Chapter IV

Ostade’s etched work is, considered as etching, unequal. Sometimes, as for instance in _The Cobbler_ (B. 27), the first biting was not a success; at other times, as in the _Man Laughing_ (B. 4), the _Saying Grace_ (B. 34), or the _Fiddlers_ (B. 45), the plate has been over-bitten. The plate which Bartsch calls _La Fileuse_ (_The Wife Spinning_. B. 31) [Plate I.], is one which represents very fully some of Ostade’s characteristic excellences as an etcher. It is a fine example of his success in bathing his subject in atmosphere. One feels the quiet afternoon warmth upon the cottage-front, as the woman who spins feels it, as the child feels it, as the two basking pigs feel it. That softness of air, which in our northern climate gives even to the near trees a kind of impalpable look, and which seems to clothe things with itself--that is what Ostade has sought to render with mere etched lines; and he has triumphed over immense difficulties. His figures detach themselves with a wonderful reality, with no hard brilliancy, no superfluous shadows. There is a fine absence of cleverness in such quiet mastery of means.

More remarkable still is the little plate (B. 42) which is reproduced in Fig. 8. The amount of knowledge, of feeling for light and shadow, of subtle and sure draughtsmanship in this small etching is astonishing. The problem of painting daylight as it is diffused in a room through the window, which, of all painters in the world, Jan Vermeer and Pieter de Hooch, and, in a different way, Rembrandt and Ostade himself, have most fully mastered, is here attacked in etching, and with extraordinary success. What seems strange is that a problem so fascinating, one which had evidently a strong seduction for Ostade in his painting, should have been attempted by him so rarely in his etchings. _The Painter in his Studio_ (B. 32) is another success in the same line, while the _Players at Backgammon_ (B. 39) is partly a failure, through the biting having gone wrong. But, as a rule, Ostade prefers out-of-door effects.

None of the etchings quite rivals, in the writer’s judgment at least, this little plate, _Peasant Paying his Reckoning_. But there are several typical small pieces which have a great charm. The _Spectacle-seller_ (B. 22, Fig. 1), for instance, is an admirable composition, and the

etching rich. The _Humpbacked Fiddler_ (B. 44, Fig. 7), and the _Man and Woman Conversing_ (B. 25, Fig. 5), though the needle has been used somewhat differently in each, have similar merit.

But the plates that interest, perhaps, most, are not always those which are etched the best. The chief glory of Ostade is his imaginative draughtsmanship, and akin to this are his vivid human sympathy and his humour. These are not so manifest in the plates we have mentioned as in some others.

But before passing to those pieces which show these qualities at their

best, let us notice one which is unlike any of the others. This is _The Barn_ (B. 28, Fig. 6). Had the execution of this plate matched the feeling it evinces, it would have been a fine achievement. Who does not know the strange, vague impression which such a barn as this produces on the mind? The cool dimness, the mysterious shadow among the rafters, penetrated here and there by soft rays, the atmosphere of the farm, scent of hay, cries of fowls, mingling in a sense of imperturbable antiquity--all exhale an intangible emotion impossible to express in language, but which a painting or an etching could well convey. Ostade has conceived his subject finely; but the acid and the needle have imperfectly seconded his design. Rembrandt would have given us out of such material a memorable plate indeed. But let us not deny Ostade his due. Much in the piece is admirable: note especially the softness with which the light comes through the chinks on to the hay.

In _The Angler_ (B. 26, Fig. 10) the difficulties attempted are less great, and there seems little wanting to entire success. Here Ostade’s human interest is engaged, and whenever this is so, he is great. The stationary posture, the muscular habit of the angler, with lax body but firm wrist, is perfectly given; as is the slackening of the line, the indolent gaze of the boy leaning on the rail, and the sleepy impression of a still summer day without breezes.

It is in such expressive drawing of the human body that Ostade shows himself a master. The delighted eagerness of the baby in Fig. 4; the jerk of its short limbs and crowing of its lips; or in _The Music Party_ (B. 30), the boisterous, maudlin pleasure of the man who sits in the chair, beating time with his hand to the laborious scraping of the fiddler, catching what he can of the score, with what humour and expression are these portrayed! One hears the terrible discord and the cheerful thump of the peasant’s fist accompanying it.

Another piece of imaginative drawing is _The Brawl_ (B. 18). The loose, ineffectual, lurching stroke of the drunken man, the startled effort of the fat man as he springs up from his barrel, the terror of the woman clasping her baby closer, the mingled fear, anger, and surprise of the little man who has provoked the quarrel and prepares to defend himself--all are excellent.

The same qualities pervade Ostade’s largest plate, the _Dance in the Tavern_ (B. 49), which also shows his extraordinary art in composition at its best.

There are people, and perhaps always will be, who find in work such as Ostade’s nothing but vulgarity. And some, who cannot help enjoying his fine drawing, find themselves repelled by his choice of subjects.

It seems difficult to understand this repulsion. For in his etchings, at any rate, Ostade shows no exclusive preference for the coarse and sordid. Mr. Hamerton has accused him of deadness of heart and apathy of intellect, and declares him to be insensitive to all that is best among the poor. But is this quite true?

An accomplished lady some time ago wrote an essay in condemnation of the “vulgarity” of John Leech and Charles Keene in certain of their drawings for _Punch_. Such criticism seems to argue an excessive delicacy or a deficiency of humour. Ostade’s range was limited, compared with that of those two great artists, but as a draughtsman he is in the same order with them; and in the writer’s judgment he is equally free from that dulness which has no sense for the fine or rare in men and things, that acceptance of the common price, the common standard, which are the attributes of real vulgarity.

Look, for instance, at the etching reproduced (Fig. 9). The subject has been the theme of many painters and engravers. It is a subject easily spoiled; a little too much of sentimental piety, a little too much of satirical mockery, and the theme is made trivial or obvious. But Ostade’s feeling is just right. There is no drawing of a trite moral, as, for instance, in the treatment of the same subject by a later engraver, Nicholas van Haeften. Nor is there a hint of mockery at the discrepancy between the “good things” for which Heaven is thanked and the humble pottage on the table. But is there not, besides the wonderful sensitiveness of drawing in the figures, which makes one feel how the toil-hardened, clumsy hands tremble awkwardly as they are clasped, and how the boy, though his back is turned, is shutting his eyes resolutely tight--is there not also a tenderness, a dignity in the whole?

Again, in the little plate, _The Child and Doll_, is there not true feeling, expressed with a fine reticence, in the mother’s face and in the child’s? The careful fondness of the mother is even better expressed in another etching, where she hands a baby down to the eager arms of its elder sister, a child of six or seven, who receives it with joyful pride. The drawing reminds one of some of the exquisitely humorous and exquisitely tender sketches of Leech.