Chapter VIII: Front Matter (8)

=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.

=A Fine Example of his Powers.=--The Lady at the Clavecin is a splendid example of the powers of this artist who was almost as fond of making musical instruments important features of his compositions as Slingelandt was. It was painted in 1637 as the signature shows, and therefore is full of the Hals influence. The lady and two children, whose amiable faces are turned with interested expression toward the spectator, are evidently portraits, probably of the artist's wife and children. The other picture, Grace before Meat, is also a fine study with Hals's technique. It is in the Van der Hoop Collection.

=Four Pictures by Metsu.=--Four Metsus hang in the Rijks: The Huntsman's Present, purchased in 1843 for 12,400 florins, The Old Drinker, purchased in 1827 for 2,960 florins, The Breakfast, acquired in 1809, and the Old Woman in Meditation, bought in 1880 for 6,170 florins.

=Description of The Huntsman's Present.=--For taste, depth, warm harmony, and careful execution, The Huntsman's Present is of the first order. In a room lighted by a window on the left, a lady is seated by the side of a table on which is a rich carpet. A large white apron of exquisite tone covers her lap, and on it lies a little green cushion on which she has been making lace, which she holds in her left hand. Her jacket, bordered with ermine, is of that flesh-color that Metsu loved. With her right hand she caresses a little King Charles spaniel perched on the table. On her right, an old gentleman is seated. He still wears his hunting clothes and holds his hat under his arm. Evidently he has just returned from the chase, for his dog is with him, and on the floor lie his game bag, gun, and a dead duck. To the lady he is presenting a partridge. On a handsome _kas_ stands a statuette of Cupid.

=The Old Drinker.=--The Old Drinker represents a man with gray hair and short gray beard, with a pipe in one hand and a mug in the other. He has on a gray coat and a red cap edged with brown fur. He is perfectly happy, as his joyous expression shows.

=The Breakfast.=--The Breakfast is a beautifully painted scene. At a table covered with a Persian carpet over which is thrown a linen cloth, a woman in a light pink bodice, a violet skirt, green apron, and white fichu, seated at the right in profile, is pouring wine from a jug into a tall glass. A man in a puce-colored vest is placing a dish of meat on the table, which is already set with plates, bread, knives, and a glass. On the left is a dark green curtain, and in the background a door is indicated.

=Johannes Verkolje.=--Johannes Verkolje (1650-93) is represented by The Family Concert (1673). He was the son of a locksmith in Amsterdam, and studied with Jan Lievensz, but later imitated the highly finished style of Gerard Pietersz Zijl (fl. 1655), whose works were in such favor. He produced portraits, historical subjects, and conversations, delicate and graceful in sentiment, charming in color, and excellent in drawing.

=Jan Victors's Pork Butcher.=--The Pork Butcher (1648) and The Dentist (1654) are by Jan Victors, an artist about whom so little has been known until recent years that he has been confused with two others of the same name. The pork butcher is seen in the centre of the picture, which represents a village street; the butcher is standing before his freshly butchered quarter of pork, and a boy, in a large hat and jacket, with yellow sleeves, with knife in hand, is helping his master, to whom a woman is bringing a drink in a glass. On the right, a little boy seated on a fence is blowing a bladder, while a little girl looks on and laughs. Behind, a man is ascending a ladder into a barn. On the right a little boy is washing a ham in a tub, and a woman is kneeling by him with a dish.

=The Dentist.=--The pendant shows a table over which a rose-colored umbrella is opened, and under it a charlatan is drawing the tooth of a peasant. A man and a woman witness the operation, and three children on the left, a peasant, and a woman with some vegetables on her head are laughing heartily. In the foreground two dogs are quarrelling over a bone; and in the background small figures and a village clock-tower are visible.

=The Religious Pictures.=--The religious pictures need not detain us long. Two or three in the style of Rembrandt: Isaac Blessing Jacob, by Govert Flinck; The Woman Taken in Adultery, by G. van der Eckhout, purchased in London in 1828 for 3,000 florins, and belonging to that artist's best period; and the picture of Herodias with the Head of John the Baptist are worth the student's attention. The latter is particularly interesting, because, although the catalogues give it to Cornelis Drost (1638-?), a pupil and imitator of Rembrandt, it is really by the hand of Karel Fabritius (1624?-54), also a pupil of Rembrandt and so close a follower that many of his pictures have passed for Rembrandt's. The artist met with a tragic death; for he was killed in Delft by the explosion of a powder magazine.

=Aertsen's Altarpieces.=--Of historic value are the altar wings by Pieter Aertsen (Long Peter), The Presentation at the Temple; on the reverse, King Balthasar, painted for the Delft church; and the Nativity of Jesus Christ, a fragment of a picture destroyed in the fire of the Town Hall in Amsterdam in 1652. On Dr. J. Six's authority, the rest of this picture is in the New Church in Amsterdam. Aertsen was particularly famous for his altarpieces, many of which were destroyed by the Iconoclasts in 1566.

=Other Painters of Biblical Scenes.=--Of other painters whose reputations are larger in other fields, but who are represented in this gallery by one or two Biblical works, we may mention Berchem, with Ruth and Boaz; Velvet Brueghel, Repose of the Holy Family, Christ Preaching in a Fisherman's Boat, and the Adoration of the Kings, in a winter landscape; Frans Francken II., Adoration of Jesus Christ, and The Prodigal Son; and Maerten van Heemskerck (1498-1574), The Resurrection of Christ. Benjamin Gerritsz Cuijp may be studied in Joseph Interpreting the Dreams of the Baker and Butler; Dirck van Hoogstraten (1595-1640), The Virgin, with Jesus and St. Anne; Eglon Hendrick van der Neer (1643-1703), Young Tobias with the Angel; and Rubens, Bearing of the Cross (a sketch for the picture in the Royal Museum in Brussels), and Ecce Homo and Meeting of Jacob and Esau (copies).

