THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
Two different Systems of Painting in the North.--The Flemish School
represented by Rubens.--The Dutch by Rembrandt.--Characteristics
of Rubens’ Style.--No female Disciples.--Unsuited to feminine
Study.--Some Women Artists of the first Part of the Century.--Features
of the Dutch School.--A wide Field for female Energy and
Industry.--Painting _de genre_.--Its Peculiarities.--State of Things
favorable to female Enterprise.--Early Efforts in Genre-painting.--Few
Women among Rembrandt’s immediate Disciples.--Genre-painting
becomes adapted to female Talent.--“The Dutch Muses.”--Another
Woman Architect.--Dutch Women Painters and Engravers.--Maria
Schalken and others.--“The second Schurmann.”--Margaretta
Godewyck.--The Painter-poet.--Anna Maria Schurmann.--Wonderful
Genius for Languages.--Early Acquirements.--Her Scholarship
and Position among the learned.--A Painter, Sculptor, and
Engraver.--Called “the Wonder of Creation.”--Royal and princely
Visitors.--Journey to Germany.--Embraces the religious Tenets of
Labadie.--His Doctrines.--Joins his Band.--Collects his Followers,
and leads them into Friesland.--Poverty and Death.--Visit of
William Penn to her.--Her Portrait.--Her female Contemporaries in
Art.--Flower-painting in the Netherlands.--Its Pioneers.--Maria Van
Oosterwyck.--Her Birth and Education.--Early Productions.--Celebrated
at foreign Courts.--Presents from imperial Friends.--Enormous
Prices for her Pictures.--Royal Purchasers.--The quiet Artist at
work.--The Lover’s Visit.--The Lover’s Trial and Failure.--Style of
her Painting.--Rachel Ruysch.--The greatest Flower-painter.--Early
Instruction.--Spread of her Fame.--Domestic Cares.--Professional
Honors.--Invitations to Courts.--Her Patron, the Elector.--Her Works
in old Age.--Her Character.--Rarity of her Paintings.--Personal
Appearance.
While the academicians and naturalists of the Italian schools contended
through the seventeenth century, and while in France and Spain the
works of art exhibited as great contrasts, modified in each country by
national peculiarities, two different systems in the North came into
notice. These, as in the time of Von Eyck, had great influence upon the
development of art in other lands besides that where they originated.
One was the Flemish school, represented by Rubens; the other the Dutch,
in which Rembrandt was regarded as the mighty master.
The style of Rubens, brilliant, luxuriant, and full of vigorous life,
it may be thought would commend itself peculiarly to the attention of
women. This school, however, in which the healthy and florid naturalism
of Flemish art reached its highest development, seems to have been
without any female disciples of note. The passionate and often
intensely dramatic character of the works of Rubens and his scholars,
and the physical development of his nude figures, were, indeed,
scarcely suited to feminine study, though their fullness of life and
warmth of coloring afterward won to imitation an artist like Madame
O’Connell. We may also mention Micheline Wontiers, a portrait painter
in the first half of the seventeenth century. An engraving was made
from one of her productions by Pontius, who busied himself with the
works of Rubens. The name of Catherine Pepyn, too, is found inscribed
as a portrait painter in the St. Luke’s Society of Artists at Antwerp,
about 1655.
In Holland, on the other hand, the new school of painting owed its
marked features to the political and religious revolution that had
been the fruit of the reformed doctrines. This change offered a wide
field for the exercise of female energy and genius. With the progress
of the new faith kept pace the rapid advance of literature; the great
questions at issue and the more earnest domestic life of the Hollanders
furnishing ample materials for thought and description. Painting came
under the same influence, and this was evident when the depth and power
of feeling in his works marked Rembrandt as one of the greatest masters
of all time.
A novel species of the art was called painting _de genre_. Herein life
was represented in all its rich and varied forms, and the world and
real humanity became objects of attention where hitherto only idealized
representations had been tolerated. A new arena was thus opened, in
which there was promise of noble achievement, and the rudest and
meanest aspects of common life soon appeared capable of being invested
with an ideal fascination. The painter _de genre_, armed with the wand
of humor, often succeeded in such attempts, and success led to the
adoption of that wonderfully poetical chiar’ oscuro in coloring, which,
till this period, had never attained the same degree of favor either in
the North or the South.
