_David Teniers, the younger_ (Flemish: 1610-1694).
Teniers, though a Fleming by birth, belongs rather to the
Dutch School in style--being one of the principal _genre_
painters, of whom most of the other leading masters are Dutch.
His art stands, however, in direct relation to that of the
Flemish painters preceding him, through the want of spiritual
motive common to him and to them. But Teniers and the _genre_
painters carry this banishment of spiritual motive a step
further. "Rubens often gives instructive and magnificent
allegory. Rembrandt, pathetic or powerful fancies, founded on
real Scripture-reading, and on his interest in the picturesque
character of the Jew. And Van Dyck, a graceful rendering of
received Scriptural legends. But (with Teniers) ... we lose,
not only all faith in religion, but all remembrance of it.
Absolutely now at last we find ourselves without sight of God
in all the world.... Farthest savages had, and still have,
their Great Spirit, or, in extremity, their feather-idols,
large-eyed; but here in Holland we have at last got utterly
done with it all. Our only idol glitters dimly, in tangible
shape of a pint pot, and all the incense offered thereto comes
out of a small censer or bowl at the end of a pipe." The
place of Teniers in art history is, therefore, so far as the
ideals of art go, that he is, _par excellence_, "the painter
of the pleasures of the ale-house and card-table" (_Modern
Painters_, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. §§ 10, 11; ch. viii. § 11).
He did, indeed, occasionally venture on the ground of religious
painting; but his essays in this sort are absurd. His devotion
to _genre_ entirely hit the taste of his time, and his fame was
rapid and enduring. He was taught the rudiments of art by his
father, David Teniers, the elder, a mediocre painter of small
rustic subjects (see 949); but his real masters were Rubens and
Brouwer, though he did not actually study with them. In 1633,
at the age of twenty-three, he received the dignity of master.
Four years later he married the daughter of Velvet Breughel,
the former ward of Rubens, who acted as witness at the marriage
ceremony. His talents were in universal request. The Archduke
Leopold-William, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, appointed
him his private painter, and gave him an office in his
household. Queen Christina of Sweden and King Philip IV. of
Spain were amongst his patrons. He gave Don Juan of Austria
lessons in painting, and this prince painted the portrait of
Teniers's son, and presented it to the master as a token of his
regard. In 1644 he was chosen to preside over the Antwerp Guild
of Painters. In 1647 he took up his abode in Brussels. His
country-seat at Perck (see 817) was a constant resort of the
Spanish and Flemish nobility. Shortly after the death of his
first wife in 1656 he married Isabella de Fren, daughter of the
Secretary of the Council of Brabant, and he strove his utmost
to prove his right to armorial bearings. The king declared his
readiness to grant the request, but only on condition that
Teniers should give up selling his pictures. Teniers did not
accept the condition, and transferred his energies to procuring
a charter for an Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp to which
artists should alone be admitted, whereas the former Guild of
St. Luke made no distinction between art and handicraft.
The aristocratic leanings of Teniers may be detected in his
pictures. He is indeed, as we have seen, "the painter of the
ale-house." "He depicted the manners of the Flemish rustic,
told of the intimacy of his domestic life and his happy, coarse
laughter. His folk go to market, clean out the stable, milk the
cows, raise the nets, sharpen knives, shoot off arrows, play
at nine-pins or cards, bind up wounds, pull out teeth, cure
bacon, make sausages, smoke, sing, dance, caress the girls,
and, above all things, drink, like the live Flemings they are."
Yet as compared with some other masters of _genre_, Teniers
seems to treat his rustics somewhat from the outside. Their
expressions are often exaggerated, and their gestures pass
into grimace. "Brouwer knew more of taverns; Ostade was more
thoroughly at home in cottages.... Teniers seems anxious to
have it known that, far from indulging in the coarse amusements
of the boors he is fond of painting, he himself lives in good
style and looks like a gentleman. He never seems tired of
showing the turrets of his château of Perck, and in the midst
of rustic merry-makings we often see his family and himself
received cap in hand by the joyous peasants" (_e.g._ in 817).
So too, though many of his interiors are very good, Teniers is
on the whole at his best in open-air scenes. In his skies he
has given (says Ruskin) "some very wonderful passages" (_Modern
Painters_, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. iii. ch. i. § 20; H. Hymans in
_Encyclopædia Britannica_; Wauters's _Flemish School_, p. 294).
Good examples of Teniers continue to be greatly appreciated.
The Belgian Government, for instance, gave £5000 in 1867 for
the "Village Pastoral," now in Brussels Museum. The taste of
Teniers may justly be condemned; his technique will always
be admired. "Take," says Ruskin, "a picture by Teniers, of
sots quarrelling over their dice; it is an entirely clever
picture--so clever that nothing in its kind has ever been done
equal to it; but it is also an entirely base and evil picture.
It is an expression of delight in the prolonged contemplation
of a vile thing, and delight in that is an 'unmannered' or
'immoral' quality" (_Crown of Wild Olive_, § 56). His bright
palette, his freshness of handling, his straightforwardness
in means and intent, give to the best works of Teniers a
permanent interest. He "touched with a workmanly hand, such
as we cannot see rivalled now"; and he seems "never to have
painted indolently, but gave the purchaser his thorough money's
worth of mechanism." Hence it is that Sir Joshua Reynolds,
though condemning Teniers's vulgarity of subject, yet held
up his pictures as models to students who wished to excel in
execution. It should, however, be noted that his works vary
very much in this respect. Many of his later pictures are
painted so thinly that the ground is in places barely covered.
They have been called "afternoons," not from their subject, but
from the time the painter took in producing them.
This and the companion picture, 158, are characteristic specimens of
the painter. The human specimens are ugly and vulgar; the pottery is
pretty, and beautifully painted.