In addition to several Biblical pictures in the Italian, Flemish, and German schools, there are, by Francois Joseph Navez (1787-1839), Isaac and Rebecca and the Resurrection of the Widow's Son; by A. van Dijck, The Repentant Magdalen; (School of Van Dijck) The Holy Family; one by Bronzino, Judith with the head of Holofernes; one of the School of Palma Vecchio, The Holy Family; and Spain is represented by The Annunciation to the Virgin, by Murillo (1618-82), and The Glorification of the Virgin, by Antolines (1639-76). Hans Rottenhammer (1564-1623) has a Virgin with the Infant Jesus (1604); Nicholas Bertin (1667-1736), Joseph Fleeing from Potiphar's Wife, and Susannah at the Bath; Sebastian Bourdon (1616-71), the Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine; copy after Hieronymus van Aeken, surnamed Bosch (1462?-1516), Adoration of the Magi; Leonard Bramer (1595-1674), a Biblical Subject(?) and King Solomon Sacrificing to Idols; Mechior Brassauw (1709-57?), The Prodigal Son; Peter Codde (1599?-1678), Adoration of the Shepherds; Jacob Cornelissen, Saul and the Witch of Endor; Gasper de Craeyer (1584-1669), The Adoration of the Shepherds and Descent from the Cross; Geertgen van St. Jans (fifteenth century), Allegory on the Death of Jesus Christ; Barend Graat (1628-1709), The Prodigal Son (1661); Nicolaes de Gijselaer (1590-95-1644?), The Angel Gabriel Appearing to Zacharias in the Temple (1625); Cornelis van Haerlem (1562-1638), Massacre of the Innocents, and Adam and Eve in the Terrestrial Paradise; Pieter van Hanselaere, Chaste Susannah; Frans Haseleer (1804-?), Esther before Ahasuerus; Isaac Isacsz (1599-1648), Abimelech Giving Sarah to Abraham (1640); Cornelis Kruseman (1797-1857), The Burial of Christ; J. A. Kruseman (1804-62), Elisha and the Shunammite; Pieter Pietersz Lastman (1583-1633), The Sacrifice of Abraham; Willem de Poorter (?-1645?), Solomon Sacrificing to Idols; Joris van Schooten (1587-1651), The Adoration of the Kings (1646); Jan van Scorel (1495-1562), St. Madeleine, Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and David and Bathsheba; Gerard Seghers (1591-1651), Christ and the Penitents; Benvenuto Tisi (the Garofalo) (1481-1559), Holy Family, and Adoration of the Magi; Tiziano Vecelli (1477-1576), Repentant Magdalen (copy); Jan Victors (1620-82?), Joseph Interpreting Dreams (1648); Jacob de Wet (1610?-71?), Christ Blessing the Children; Rogier van der Weyden (1399?-1464), Descent from the Cross; and Joachim A. Wttewael (1566-1638), David and Abigail (1597).

=Mythological Pictures combined with Landscape.=--It is noticeable that in mythological pictures landscape forms a prominent feature. Rubens was, doubtless, responsible for much of the popularity of this class of art, and the vogue that the Italian landscape also enjoyed aided the taste. Nymphs and satyrs and gods and goddesses were more appropriate figures to introduce into the classic scenes of Italy than Dutch peasants and cattle. We, therefore, find two classes of mythological pictures: one in which the landscape is more important than the figures; and one in which the figures take precedence.

Born more than half a century after Poelenburg, Gerard de Lairesse (1641-1711), the most important Flemish painter of historical and mythological subjects in the generation succeeding Rubens, followed Poelenburg in his taste for Italian settings for his figures, although he had never been to Italy. He is represented in the Rijks by Mars, Venus, and Cupid; another of the same title, Seleucus Abdicating in Favor of his Son Antiochus; Diana and Endymion; Virtue, an Allegory; and two in _grisaille_,--The Revolution and Legitimate Power.

=G. de Lairesse, Portrait-painter.=--Gerard de Lairesse was the son of an artist of some celebrity, studied under Bertholet Flemalle, and by the age of sixteen had become known as a portrait-painter. Some historical works for the Electors of Cologne and Brandenburg established his reputation, and when he settled in Amsterdam he was regarded as the greatest historical painter of his time. At the age of fifty he lost his eyesight. His style is grand and poetical, and his background enriched with architecture.

=More Mythological Pictures in the Rijks.=--The other mythological pictures in this gallery are: Hendrick van Balen (1575-1632), Bacchus's Homage to Diana; Jan Brueghel le Vieux (Velvet) (1568-1625), Latona in Caria; Caravaggio (1569-1609), The Death of Orion; Johannes Glauber (1646-1726), Mercury and Io, and Diana Bathing; Henricus Goltzius (1558-1616), The Dying Adonis (1603); Hendrick Heerschop (1620 or 21-72?), Erechthonius Found by the Daughters of Cecrops; Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678), A Satyr; Hendrik van Limborgh (1680-1759), Cupid and Psyche; W. Ossenbeeck (?-1678), Mercury and Io (1632); Hans Rottenhammer (1564-1623), Mars and Venus (1604); Adriaan van der Werff (1659-1722), Cupid Embracing Venus; Pieter van der Werff (1665-after 1721), Cupid Adorned with Flowers (1713), Young Hercules and Young Bacchus; Thomas Willeborts (1614-54), Mars Armed by Venus; Flemish School (1610-20), Dispute of Apollo and Pan; Dutch School (sixteenth century), Adonis (supposed to be by Jan van Scorel); and Dietz (living in 1830), Hebe. Here must be mentioned Rembrandt's mythological picture known by the name of Narcissus.

=Painters of Exteriors and Painters of Interiors.=--No survey of Dutch art would be complete without a brief account of the painters of buildings; and these may be divided again into two classes: those who painted the exteriors and those who painted the interiors.