This state of things was eminently favorable to female enterprise,
and we find, accordingly, in a number of fair artists, evidences of
the energetic industry and careful minuteness for which the women of
Holland have been particularly noted. However, in the earliest efforts
at painting _de genre_, wherein the Flemish artists stood opposed
to the schools of Italy, women took no share. These trial specimens
usually consisted of some rough piece after nature, such as the drunken
boors and rustic women of the elder Breughel, and for a long time the
prevailing taste ran on the low, coarse, and fantastic in the models
selected. There was more to disgust than to attract cultivated women
in such a fashion, and, notwithstanding their alleged fancy to run into
extremes, this will account for the fact that they did not choose to
be numbered among those who delighted in such a copying of nature. One
we hear of, Anna Breughel, seems to have been a kinswoman of a younger
painter of that name.
The earnestness, depth, and intensity given to this species of art by
Rembrandt seemed to lie as little within the compass of female fancy,
which rather delighted in pleasing delineations of more superficial
emotion, than in the concentration of the deepest feelings of nature.
Thus few women were found among the immediate disciples of Rembrandt.
But as painting _de genre_ accommodated itself more pleasingly to
representations of ordinary life and circumstances, and the delicacy
of detail that formed the peculiar charm of this species of art was
lavished on attractive phases of character, the school became more and
more the nursery of female talent.
Literature, at this period, experienced a similar change; and it is
interesting to see the same persons pursuing both branches of study.
This was the case with the two painters, Tesselschade-Visscher--called
the “Dutch Muses,” on account of their poetry--with Elizabeth Hoffmann,
and the dramatic poet, Catharina Lescaille; also with one of whom we
shall presently speak, whose fame traveled far beyond the boundaries of
her native land.
Among the older artists of the Dutch school we may mention, in passing,
the fruit and flower painter, Angelica Agnes Pakman; Madame Steenwyk,
a designer in architecture; and the portrait-painter, Anna de Bruyn.
Anna Tessala was eminent as a skillful carver in wood. Concerning
Maria Grebber, a pupil of Savary, Van Mander remarks that she was
well skilled both in perspective and in building plans. Maria and
Gezina Terburg were sisters of Gerard, and, like him, skillful in
genre-painting.
Gottfried Schalken, who introduced a simpler method, and surprising
effects of light, was not more celebrated than his sister and pupil,
Maria, for productions remarkable for delicacy of execution and tender
expression. Eglon van der Neer shared his fame with his wife, Adriana
Spilberg. She was born in Amsterdam, in 1646, and was taught by her
father, an eminent painter. She excelled in crayons or pastels, though
she often painted in oil. Her portraits were said to be accurate
likenesses. They were delicately colored, and executed with neatness
and care. She was much patronized at the court of Düsseldorf.
Caspar Netscher, one of the best and most pleasing masters in this
peculiar style, had a disciple in Margaretta Wulfraat, whose historical
paintings--a Cleopatra and a Semiramis--are to be seen in Amsterdam,
and who died at a great age early in the eighteenth century.
A still greater interest attaches to artists who also took an
active part in the elevation of Dutch literature. Anna and Maria
Tesselschade--the daughters of Visscher, already mentioned--belonged to
this class; they were also celebrated for their fine etchings on glass.
Their literary culture brought them into association with the most
eminent scholars of that day.
With them may be ranked Margaretta Godewyck--born at Dort, in 1627,
and a pupil of Maas--who attained celebrity both in painting and in
her knowledge of the ancient and modern languages. She was called “the
second Schurmann,” and many praised her as “the lovely flower of art
and literature of the Merwestrom;” that is, of Dortrecht. She painted
landscapes and flowers, and embroidered them with great skill. She died
at fifty.
Catharina Questier, who resided at Amsterdam, was distinguished for
painting, copper-engraving, and modeling in wax, besides having no
small consideration accorded to her poetry. Two of her comedies, that
appeared in 1655, evince her skill in at least three branches; for the
drawings and engravings that illustrated the dramas were entirely her
own design and execution.
ANNA MARIA SCHURMANN.
A higher and more enduring fame than all these could command must be
accorded to Anna Maria Schurmann, called by the Dutch poets their
Sappho and their Corneille. She was born in November, 1607, in Cologne
(Descampes says, at Utrecht), of Flemish parents. Her family, like that
of Rubens, was Protestant, and her parents fled to Cologne from the
persecutions of Alba, remaining till 1615, when they removed to Utrecht.
Even in early childhood the genius of the young girl displayed its
bent. At three years of age she began to read, and at seven could
speak Latin. Her mother tried to keep her at the needle, but she loved
to amuse herself by cutting out paper pictures; she also painted
flowers and birds--untaught. A few years later, her taste for poetry
and learning languages developed itself. Learning was her passion;
the arts her recreation. Being allowed to be present at her brothers’
Latin lessons, she soon gained surprising proficiency in that tongue.
