He was so fond of the festoon that he sometimes painted it alone. Sometimes, too, a nosegay is figured alone.

=Cornelis de Heem's Subjects like those of his Father.=--The Hague Gallery also owns Fruits by his son Cornelis (1631-95). The latter painted precisely the same subjects as his father and with scarcely less success. Still life, flowers, fruits, oysters, and lemons on a plate; cold hams, boiled lobsters, flowers, knives, forks, glasses, watches, clocks, etc., are all treated by him with the utmost cleverness. Crowe says:

"He is not inferior to his father in drawing and warmth of color, and with an equally solid impasto, almost surpasses him in melting softness of touch. He is, however, in rare instances, somewhat gaudier. Under these circumstances it is easy to understand that his works are often mistaken for those of his father."

=Abraham Mignon, Pupil and Imitator of De Heem.=--Another pupil was Abraham Mignon (1640-79), who is represented in the Mauritshuis by Flowers and Fruits, and two canvases called Summer Flowers, which show the influence of his master. Mignon's fruits and flowers have all the bloom of nature; his butterflies and other insects seem to live and feed on the leaves, buds, and blossoms; and the dewdrops on the leaves and petals have all the transparency of real water. He was very popular in his day and was overwhelmed with commissions.

=Jacob Walscapelle.=--Jacob Walscapelle is also supposed to have been a pupil of De Heem, and many of his pictures have been attributed to one of the De Heems.

=Maria van Oosterwyck, an Excellent Painter of Flowers.=--Another pupil was Maria van Oosterwyck (1630-93), who usually painted flowers in vases or glasses, and occasionally fruits. In 1882 the Mauritshuis acquired a picture of Flowers, by this artist, who, perhaps, because of the rarity of her pictures, is not so widely known as she deserves to be. Although her flowers are not always arranged with taste and the colors are often gaudy, yet Crowe thinks she represents them with the

"utmost truth of drawing, and with a depth, brilliancy, and juiciness of local coloring unattained by any other flower-painter. At the same time, her execution, in spite of great finish, is broad and free, and the impasto excellent."

She was much admired in her day and received commissions from Louis XIV., William III. of England, Augustus I. of Poland, and the Emperor Leopold.

=Jan van Huysum, the Correggio of Flowers and Fruits.=--"If De Heem, by the harmony of his warm golden color, be called the Titian of flowers and fruits, Jan van Huysum's bright and sunny treatment entitles him to the name of the Correggio of the same branch of art. In masterly drawing and truth of single objects, both masters may be classed on the same level, only that De Heem's principal subjects were fruit; Van Huysum's were flowers, in which he entered into greater detail; for instance, in the gloss of the tulip, the pollen of the auricula, and the dewdrop on the petal. It is to these merits, fitted as they are to the capacity of the greater number of admirers of art, that Van Huysum owed the eager demand for, and high payment of his pictures by princes and wealthy amateurs, even in his own day, and also that of all painters of his class he still commands the highest prices."[22]

=Van Huysum's Pictures in The Hague.=--Jan van Huysum (1682-1749) is not so well represented in his own country as in the Louvre (which contains eleven fine examples), Berlin, St. Petersburg, Munich, Hanover, and Dresden. The Rijks owns but six, and The Hague only three,--an Italian Landscape, Fruits, and Flowers. The two latter are such beautiful examples of Van Huysum's art that they deserve study. In the one are found that marvellous blush and downy bloom for which he was so famous, while the other reveals his delicate treatment of petals and his graceful arrangement. In Fruits, a peach, two plums, a small bunch of grapes and some gooseberries are beautifully grouped, as to form and color, on a marble table. Its pendant, Flowers, is an exquisite picture of a full-blown rose and a rosebud, a pink and a convolvulus, placed on a marble console. A butterfly of the admiral variety has alighted on the rosebud.

=His Earliest Works.=--In his earliest period he painted landscapes representing views of imaginary lakes and harbors, woods with tall, lifeless trees, and classic buildings and ruins--finished in a glossy and smooth style--which are now of little value in comparison with his fruit and flower pieces. The Italian Landscape, which the Mauritshuis acquired in 1816, is a very good example of this style.

=Fruits and Flowers his Forte.=--It is doubtful if any artist ever surpassed Van Huysum in the representation of fruits and flowers, to which he finally devoted himself with the greatest success. He set himself the task of surpassing De Heem and Abraham Mignon; and he studied the most exquisite fruits and flowers known. His taste in the arrangement of his groups in elegant vases, of which the ornaments and bas-reliefs were finished in the most polished and beautiful manner, and in graceful baskets on marble tables, is generally considered to be superior to that of any other flower-painter. He also shows great art in relieving flowers of various colors against each other, and often they stand out from a light transparent background. His fame rose to the highest pitch, and the first florists of Holland were ambitious of supplying him with their choicest flowers for subjects. Naturally, therefore, we find on his canvases beautiful groups and bunches of hyacinths, roses, pinks, primroses, and other garden buds and blossoms.

=His Skill in depicting Dewdrops and Insects.=--With marvellous skill he frequently introduces dewdrops of incomparable transparency that trickle down the leaves or sprinkle the fresh delicate petals. Butterflies and other insects are also depicted with a truthfulness and precision that give a perfect illusion, and often a bird's nest with eggs is introduced.