=Murant and his Old Farm-house.=--The first of those who painted exteriors seems to have been Emanuel Murant (1622-1700), a pupil of Philips Wouwermans. He chose for his specialty Dutch village houses which he painted with vigor and warmth, and introduced figures and cattle into his foregrounds. These he painted himself. His works are rare, because he spent so much time on each work that he produced few pictures. He also spent much time in travel. His color is rich and silvery in tone; his impasto fine, and he gives the details with great truth and finish. By the aid of a magnifying-glass every stone in his buildings and every leaf on his trees may be counted. The Rijks possesses The Old Farm-house, which represents a dilapidated old house, where a man is feeding the chickens, and there are also pigs and an old woman at her spinning-wheel.

=Jan van der Heyden.=--Jan van der Heyden (1637-1712) was "the Gerard Dou of architectural painters." The Rijks owns View of the Town of Amersfoort, with delightful figures by A. van der Velde, A Drawbridge, A Stone Bridge, and A Canal in Holland. He loved to paint canals bordered with trees. His tone is warm, and his execution soft and free.

=G. A. Berck-Heyde, Painter of German and Dutch Towns.=--Another skilful painter of exteriors, Gerrit Adriaensz Berck-Heyde (1638-98), is noted for his faithful representations of the principal towns of Germany and Holland. His perspective is extremely fine. The Rijks owns: View of the Dam at Amsterdam; View of the Heerengracht (1685); The Flower-Market, Amsterdam; The Ruins of the Castle of Egmont, near Alkmaar; and three Views of the Town-hall. In some of his works he was assisted by his brother.

=J. A. Berck-Heyde.=--Job Adriaensz Berck-Heyde (1630-93) was a pupil of Frans Hals and Jacob de Wet. He is represented in the Amsterdam Museum by The Spaarne at Haarlem, Interior of a Church (1674), and Interior of the Old Bourse at Amsterdam.

=J. van der Ulft the Versatile.=--The works of Jacob van der Ulft, so remarkable for his versatility, are rare. The Rijks, however, owns two pretty cabinet-pictures by him, representing an Italian town and an Italian port. A very interesting and valuable picture by him, representing the Town-hall on the Dam, completed in 1667, is in the present Town-hall.

=Other Painters of Exteriors.=--Among the other artists and pictures represented are: Kornelis Beelt (seventeenth century), Dutch Flotilla at the Herring Fishery and View of the Haarlem Market; Anthonie Beerstraten (seventeenth century), View of Regulierspoort in Amsterdam in Winter, and Interior of a Town in Winter; Johannes Bosboom (1817- ), Notre-Dame, Breda, Great Church, Edam, and Aire in Guelders; F. der Braekeleer, Ruins of the Citadel of Antwerp (1832); Hendrik Gerrit Ten Cate (1803-56), The Tower, Jan Rodenpoort in Amsterdam (1829), and the City in Moonlight; Jan Ten Compe (1713-61), View of the Quay called Keizersgracht, in Amsterdam; Constantinus Coene (1780-1841), the Porte de Hal in Brussels (1823); Croos (seventeenth century), View of the Castle of Egmont, near Alkmaar; Claes Dircksz van der Heck (seventeenth century), The Castle of Egmont and The Abbey of Egmont (1638); Edward A. Hilverdink, View of the Singel in Amsterdam; Johannes Janson (1729-84), The Chateau de Heemstede (1766); Kasparus Karssen (1810-?), Interior of the Old Bourse at Amsterdam (1837); J. C. K. Klinkenberg (1852- ), The Market at Nimeguen; Everhardus Kloster (1817- ), Amsterdam; Dirk Jan van der Laen (1759-1829), View of a Town: A Snow Scene; Francois de Momper (1603-60), The Valkenhof at Nimeguen; Isaac de Moucheron (1670-1744), View of Tivoli, near Rome, and View in the Hortus Medicus at Amsterdam; Isaak Ouwater (1747-93), Unfinished Tower of the New Church at Amsterdam and Le Poids St. Anthony at Amsterdam; Antoon Sminck Pitloo (1791-1837), St. Georgis Church, Rome (1820); P. J. Poelman (1801-?), The Town Hall at Oudenarde (1824); J. H. Prins (1758-1806), View of a City (1793); Cornelis Springer (1817-91), Town-hall and Vegetable Market at Vere (1861), and Town-hall, Cologne (1874); Abraham Storck (1630?-1710?), View of the Dam; Pieter George Westenberg (1791-1873), View of Amsterdam in Winter (1817); and Jan Wildens (1586-1653), View of Amsterdam (1636).

=Painters of Interiors--P. H. van Steenwyck.=--Turning now to those painters who devoted their attention chiefly to interiors, the first to be noticed is Pieter Hendrik van Steenwyck the Elder (1550-about 1604), the pupil of Jan Vredeman de Vries, who has never been surpassed in this particular field. He usually painted the interiors of Gothic churches and other buildings. He also won distinction with torchlight effects. The figures were usually supplied by the Franckens and others. Van Steenwyck lived in Antwerp and also in Frankfort. The Interior of a Catholic Church, in the Rijks, is a good example of his style.

=His Pupil, Pieter Neeffs the Elder.=--Among his pupils was Pieter Neeffs the Elder (1577-between 1657-61), who followed his master closely, but with a heavy touch. His colors are not so pleasing as Steenwyck's, but his mechanical skill is great. F. Francken, Teniers, Velvet Brueghel, and Van Thulden are responsible for the figures in his pictures. In the Rijks we may study him by his Church of the Dominicans in Antwerp (1636), A Church: Effect of Candle-light (1636), and Interior of a Church.

=P. J. Saenredam, Painter of Church Interiors.=--Next must be mentioned Pieter Jansz Saenredam (1597-1665), who painted the interior of churches in a large and luminous manner. His pictures were highly esteemed, but are now very rare. The Rijks owns: two Interiors of the Church of St. Bavon, Haarlem; three Interiors of St. Mary's, Utrecht; and View of the Church in Assendelft. Adriaen van Ostade contributed the figures in the latter. Pieter Saenredam was a pupil of his father, a celebrated engraver, and of Frans de Grebber in Haarlem.