When she was ten years old, she translated passages from Seneca into
French and Flemish. Her love of study soon led to the acquisition of
the Greek. To the classics she added, before long, a knowledge of the
Oriental languages. She spoke and wrote the Hebrew, Samaritan, Arabic,
Chaldaic, Syriac, Ethiopian, Turkish, and Persian; besides being
perfectly well acquainted with the Italian, Spanish, French, English,
and German, and speaking every European tongue with elegance.
At the age of eleven this Flemish lassie had read the Bible, Seneca,
Virgil, Homer, and Æschylus in the original tongues; at fourteen she
composed a Latin ode to the famous Dutch poet Jacob Cats, who became
afterward an unsuccessful suitor for her hand. She wrote verses,
indeed, in many languages. The knowledge of different tongues greatly
aided her theological studies, in which she took the deepest interest
from early life. It is said that it was by reading the History of the
Martyrs she became imbued with the tendency to religious enthusiasm
that so strongly influenced her through life, and led to so strange a
career in her latter years.
The astonishing learning of this remarkable woman and her mastery in
the languages, caused her opinions to be often consulted by the most
erudite scholars of her time. Her judgment was always received with
respect; an honorable place was reserved for her in the lecture-rooms
of the University at Utrecht; and not unfrequently she took part
openly in the learned discussions there carried on. The professors
of the University of Leyden had a tribune made, where she could hear
without mixing with the audience. With this wonderful erudition Anna
Maria combined a rare degree of cultivation in art. The genius that
had shown itself in paper-cutting still gave evidence of strong and
resolute activity. She was skilled both in drawing and painting, had
a “happy taste in sculpture,” and exercised her talents in carving in
wood and ivory, as well as in modeling in wax. She carved the busts of
her mother and brothers in wood. The painter Honthorst valued a single
portrait executed by her, at a thousand Dutch florins. In addition, she
has left evidence of her no slight accomplishments in copper-engraving;
and she engraved with the diamond on crystal. Taste in music, and skill
in playing on several instruments, fill up the list of the amazing
variety of endowments bestowed on one of the most gifted of her sex.
We can not marvel that she was called by her contemporaries “the wonder
of creation.” Not only was she, on account of such varied gifts,
regarded with admiration, but she was idolized by her acquaintance for
personal qualities. She was in the most intimate literary association
with men of distinguished learning like Salmatius, Heinsius,
Vossius--who is said to have taught her Hebrew--and others. Princes
and princesses came to visit and converse with her, and entered into
correspondence with her.
Gonzagues, Queen of Poland, taking a journey to Utrecht in 1645, went
to visit Anna Maria, having heard such wonderful things of her. After a
long conversation she gave her flattering tokens of her esteem.
The Queen of Bohemia, and the Princess Louise, her daughter, often
wrote to her. With a modesty that was as rare as her singular
endowments, Anna Maria declined all proffered honors, and it was long
before she could be persuaded to publish her literary productions. When
the distinguished physician, Johann van Beverwyk wished to dedicate
to her his treatise on the “Advantages of the Female Sex,” she sought
to withdraw from the intended compliment. In 1636 she was induced to
publish a Latin poem, celebrating the foundation of the University of
Utrecht. Her “Apology for the Female Sex,” and other works followed
this.
Anna Maria Schurmann resided many years in her native city of
Cologne. According to one authority, part of her time was passed in
a country house, where she lived in the utmost simplicity, shunning
the attentions of the persons of celebrity who wished to visit her,
and dividing her time between her art and her pen. In 1664 she made a
journey to Germany in company with her brother; and there first became
acquainted with Labadie, the celebrated French enthusiast and preacher
of new doctrines. He believed that the Supreme Being would deceive
man for the purpose of doing good. He taught that new revelations
were continually made by the Holy Spirit to the human soul; that the
Bible was not a necessary guide; that observance of the Sabbath was
not imperative; that a contemplative life tended to perfection in the
character; and that such a state could be attained by self-denial,
self-mortification, and prayer. This man was possessed of singular
intellectual powers, and fascinating eloquence. He succeeded in
gaining many followers, and the mind of Anna Maria, deep and serious
to melancholy, and now clouded by grief for the loss of her father and
brothers, too readily gave credence to his pretensions.
Abandoning both pen and pencil, she joined the disciples of Labadie,
devoting herself to the studies that favored his theological doctrines.