=His Exquisite Taste.=--Jan van Huysum's pictures are so bright that they have even been accused of being gaudy; but no critic has yet found fault with his exquisite taste and faultless velvet-like finish that seems to rival nature. His fruit pieces are inferior to his flowers, though they are worthy of great admiration. Those painted on a clear or yellow background are the most esteemed, and are distinguished from his early works, which are usually on a dark one, by a superior style of pencilling and a more harmonious color.

=Rachel Ruijsch.=--Another charming flower and fruit painter,--noted especially for her flowers,--Rachel Ruijsch (1664-1750), is represented in The Hague Gallery by two Bouquets. In 1693 she was married, but she always signed her maiden name, and in several ways,--Ruijsch, Ruysch, and Ruisch. She took great pains with her pictures, and the amount of time spent on them limited their number. She is said to have given seven years to two pictures, Flowers and Fruits, which she gave to one of her daughters for a wedding present.

Blanc has most sympathetically described her qualities. He says:

=Her Truthfulness to Nature.=--"Whether she is painting the flowers of the gardens or those of the field, which she groups so beautifully on marble tables and calls around them fluttering butterflies and droning bees, or beautiful ripe fruits that refresh the eyes and mind, Rachel is always truthful, graceful, and clever. A colorist, she frankly selects the brightest tones and combines them marvellously; a draughtsman, she reproduces splendidly the most complicated forms, while preserving to each plant its individual elegance, its aspect, its way of holding itself, and foreshortening."

=Her Love of Nature.=--"In all justice, therefore, the Dutch rank Rachel Ruijsch among their most excellent painters. She retained her love of nature in all its freshness; it even seems as if she had a weakness for rustic beauty, and that she found the same pleasure in wandering about the country that others have in gardens and greenhouses. Sometimes she even mingles thistles with her field flowers, which she carelessly throws on a table; sometimes she chooses an old tree-trunk overgrown with moss, upon which she places her bunch of spring blossoms, while the insects hum around them, and the wings of a beetle gleam through the shadow. Sometimes she brings a green frog from some pool in the neighboring meadow and gives him a place in her picture. In the infinite little world of great nature Rachel finds no creature unworthy of her brush--not even the snail that crawls on the leaf and is hunted away by the gardener, nor the little worm who moves his variegated rings and spins his thread, destined to clothe magnificent ladies, as he elevates himself into the air. Those insects that we deem vile she honors in her paintings: she lets them lie on her marble tables, crawl on the stem of the glass in which her peonies and pinks are arranged; and she even allows them to devour the plums and grapes of her picturesque collations. Nothing, however, is more charming than her birds' nests, lined with lightest down and tiny blades of grass, moss, and straw, expressed with the art and industry of a wren or a tomtit."

The larger picture in The Hague Gallery is a charming group of roses and tulips, with butterflies and insects.

Rachel Ruijsch was a pupil of Willem van Aelst (1626-83?), whose Flowers (dated 1663) and Still Life (dated 1671) hang in The Hague Gallery.

=Description of One of Willem van Aelst's Pictures.=--M. de Burtin has described a picture by Willem van Aelst which gives an idea of all the works of this master:

"A table covered with a crimson velvet carpet bordered with golden fringe, on which stands a drinking-vessel of antique shape half filled with Rhine wine. The sides of this glass cup reflect several times and in different views the street with the most magical and astounding way, and in the very centre you see the reflection of the painter himself, holding his palette. On one side of the cup are placed, on a glass dish, four superb peaches and some roasted chestnuts; on the other side are bunches of red and white grapes. Butterflies and other insects add to the illusion, and the vine and peach leaves are artistically used to decorate the beautiful pyramidal group that stands out from a looped-back curtain of brownish yellow."

=Resemblance of his Work to that of Van Huysum.=--Although his name is less celebrated than that of Van Huysum, Willem Aelst is not very far removed from him in his beautiful productions; and certainly he surpasses Evert van Aelst (1602-58) who was his uncle and master. Without carrying finish to excess and preserving a certain freedom of touch, he knows how to express marvellously the delicate wings of a butterfly, the down of a peach, the dewdrops on a bunch of grapes, the feathers of a dead bird, and the wrinkles of a game-pouch.

=In Favor with Princes and Cardinals.=--Many of his works are in France, where he spent four years, and in Italy, where he lived seven years filling orders for princes and cardinals. He was only thirty years old when he returned to his native town, Delft; but he removed to Amsterdam, where his works brought high prices.

=His Favorite Subjects.=--The pictures by him representing dead birds are, as respects picturesque arrangement, finely balanced harmony of cool but transparent color, perfect nature in every detail, and delicate, soft treatment, admirable types of the perfection of the Dutch School. Specimens of this class are a picture in the Munich Gallery of two dead partridges and instruments of the chase, and another in the Berlin Museum signed "W. v. Aelst, 1653," representing a marble table with two woodcocks and other small birds, and two French partridges suspended above. His favorite subjects, however, were fruit and other eatables, herrings, oysters, bread, etc., with glasses and gorgeous vessels in gold and silver. Although Willem van Aelst owed much to his uncle Evert van Aelst, so famous for his dead birds and instruments of the chase, perhaps he owed still more to his other teacher, Otho Marcellis van Schrieck (1613-73), who acquired celebrity, excelling in a singular branch of art. He painted the humblest creatures,--frogs, snails, lizards, worms, serpents, and curious plants. The name of his master is unknown; but he painted entirely from nature and is said to have kept a kind of museum of serpents, vipers, insects and other curiosities. These he studied with great attention, and drew them with extraordinary fidelity and care, reproducing also their glowing and metallic hues.