=Emanuel de Witte's Beautiful Work.=--Emanuel de Witte (1617-92), a pupil of Evert van Aelst, bears the same relation to the representation of interiors that Ruisdael does to landscape, and Willem van de Velde to marine painting. Beautiful modelling, fine color, linear and aerial perspective, masterly treatment of chiaroscuro, and animated figures are all at his command. The Vestibule in the Prinsenhof in Delft and two Interiors of a Church are picturesque canvases that exhibit the rich talents of this painter.

=H. C. van Vliet.=--Hendrik Cornelisz van Vliet (1608-66?), a pupil of his father, Willem van Vliet (1584-1642), paints under the influence of De Witte as is shown in the Interior of Part of the Old Church at Delft, signed "H. van Vliet, 1654." Here the treatment of sunlight is very reminiscent of Emanuel de Witte.

=Egbert van der Poel.=--In this connection may be mentioned Egbert van der Poel (1621-64), whose specialty was conflagrations. The effects of lurid light are seen in his Ruins in Delft after the Explosion of a Powder Magazine (1654) and Interior of a Farm-house (1646).

=Collections on the Ground-floor and Basement.=--After lunching in the pleasant little restaurant in the west wing on the ground-floor we take a rapid view of the collections here. The East and West Courts contain military, naval, and colonial collections, weapons, uniforms, and models of ships, which need not detain us long; nor will the department of Ecclesiastical Architecture and the Hall of the Admirals, where there is a collection of modern French paintings. In the western half of the building there are splendid collections of engravings, porcelain, lacquer, and textiles, two seventeenth century rooms furnished by the Antiquarian Society, and in the basement a collection of old Dutch costumes, carriages, and doll houses. On the east side are a number of correctly furnished Dutch rooms, one a "Chinese Boudoir" from the Stadtholder's Palace at Leeuwarden (seventeenth century), and a great collection of civic and industrial domestic art. Silver occupies a conspicuous place, and one of the cases contains drinking-horns, among which is the original drinking-horn of the Guild of St. Joris, which appears in Van der Helst's painting.

The visitor will seldom see a more wonderful collection of glass of all shapes and forms, and beautifully engraved, cut, and mounted; and the display of jewelry, trinkets, and children's toys will also claim attention.

=The Garden.=--We now enter the garden at the south side of the building. This is laid out in the Dutch style of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with clipped hedges of beech and box, and adorned with flowers, vases, statues, and busts. There is also a maze, and fragments of old Dutch buildings, such as the old Bergpoort of Deventer (1619) and the Heerenpoort of Groningen (1621). Various old gables, pilasters, columns, walls, tympanums, and gates have been grouped; and in the eastern part of the garden is the house of the Director of the Museum.

FOOTNOTES:

[23] J. F. White.

[24] Burger.

[25] J. A. Crowe.

[26] Blanc.

THE STEDELIJK MUSEUM

=Ground-floor of the Stedelijk Museum.=--A short walk from the Rijks down Paulus Potter Straat brings us to the Stedelijk (Municipal) Museum, built in 1892-95. The ground-floor is devoted to uniforms, weapons, and pictures of the Schutterij of Amsterdam, and a series of rooms furnished in the style of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, including an old Dutch kitchen.

=Its Pictures of the History of the Netherlands.=--An extraordinary collection of pictures by Allebe, Israels, Rochussen, and other well-known painters, treating of the history of the Netherlands, deserves a passing glance, for there are no less than 250 small canvases, all of the same dimensions and similar treatment. A more curiously monotonous effect would be impossible to imagine; but, to use a Dutch term, they are decidedly _symmetrisch_.

=The Gallery of Modern Pictures.=--Ascending the stairs we reach the gallery of modern pictures. The collection consists of about 200 paintings gathered by a society founded in 1874, and is very rich in fine examples of the modern Dutch school.

=Mauve's Sheep on the Dunes.=--One of the gems of the modern landscapes is Mauve's Sheep on the Dunes. The sheep, all of which have their backs to the spectator, the rolling dunes with their tall, waving grass, the shepherd boy and his dog, are all painted with equal skill; and over the still landscape hovers a poetic feeling that communicates itself instantly to the spectator.

Mauve is also represented by A Fold and Woodmen.

=Anton Mauve.=--Anton Mauve (1838-89) was a native of Zaandam, and the son of a clergyman. He studied under the cattle-painter, Van Os, who was not particularly pleased with his pupil. After his apprenticeship was over, he began to paint little pictures in the neat manner and conventional style of his master. Mauve lived in Oosterbeck, "the Barbison of Holland," for a time, and at a later period spent his winters in Amsterdam and his summers in The Hague, where he could enjoy Scheveningen and the dunes.

A Dutch writer, A. C. Loffelt, says:

=His Style.=--"The poetry of Mauve's art, its tenderness, the
unobtrusive, quiet sadness of the scenery and people which attracted
him most; the homeliness, humor, and domestic happiness which he
interpreted in his interiors and scenes of country and village life,
can only be appreciated by people of the same descent."

The same critic tells us that Mauve lived for a time in a farm-house, near Dekkersdinn.

=His Favorite Themes.=--"Here Mauve found some of his most important
and favorite themes, such as poor cots built in or near the downs,
where slender, poorly nurtured women tended a few sheep or a goat, or
occupied themselves in bleaching linen. His painting had not yet
gained that transparency and brilliancy of tone which the artist
acquired in subsequent years. At this time his work was gray, but not
always pellucid or silvery. Thus it came to pass that critics and
public began to talk of 'The Gray School,' for a few other artists
painted in the same neutral scale of tints.

"As we walk in the rural lanes, beneath the slender birches wrapped in
their mantle of silver-gray haze, or watch the chequered sunlight
dancing into the secluded nooks of some emerald meadow, when we hear
the echoes of the tinkling sheep-bells on the moors, we think 'There
lives Mauve!'"

=His Truthful Painting of Sheep and Cattle.=--Mauve is, perhaps, best known by his flocks of sheep painted under all conditions and at all seasons and times of day; but not less true to nature are his cows in the _Melkbocht_, that paddock or reserved spot in the meadow where the cows are gathered for milking. His horses ploughing, or at rest, and his coast scenes, showing Dutch fishing-boats about to be pulled across the sands by teams of horses, are no less remarkable performances.