To promote his success, she published her last work, entitled
“Eucleria,” in 1673, the year before the death of the fanatic. She
attended him, and it is said he died in her arms.
In this book she deplores her early devotion to literature and art.
Other accounts add that she collected the followers of Labadie--called
Labadists--and, continuing to disseminate his tenets, assumed the
leadership of the band, and conducted them to Vivert in Friesland. She
brought over Elizabeth--Princess Palatine--to these doctrines, and
together they opened an asylum for the wandering disciples. True to the
doctrines she professed, Anna Maria bestowed all her goods to feed the
poor, and sank to the grave in poverty, dying in May, 1678, at the age
of seventy-one.
William Penn mentions, in his “Journey in Germany,” a conversation he
had at Vivert with this wonderful woman in 1677, noticing especially
the gravity and solemnity of her tones in discourse.
Anna Maria Schurmann has left behind her not only the renown of her
great learning and artistic culture, truly remarkable in one of either
sex, but also a reputation for purity of heart and fervor of religious
feeling, which can not be disturbed by her mistaken though sincere
belief, and the fanatical enthusiasm with which she clung to absurd
dogmas. In her portrait her hair is combed back from her forehead, with
flowing side locks. The back knot is wreathed with ornaments. A large
pointed collar closely encircles her throat. Her features are marked;
her eyes keen and expressive; her Roman nose is large.
Among the contemporaries of Anna Maria Schurmann were the painters
Clara Peters, Alida Withoos, Susanna von Steen, and Catharine
Oostfries; with the copper-engravers Susanna Verbruggen, Anna de Koher,
and Maria de Wilde, who etched a series of fifty pieces--gems in her
father’s collection--and published them in 1700 at Amsterdam.
It was in the seventeenth century that flower-painting was carried
to such perfection among the women of the Netherlands. Constantia of
Utrecht and Angelica Pakman may be classed with the pioneers of this
beautiful art--this truly feminine accomplishment.
MARIA VAN OOSTERWYCK
was the first eminent artist in this branch, and the precursor of one
superior to her--Rachel Ruysch--who, esteemed in her day as the pride
and honor of the Dutch school, was, indeed, worthy of being reckoned
among those of whom the whole world is proud. Though not so great,
Maria is justly numbered among the illustrious women of Holland. She
was born at Nootdorp, near Delft, about 1630. She received her early
instruction from the distinguished flower-painter, David Heem. Her
father was a preacher of the Reformed religion, and took pains in
cultivating his daughter’s intellectual powers. He did not fail to
notice her remarkable inclination to painting, and her dissatisfaction,
and even disgust, at the trifles that served to amuse other girls of
her age. She always had the crayon in her hand.
Her early productions gained much praise, and it was not long before
she obtained such exceeding skill as to become the rival of her
teacher. Admiring connoisseurs carried her fame abroad, and she became
celebrated at foreign courts. Her works were eagerly sought by the
first princes of the time, after Louis XIV. of France had placed one
of them in his magnificent collection. The Emperor Leopold and the
empress sent for specimens of her powers, for which she received the
portraits of their imperial majesties, set in diamonds, in token of
their esteem. Her pieces commanded enormous prices. William III. of
England paid her nine hundred florins for a picture, and the sovereigns
of Europe seemed to vie with one another in heaping honors and fame on
this gifted woman. The King of Poland purchased three of her pictures
for two thousand four hundred florins. These sums were paid her with
every mark of respect, as presents from her friends rather than
professional remuneration.
In the midst of all these honors Maria led a quiet and peaceful life,
undisturbed by excitement or change. She was surrounded by a pleasant
circle of friends; she worked indefatigably, and was always found in
her cabinet. To obtain more time to herself, she went to pay a visit
to her grandfather at Delft. One day she received a visit from a young
man, who announced himself as William van Aelst, and appeared anxious
to see some of her works. His admiration of them, was blended with an
ardent love for the artist. He at last summoned courage to declare
his passion, but Maria replied that she was firmly resolved against
matrimony. Her lively suitor, she thought, too, was unsuited to her
grave and quiet nature.
Unwilling, however, to crush his hopes too suddenly and treat him
with unkindness, she annexed a condition to her acceptance of her
wooer, which she imagined would effectually deter him from prosecuting
his suit, or at least wear out his constancy. She required that he
should work ten hours of every day for a year. The young man promised
readily; but, as she supposed, he had not perseverance enough to keep
his word. His studio was opposite Maria’s; she watched him from her
window, and failed not to mark on the sash the days he was absent from
his labors.
