Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924073798336 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 924 073 798 336 THE FINE-ART LIBRARY. EDITED BY JOHN C. L. SPARKES, Principal of the National Art Training School, South Kensington - Museum, THE Dutch School Painting. ye rl ENRY HA YARD. TRANSLATED HV G. POWELL. CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited: LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK ,C- MELBOURNE. 1885. CONTENTS. -•o*— ClIAr. I'AGE I. Dutch Painting : Its Origin and Character . i II. The First Period i8 III. The Period of Transition 41 IV. The Grand Ki'ocii 61 V. Historical and Portrait Painters ... 68 VI. Painters of Genre, Interiors, Conversations, Societies, and Popular and Rustic Scenes . 117 VI [. Landscape Painters 190 VIII. Marine Painters 249 IX. Painters of Still Life 259 X. The Decline ... 274 The Dutch School of Painting. CHAPTER I. DUTCH PAINTING : ITS ORIGIN AND CHARACTER. The artistic energy of a great nation is not a mere accident, of which we can neither determine the cause nor foresee the result. It is, on the contrary, the resultant of the genius and character of the people ; the reflection of the social conditions under which it was called into being ; and the product of the civilisation to which it owes its birth. All the force and activity of a race appear to be concentrated in its Art ; enterprise aids its growth ; appreciation ensures its development ; and as Art is always grandest when national prosperity is at its height, so it is pre-eminently by its Art that we can estimate the capabilities of a people. There seems to be some one happy period in the life of every nation when all ' things prosper at once. Power, courage, and energy distinguish its ; 2 DUTCH PAINTING. political life, affording security for the present, and bright hopes for the future, and winning from all around admiration and respect. Public wealth and private fortunes, now at their zenith, encourage every enterprise and justify every venture, while strength and elegance, energy and grace, set their seal upon the Arts. Before this time has come men are only feeling their give way : with no guiding principle of their own, they themselves up to foreign inspiration. The individuality of the race has not declared itself in all its strength works of art still lack the special stamp which con- stitutes originality, and do not yet exhibit the style pre-eminently characteristic of the national genius. Then in a moment a complete change takes it place. The nation becomes its own mistress ; has, so to say, served its apprenticeship to life, and, for a time, at least, asserts its independence. Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, and Literature, based on all that is noble in the mind and generous in the heart of man, now flash forth at once, like a brilliant display of fireworks. This brilliance, how- ever, lasts but a short while. It is possible just to scale the dizzy heights of excellence, but not to linger there. The first slope gained, there remains the second still to be reached. Ascent is inevitably followed by descent ; and there soon sets in a period of blight, decline, and death. The national character decays with the decadence of Art ; the love of glory is stifled ; enthusiasm grows cold ; wisdom and re- serve supplant imagination ; foresight takes the place ITS ORIGIN AND CHARACTER. .3 ^ of daring, and courage no longer lends a deaf ear to the dictates of reason. It is always the same story. The life of nations, like that of individuals, is controlled by an irresis- tible destiny, which compels them to pass through the three stages of youth, manhood, and old age, to which everything in the world is subject. But if the road traversed is always the same, the works of art which mark its successive stages are by no means alike. They differ, indeed, in form and style, according to the character, ability, and energy, or, in a word, the genius of the people which produced them. They preserve the stamp of the sentiments of which they are the expression, and in their harmo- nious lines we can read the virtues which presided at their birth as well as the failings which impeded their development. Buffon said, " Style is the Man ;" with more reason we may say, " Art is the Nation." For every manifestation of Art is indeed a summing-up of the prevailing tastes and sentiments of the whole people, which speaks to posterity through its Art, saying, "Judge me on evidence ; that is, by my works." Holland, with its admirable school of painting, affords us the best demonstration of this great law. The first stammering expressions of Dutch art proceed, as is always the case, from foreign sources, and external influence is discernible in its earliest examples. It was to Flanders first of all that it went to 4 DUTCH PAINTING. look for inspiration, and to select models. During the supremacy of the House of Burgundy it derived its ideas from no other source. Its artists had neither individual expression nor national charac- teristics, and painting in the Netherlands differed in no way from painting at Ghent and Bruges. On the succession of the House of Austria the source of inspiration was changed. Dutch artists crossed the Alps and accepted Italy, with her examples of classic art, exalted and glorified by tradition, as their supreme mistress. Gothic art fled at the approach of the Renaissance, and Flanders gave way to Rome. In due course the supremacy of the House of Austria ceased to oppress the Dutch provinces. A long and terrible revolution put an end to a govern- ment which seemed all-powerful. The chains of slavery were broken, Holland at last won her inde- pendence, and Dutch art from this time forth owed its inspiration, its methods, and its style to its own surroundings alone. Dutch scenery helped to form the great colourist school of the North, while the religious and social condition of Holland gave an impetus to the growth of Naturalism. II. From the moment when Dutch painting becomes independent it shows one prevailing quality, which remains as its distinctive characteristic until the last hour of its existence as a school. ITS ORIGIN AND CHARACTER. 5 A feel ing for and love of coloyr are manifested with an extreme intensity in tne works of all the artists belonging to the school. Colour, in fact, reigns supreme mistress over them all. No one seeks to .withdraw from its enchanting thraldom, but all, on the contrary, pay tribute to it and render it homage ; all bow beneath its fairy sceptre, and make themselves adepts in its worship — the great as well as the little, the wise as well as the fooUsh. The reason for this intense love of colour has been long and earnestly sought for. Inquirers have given themselves up to numberless suppositions, ingenious, certainly, but all of them faulty, from being based upon false premises. It was assumed that the climate of Holland must be, above all, sad, gloomy, dark, and misty. Hence it was not easy to find in the observation of Nature the source of this general and ruling idea of colour, and thus it was that M. Edgar Quinet was led to suppose that the light which so intensely illumines the canvases of the Dutch masters had been brought from beyond the seas—that sunbeams, in fact, had been imported from Java, with rare birds and brilliant draperies. There is no fear of laying too much stress upon this point, for it is a fact which is most assuredly very curious. Among all the travellers who have gone through the Netherlands there is hardly one who did not arrive there with what may be called a bulky baggage of preconceived ideas, or who remained long enough to enable him to get rid of his singular prejudices. Listen to their stories. They will" tell you that 6 DUTCH PAINTING. everything you see in Holland has been made in the country. Its engineers have driven back the sea ; its architects have formed its soil, and its painters must have invented its light. M. Vitet, who a good many years ago visited Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague, saw, as he himself affirms, "the whole country under a gloomy, misty sky, with neither transparency nor colour." M. Taine speaks complacently of the " coaly sky " of Amsterdam, and M. Charles Blanc of " the veiled sky '' of the Netherlands. I only cite these in order to avoid being led into useless repeti- tions. I may also add that a guide printed in London speaks of the " fogs of The Hague." We shall now, however, once for all, treat this strange prejudice as it deserves. No, Holland is not foggy, "coaly," and gloomy, without transparency or colour. On the contrary, it is one of the most luminous countries in the world. Its sky, charged with vapours, reflects light with surprising intensity. The clouds which are almost always floating above it cast over the landscape shadows sharply marked, but transparent, and thus divide the boundless plain into wide stretches of country, alternately dark and light. All painters agree that colours, of themselves, have no value. What gives them their brilliancy is the contrast which they form with their immediate neighbours, as well as the proportion of light and shade, of black and white which enters into their composition. It is contrast and tone which heighten or lessen their efifect, augment or reduce their force.