=The Early Training of Josef Israels.=--For a whole generation Josef Israels has stood at the head of modern Dutch art. Born in 1827, at Groningen, the son of a money-changer, he carried money-bags in his early years to the banking-house of Mesdag. He studied under Jan Adam Kruseman, and at first painted historical pictures; lived in the Ghetto in Amsterdam, and nearly starved in Paris, where he studied in the Delaroche school.

=The Themes of his Paintings.=--It was in Zandvoort, near Haarlem, that he discovered his true bent, and began to depict the seafaring man and the peasant in their homely every-day life. His people are all humble, and most of them are broken by poverty and sorrows. For more than thirty years his pictures have occupied the place of honor in all the Dutch exhibitions; and on his seventieth birthday he was made Commander of the Order of Orange-Nassau, and was the recipient of many gifts and congratulations. In this gallery hang a number of pictures dating from various periods. Among them are Fisherman's Children, Rustic Interior, After the Storm, Passing the Mother's Grave, Margaret of Parma and William of Orange (one of his earliest efforts), Old Jewish Peddler, and a Study of a Head.

=Veth's Appreciation of Israels.=--The artist himself is represented in a statuette by F. Leenhoff, which stands in one of the rooms, and also in a portrait by J. Veth, who sympathetically writes:

"The choicest pictures by this master are painted in a truly
mysterious way, simply by the nervous vigor of an untaught hand with
heavy, sweeping shadows and thick touches of paint, which stand out
in a wonderful mixture of sharp relief and dim, confused distance;
with soft hesitation and touches of crudely decisive certainty; with
broad outlines and incisive emphasis. Ruggedness and tenderness,
corruption and sweetness, whimsicality and decision, are magically
mingled there in dignified depth, with the most refined feeling--the
most ductile language of the brush that is known to me.

"And yet, notwithstanding, all this exists, as far as possible, in the
clear, simple execution of the old Dutch painters, and there is one
great family resemblance between the nineteenth century master and
those who are the classics among the _petits maitres_."

=Each of his Pictures a Harmonious Whole.=--"The resemblance--the
revived tradition--is to be seen in the fact that Israels, like the
old Dutch painters, nay, even more than they, always aims at the
sober, general harmony of the whole work. It is wonderful how discreet
the effect is of a picture, for instance, by Pieter de Hooch, with all
its elaborate execution; how splendidly it holds together, how strong
yet delicate the construction is. It is this great quality of
presenting an absolutely organic whole at one impulse which seems to
have passed into Israels from his precursors, who otherwise painted so
utterly differently. Indeed, it is in this concentrated power, in this
self-contained harmony, the outcome of one glance, as it were, and of
one impetus, that we may discern one of the principal features of
Israels's art. There is nothing in his work that asserts itself alone,
nothing detached, nothing that plays any part but that of
strengthening the whole."

=His Aim to paint the Truth, rather than to produce Studied
Effects.=--"Those who really understand the sincerity of his art know
that he rejects everything approaching to working for
effect--everything that looks like rule of thumb; and that he in fact
never consciously troubles his head about studied effects or beauty.
Beauty to him lies in the silent woe with which the survivors stand in
a house of death; in the attitude of the old wife left alone, who
spreads her hands stiffly out to the fire, as though she might win a
spark of life from the smouldering hearth; in the way in which the
decrepit old man sits with resigned dejection in his gloomy hovel,
staring into his old dog's eyes; in the stupefied wretch who sits on a
broken bench, where, behind him, his dead wife lies stretched on her
bed; in the woful gleam in the eyes of the huckster who sits in front
of his dirty booth, with a motley collection of rags above his head,
watching us so mysteriously; in the sad old woman who, with elbows
wide apart on her table, her hands quietly folded, sits weary and
alone in front of her meal; in the kindly but hard-set woman, who,
through wind and weather, tramps along field and road by her jolting
dog-barrow, in a cruel struggle for existence; in the business of the
fisherman and seafaring folk and their hard and simple labor; in the
dignity of the patriarchal peasant family that gathers round the dish;
he sees beauty in everything which lays bare what lies mysteriously
latent in poverty and privation and suffering, at the very roots of
human life."

=Roelofs, Painter of A Marshy Landscape.=--Familiar to the Holland traveller is the Marshy Landscape, so true to nature and so charming in color.

If he had painted nothing else, Willem Roelofs (1822-97) would deserve his reputation because of this work.

This painter was born in Amsterdam and was a pupil of H. van de Sande Bakhuijzen for about a year; then he remained for six years in Utrecht; and settled in Brussels, where he remained forty years, finally returning to Holland. This painter's chief desire is to express himself poetically.

=The Inexhaustible Supply of His Favorite Subjects.=--"His pictures
are truly beautiful: cattle standing up to their knees in rich green
pasture land; luxuriant meadows; secluded pools reflecting the blue
sky and the moving clouds; lakes with floating lilies; rivers,
streams, noble trees, canals, and the thoroughly Dutch windmill.
Roelofs may be called the pioneer in our country of a broader school
of painting, especially that pertaining to landscape. Much of this he
may be said to have taken from the French.... Of late years he has
added more cattle to his pictures; but whether cattle or trees, land
or water, they are painted with the firm belief that they needed no
embellishment, but were good enough to be represented exactly as they
were. For Roelofs will not invent a subject. And why, indeed, should
he do so? Is the supply exhausted? _He_ does not think so, for no
summer passes but he packs up his paint-box and with his little stool,
his easel, and his umbrella, goes off either to Noorden, or Abcoude,
or to Voorschoten, to study nature again and again, as if he did not
know her well already."[27]

=J. Maris, Skilful in producing Ethereal Effects.=--Of Jacob Maris, Zilcken writes:

"No painter has so well expressed the ethereal effects, bathed in air
and light, through floating silvery mist, in which painters delight,
and the characteristic remote horizons blurred by haze; or again the
gray yet luminous weather of Holland, unlike the dead gray rain of
England, or the heavy sky of Paris."