At the end of the year William came to claim her promise. “You have
yourself absolved me from it,” was her reply; and, going to the window,
she pointed out to him the record of his idle days. The lover was
confounded, and retired disappointed.
Maria painted flowers with an admirable finish and accuracy, and
displayed exquisite taste and art in their selection and grouping;
she had also wonderful skill in copying their fresh tints, and in the
harmonious adjustment of different colors. She took a long while and
bestowed much labor in finishing her works, and they are consequently
rare.
She died at the age of sixty-three, at the house of her nephew, Jacques
von Assendelft, a preacher at Eutdam in Holland.
RACHEL RUYSCH.
Rachel Ruysch (spelled also Ruisch or Reutch) trod in the footsteps
of Maria van Oosterwyck, and carried flower-painting to a perfection
never before attained. Descampes says her flowers and fruit “surpassed
nature herself.” It is certain that she succeeded in producing the
most perfect illusion; and the tasteful selection of her subject and
manner of grouping, disposition, and contrast, rendered the effect more
exquisite.
This illustrious artist was the daughter of a famous anatomist, and
was born in Amsterdam, 1664. She received lessons in painting from
Wilhelm van Aelst, an artist who ranked with De Heem and Huysum among
Dutch flower-painters. He and his rivals were soon equaled by the fair
scholar, and thenceforward she took nature for her teacher.
While her fame went abroad with her pictures, Rachel sat and worked
in her secluded room; but she could not hide herself from the arrows
of the boy-god. She married--Descampes and others say, at the age of
thirty--a portrait-painter named Julian van Pool, who fell in love, and
introduced himself to her.
She became the mother of ten children. In the midst of domestic
cares, and the duties of attending to her offspring, she managed not
to neglect the art she loved so much; yet we are informed that her
children were admirably brought up. The toil and study must have been
immense which, in spite of the interruptions of household employments
and the depression of a narrow income, enabled her to attain such
excellence that her praises were sung by poets and poetesses, and her
fame traveled to every court in Europe. In 1701 the Academical Society
of Haye admitted her into membership; her reception picture was a
beautiful piece of roses and other flowers. Her celebrity became so
great that, in 1708, the Elector John of the Pfalz sent her a diploma,
naming her painter in ordinary to his court, and inviting her to take
up her residence in his capital. This prince wrote her another letter,
accompanying the gift of a complete toilet set in silver, twenty-eight
pieces, to which he added six flambeaux of the same metal. He promised
to stand godfather to one of her children. When she took her son to
Düsseldorf, the elector decorated the babe’s neck with a red ribbon, to
which was attached a magnificent gold medal.
In the elector’s service she produced a number of pictures, most of
them for her Mæcenas, who after paying for them always added honorable
presents. In 1713, on a second visit to Düsseldorf, she was received
with the distinction her great talents merited. The elector sent some
of her pictures to the Grand-Duke of Tuscany, who admired and placed
them among his rich collection of master-pieces. Several of her works
were presented to royal personages; some were treasured in the gallery
of Düsseldorf, and some excellent pictures were preserved in Munich.
After the death of her friend and patron, the elector, she returned to
Holland, and prosecuted her art with unwearied industry. She mourned
his loss as her friend and the generous protector of art; but her works
met with as great success, and Flanders and Holland even murmured at
their being taken to Germany.
The advance of old age could not obscure her rare gifts; the pictures
she executed at eighty were as highly finished as at thirty. To genius
of the highest order she united all the virtues that dignify and adorn
the female character. Respected by the great--beloved even by her
rivals--praised by all who knew her--her path in life was strewn with
flowers, till at its peaceful close she laid her honors down. She died
in 1750, at the age of eighty-six, having been married fifty years and
five years a widow.
Her works are rarely seen, from the difficulty of inducing possessors
in Holland to part with them. At Amsterdam there are four beautiful
pieces. Their chief merits are surprising vigor and a delicate finish,
with coloring true to nature. Flowers, fruits, and insects seem full of
fresh life.
Rachel’s style combined a softness, lightness, and delicacy of touch
with a certain grandeur of disposition and powerful effect, which
caused the universal recognition of a manly spirit and nobility
of feeling in her works. In her portrait her hair is short, with
low-necked dress and beads round the throat. The features of the
artist, large and strongly marked, bear the same brave, open character
that spoke in the grouping and arrangement of her flowers--in the
freedom that marked her compositions and was blended with their
surprising lightness and grace. In the depth of coloring a delicate
poetic fragrance seemed to be infused.