This artist may be studied in this gallery by A Beach, two Views of a Town, The Ferry, and The Two Windmills, which latter represents two windmills standing as sentinels over a rather dreary landscape at the edge of a river and a canal.

=His Training and his Aim in Art.=--Jacob Maris (1837-99) was born in The Hague and was sent to Stroebel's studio, and later studied in the Antwerp Academy of Drawing. He was also a pupil of Louis Meyer in The Hague, and in 1865 went to Paris and studied with Hebert. Returning to The Hague, he devoted himself to landscape. He painted views of streets, country lanes, small hamlets, windmills, canals, rivers, and, sometimes, _genre_ pieces. In all his work his aim was to make an impression. One day he said: "A picture is finished as soon as you can see what it is intended to represent."

=Marius on the Beauty of his Work.=--The Dutch critic, G. H. Marius, writes:

"If you stand before one of Maris's pictures for a long time you
discover many objects which you had not noticed at first--houses,
bridges, trees, all looming out of the mellow misty light which is
diffused over the entire canvas.... What an endless variety of
windmills he immortalizes! Some of his canvases have but a small
solitary windmill, while others have a crowd of these gigantic,
cumbersome structures. Some pictures have a fringe of them upon the
horizon.

"However simple the subject, it is ofttimes made almost dramatic by
the rays of the setting sun, or by the brilliancy of a silver-lined
cloud. These effects of light and shade are rapidly passing, and we
gaze with admiration upon the skilful work of a man who can produce
such a faithful picture, which his eye could have seen but
momentarily. Sometimes he paints a canal with a barge pulled by a
weary-looking horse, tramping along the muddy road the ruts of which
are filled with water from recent rain (his horses are generally
white). Or it is a bit of rich agricultural land, the long furrows
stretching into the far distance; against a wonderful sky you see the
profiles of distant houses, trees, mills, etc., all dying away into
the horizon, showing the flatness of our Dutch landscape, where there
is nothing to impede or obstruct the eye for miles."

=Willem Maris's Relish for painting Cows.=--Willem Maris (1844- ) studied with his brothers Jacob and Matthys, and all three worked together. As early as 1868 he sold a picture which found its way to The Hague Gallery. This, representing cattle in a green meadow, at once showed his talent for painting warm sunlight. A typical picture of Cattle hangs in this gallery; for the chief subjects of Willem Maris's pictures are cows in meadow lands; sometimes they are waiting to be milked, or are being milked; sometimes they are standing or lying under the trees; and sometimes they are knee-deep in one of the lakes.

Mr. Marius says:

=Willem's Style contrasted with his Brother Jacob's.=--"The two
brothers Maris [Jacob and Willem] treat their skies in exactly
opposite manners. The one depicts clouds, threatening storm, and
changeable weather, whereas the younger brother gives us only sunshine
and a sky of turquoise blue; if, however, clouds are introduced, they
are like small white feathers or like the petals of a white rose. Each
in his own way true to nature, and beautiful to gaze upon, yet
methinks that we must give the preference to the one who gives us that
greatest of all blessings, sunshine.

"A very favorite aspect of his is a cloudless sky, the brightest of
suns, and part of the canvas thrown into deep shade, producing a
wonderful contrast.

"Another bewitching feature, so truly Dutch, in Maris's landscapes, is
the rising mist after the heat of the day. It rises from the meadows
at sunset and covers the land like a cloak, especially after a hot day
when the ground has been baked."

=A Socialistic Artist with Romantic Visions.=--Matthys Maris, the second of the three, joined his brother Jacob in Paris, and eventually he settled in London.

"Thys Maris found rest and isolation in a suburb of London; a few
faithful friends, such as Swan (the animal painter) and Van
Wisselingh, break in occasionally upon his solitude. But his ideas are
still socialistic, not only theoretically, but materially; and,
without looking around, he gives what he receives. On this point he is
likewise very sensitive. To be waited on by another, although that
service is paid for, he considers humiliating; and, in order to avoid
such a possibility, he lives without the comfort of attendance.

"Many might pass by the works of Maris without even noticing them;
many may consider them impossible and inexplicable, and pass on,
almost out of humor, perhaps even angry with them; the rational
spectator will put questions to which he will receive no satisfactory
replies.

"Though in his early years he painted still-life pieces, his fame
rests chiefly on his visionary women seen in his romantic dreams, and
portrayed with the clouds and mists of dreamland about them."[28]

In this gallery The Bride represents him worthily.

=Two Pictures representing Albert Neuhuys.=--Albert Neuhuys, born in Utrecht in 1844, studied in the Academy of Drawing in Antwerp, and settled in Amsterdam, the painter of landscapes and scenes from homely and humble life. He is represented by The Doll's Dressmaker and By the Cradle, which represents a mother leaning over the cradle of her baby lying comfortably on pillows. It is interesting to note how thickly the artist has spread the paint on the canvas.

=A Characteristic Picture by Christoffel Bisschop.=--Christoffel Bisschop (1828-1904) may be studied by The Lord Gave and the Lord hath Taken Away, Sunday in Hindeloopen, Sister of the Bride, and Winter in Friesland, also called Repairing Skates. This is a very characteristic and typical picture. Friesland is not only the home of a peculiar style of brightly painted furniture, but also the home of a school of skating of which there are two schools,--the Dutch and the Frisian. The latter, which is the older, aims at speed; and the skater wears a peculiar kind of skate, well shown on the foot of the young girl seated on the right, who is having the other skate repaired. The carved and colored sledges are also typical of Friesland. An escort waits at the door. The painter was himself a native of Friesland, and therefore depicts the costumes, furniture, houses, and people of this most picturesque corner of Holland with accuracy, charm, and sympathy.

=Christoffel Bisschop.=--Christoffel Bisschop is the Dutch colorist _par excellence_. He entered the studio of Schmidt in Delft, and worked at The Hague under Huib van Hove. He also studied in Paris with Le Comte and Gleyre, and in 1855 established himself in The Hague. A visit to the quaint town of Hindeloopen charmed his artistic eye, and henceforth the peasants, with their gay costumes, and the brightly painted furniture and quaint houses, have furnished themes and settings for his pictures.

=H. W. Mesdag.=--Born in Groningen in 1831, Hendrick Willem Mesdag was destined to follow the family business of banking. Art, however, claimed him; and after painting for several years as an amateur he started work in Brussels in 1866. Except for the criticisms of Roelofs, Alma-Tadema, and other artists, Mesdag may be said to be self-taught. In 1869 he removed to The Hague, so that he could be near Scheveningen, for he had found his special talent. "I must go and live near the sea," he said, "gaze upon it daily, not only for weeks, but for months and years; watch and study its every movement, this ever-changing element, this amazing, stupendous work of the Almighty!" In 1870 he exhibited at the Paris Salon, and his Breakers in the North Sea received the gold medal. His fame was now established. France has decorated Mesdag more than once, and one of his sea pictures hangs in the Luxembourg.

=His Style.=--Mesdag is a realist, and with broad, bold strokes of the brush he portrays what he sees and feels. He depicts the ever-changing ocean in all its moods, at all times of day and in all seasons; and the life of the fisherfolk on the shore and in the fishing-boats is also treated with sympathy. His Calm Sea by Sunset, painted in 1878, and Fishing-boats at Sea and Beach, the two latter painted in 1895, belong to this gallery.

"High up in the scale, and standing somewhat apart, is Henry William
Mesdag, the marine painter. Into a branch of art which had been
treated in so masterly a fashion in former centuries by Willem van de
Velde and Van Capelle, not to speak of Lodewijk Backhuysen and
Bonaventure Peeters, he introduced a thorough reform. In the beginning
of the century he was preceded by men of note, such as Schotel,
Waldorp, Meyer, Greive, Van Heemskerck, Van Beest, Van Deventer; but
their chief aim was to remain true to the tradition of the great
period. They painted pretty little ships sailing on calm seas, their
white sails catching a gentle breeze and reflecting the rays of the
sun; or again they would paint large vessels, driven before a gale
over mountainous waves. But the one was as artificial as the other;
their water was like glass, their ships as if made of tin, their skies
seemed cut out of oilcloth, and not one showed that he felt any love
for the sea.

"Mesdag was the first to paint the sea as it is, the turbulent,
restless, omnipotent, unlimited sea, that free, majestic, and
mysterious element which cannot be brought within any formula, but can
only be rendered in its tossing and pitching, peopled by its 'children
of the sea' living on its shores or drifting on its billows. He
studied every movement of the waves, every tint of the water, every
change in the ever-changing sky; he bade good-bye to large vessels,
huge castles of the sea, and took to painting small ships and fishing
smacks, the cottages, so to speak, of the ocean. His painting is as
broad and manly as the element wherein he moves and the space it
covers; not as soft and transparent as the works of landscape
painters,--those who give us meadows and downs,--but yet a
revelation."[29]

=Other Works in the Stedelijk by Modern Artists.=--Other works by modern artists worthy of attention are: Canal in Amsterdam and Sinking Piles for the Erection of a House, by G. H. Breitner (1857); Te Deum Laudamus, Groote Kerk at The Hague, Oude Kerk at Amsterdam, Groote Kerk at Edam, and Barn-floor in Guelderland, by J. Bosboom (1817-91); Mother and Child, by B. J. Blommers (1845); Arrival of the Water Gueux at Leyden, by C. Rochussen (1814-94); Episode from the Siege of Leyden, Battle at Castricum, and Mellis Stoke Presenting his Rhymed Chronicle to Floris V., Count of Holland, by K. Klinkenberg (1852); River Scene in Winter, by L. Apol (1850); Scheveningen in Rainy Weather, by S. L. Verveer (1850); Queen Fredegonda and St. Praetextatus, by Alma-Tadema (1836); Mary Magdalen at the Foot of the Cross, by Ary Scheffer (1795-1858); A Landscape, by H. van de Sande Bakhuijzen (1795-1860); Church at Zandvoort, View in Enkhuizen, Town Hall in Cologne, and Heeren-Gracht at Amsterdam, by C. Springer (1818-91); and A Prison of the Spanish Period, and Norwegian Women Bringing their Children to be Christened, by H. A. van Trigt (1829).

=A Survey of Modern Dutch Art.=--A brief survey of modern Dutch art, condensed from the learned pen of Max Rooses, will not be unwelcome, particularly as we shall meet many more examples of the modern artists.

=The French Neo-Classical School.=--He tells us that the group of Dutch and Belgian figure-painters of the beginning of the century were descendants of the French neo-classical school; and until 1850 the principles of David, Gros, and Girodet were highly respected. The best-known representatives were John William Pieneman in Holland, and Bree, Navez, and Paelinck in Belgium.

=The Romantic School.=--Thereupon followed the Romantic school, whose leaders in France were Eugene Delacroix, Horace Vernet, and Descamps; in Belgium, Wappers and De Keyser; in Holland, Huib van Hove, Herman Ten Cate, Charles Rochussen, Stroebel, and Van Trigt. This school departed from the academic tendency of its predecessors, just as romantic literature declared war against classicism in poetry.

=The Secret of the Success of the Romanticists.=--Another source helped to swell the stream of Romanticism in Holland. The artists of the neo-classical school, with their pompous but severe forms, paid more attention to line than to color. They took their example from the Italians of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Their successors set themselves to study the masters of their own country, and learned to appreciate the rich coloring, the warm lights, and harmonious tones of the golden period of their own art. We can see that they were filled with admiration for the effects of light and color in Rembrandt's works and in those of De Hooch, Gerrit Dou, and Ter Borch.

Not only did they find subjects for rich and warm coloring and pleasing treatment in the history of former days, but also in that of their own times. They took, in fact, a great step forward in that they observed the daily life around them, and kept in touch with their fellow-creatures, their ways and habits. To this group belongs Hubert van Hove, who was the first to admire the works of the old masters, and again to carry on the broken tradition; Charles Rochussen, Stroebel, to whom the effects of light and color were particularly attractive; and Herman Ten Cate and Van Trigt, the talented painters of romantic scenes derived from history.

=Josef Israels, a Brilliant Painter in this Group.=--To this group belongs Josef Israels in his earliest works. During this period of his brilliant career he was filled with enthusiasm for all that is sweet, joyous, and charming in the world, all that is fair in youth and nature; this is the period of his Children of the Sea, his Fishwomen, and his Knitting Girls. Later his subjects became more serious, and more serious, too, the claims of his art. Many followed Israels's example. The group of admirers of the master, those who saw the world as he did,--though with their own eyes,--may be called the pith and kernel of the young Dutch school. Blommers, Valkenburg, Neuhuys, and Artz may be placed at the head. They did not take life quite so sadly, they did not wish to obscure light and color but allowed the sun to blaze and triumph over mystery and darkness.

=A New Party opposed to the Romanticists.=--In opposition to these "champions of twilight and tenderness" arose those who preferred the real and substantial: Breitner; Sosselin de Jong, the portrait-painter; Witkamp; Therese Schwartze, and Van der Waay.

A similar movement took place in landscape-painting. The most important landscape-artists in the first half of the nineteenth century were Kobell, Koekkoek, and Schelfhout. Their great ideal was a careful, almost painful, working out of detail; they selected subjects rich in material, masses of big trees against water, producing great effects of light and shade. They sought to captivate the eye by an abundance of detail, and to depict woods and meadows with a smoothness which was more artificial than natural.

=Bilders, Roelofs, and their Followers.=--What was called the picturesque in a landscape became unnecessary to the younger men of the newer school; they painted Nature in its own beauty and in the simplicity of its charm, as they saw it in their daily lives. Of this group Bilders is the most important. He admired in the landscape, not a favorite spot, or a pretty pool, or a gayly colored cow; he saw rather land and meadow and wood in the mass, as one whole, beautiful by reason of its grand lines, its rich tones. William Roelofs went a step further; his first works differ little from those of his predecessors, but by degrees he tore himself away from the accepted style and became a true reformer. It was no longer the color or the beautiful contours of a view that attracted him, but the country itself, the vegetation, the verdure, the cattle in the meadows, the sky that seems always holiday-making, the ever-changing clouds, always full of beauty.

A whole school followed in this new track,--Van de Sande Bakhuijzen, Mevrouw Bilders van Bosse and Mevrouw Mesdag, Van Borselen, Storlenbeker, Gabriel, who depicted with extraordinary fidelity both land and sea; John Vrolijk, whose cows are always grazing in sunny meadows under a brilliantly blue sky; De Haas, whose cattle are more heavy and massive; Du Chattel, who prefers the effect of light in Spring and in Autumn; Apol, who devotes himself almost exclusively to snow scenes, producing singularly charming effects of the sun shining upon monotonous whiteness; Mari Ten Kate, De Bock, Wijsmuller, Weissenbruch, and Tholen.

=Another Step in the Modern Direction.=--Another step in the modern direction was taken by artists who gave themselves up entirely to the impression of the landscape, and painted exactly what they saw; Ter Meulen, for instance, who loves Nature for the mood which she awakes in him, and who understands so well how to convey light and tone into his clever and refined pictures; Anton Mauve, and the brothers William and Jacob Maris, were also accomplished interpreters of nature, and all that lives and moves therein.

=Modern Dutch Painters pursuing Independent Lines.=--Of other modern Dutch painters pursuing different lines may be mentioned Bosboom, who devoted himself chiefly to the interiors of old churches, bringing out the play of light and shadow among the pillars; Klinkenberg, who paints Dutch streets and canals and the old buildings upon them in full sunshine; Jansen, who paints the Amsterdam docks and quays; Alma-Tadema, painter of classical scenes; Bisschop, the great colorist; David Bles, "the witty portrayer of morals and manners of years ago"; Henrietta Ronner-Knip, the famous painter of cats and dogs; Henkes, who depicts in grayish tones old-fashioned scenes and characters; Bakker Korff, who paints similar scenes, but in miniature; the brothers Oyens; Elchanon Verveer, painter of jolly old fishermen; Sadee; Mejuffrouw van de Sande Bakhuijzen, and Mejuffrouw Roosenboom, painters of flowers and fruit; Eerelman and Van Essen, the animal painters; Allebe, the colorist, painter of human figures and animals; and Kaemmerer, who is fond of painting figures in the costumes of the Directoire.

FOOTNOTES:

[27] H. Smissaert.

[28] G. H. Marius.

[29] H. Smissaert.

THE TOWN HALL, HAARLEM

FROM AMSTERDAM TO HAARLEM

It would be well now to make a day's trip to Haarlem. The steam tram takes us through an interesting country, and in about an hour we reach the centre of the town,--the Groote Markt,--in which are several old buildings, the meat market, the Groote Kerk, and the Town Hall. The latter is the chief object of our visit to Haarlem, for it contains ten large pictures by Frans Hals, which no admirer of this great master can afford to neglect.

The Town Hall, facing the Groote Kerk, was originally a palace of the counts of Holland. It was begun in the twelfth century, but was remodelled in 1620 and 1630, when a wing was added. Some of the large beams in the interior date from the thirteenth century. The walls of the vestibule are decorated with coats of arms and portraits of the counts and countesses of Holland.

=The Room containing Hals's Doelen Pictures.=--We pass at once into the principal room, where the famous Regent (or _Doelen_) pictures by Hals are arranged in chronological order. These pictures represent nearly all the artist's working period. The Banquet of the Officers of the Guild of the Archers of St. George was painted in 1616, when the artist was thirty-five; the same subject, with different portraits, in 1627; the Banquet of the Officers of the Arquebusiers of St. Andrew, in 1622, when the corps departed for the siege of Hasselt and Mons; Reunion of the Arquebusiers of St. Andrew, in 1633; and Officers and Sub-Officers of the Arquebusiers of St. George, in 1639.