_Adrian van Ostade_ (Dutch: 1610-1685).
Adrian, the elder of the two Ostades, was a pupil of Frans
Hals. Later in life, he felt the influence of Rembrandt, and
he painted some religious subjects. But he is best known for
his scenes from peasant life. These are now greatly esteemed,
and pictures which the painter himself probably sold for a few
shillings now fetch hundreds and even thousands of pounds.
Adrian Ostade is the contemporary of Teniers, and it is
interesting to compare their respective delineations of rustic
life. "The contrast lies in the different condition of the
agricultural classes of Brabant and Holland. Brabant has more
sun, more comfort, and a higher type of humanity; Teniers, in
consequence, is silvery and sparkling; the people he paints are
fair specimens of a well-built race. Holland, in the vicinity
of Haarlem, seems to have suffered much in war; the air is
moist and hazy, and the people, as depicted by Ostade, are
short, ill-favoured, and marked with the stamp of adversity on
their features and dress. The greatness of Ostade lies in the
fact that he often caught the poetic side of the life of the
peasant class, in spite of its ugliness and stunted form and
mis-shapen features. He did so by giving their vulgar sports,
their quarrels, even their quieter moods of enjoyment, the
magic light of the sun-gleam, and by clothing the wreck of
cottages with gay vegetation" (Crowe). Ostade was especially
fond of the foliage of the vine. He is often coarse, but
sometimes shows a genuine sense of humour. He had, says Sir
F. Burton, "artistic qualities of a high order--consummate
skill in composition and taste in arrangement; subtlety of
chiaroscuro and refined delicacy of colour; appropriate, and
never overstrained action in the figures, and precision,
combined with breadth, of handling. His earlier pictures are
the coolest in tone; those of his middle period more golden,
showing gradually the influence of Rembrandt. His drawings and
etchings are extremely fine." His father, Jan Hendrik, was a
weaver; the children adopted the name of Ostade from a small
hamlet, near Eindhoven, which their parents left to settle at
Haarlem. There Adrian lived and worked, being enrolled as a
member of the Civic Guard in 1636, and becoming Dean of the
Painters' Guild in 1662. He was twice married; the second time,
to a daughter of Jan van Goyen.
Under the three-legged stool is a paper on which is written a warning
of the vanity of the alchymist's labour--_oleum et operam perdis_:
"you are wasting your cost and pains"--a warning not unjustified in a
painter's mouth, for more than one old master devoted the end of his
life to the fruitless task of making gold (_e.g._ Parmigiano, see 33).
The English painter, Romney, too, dabbled in alchemy when he was a
young man, and in his declining years sketched a melodrama representing
the progress of an alchymist in quest of the philosopher's stone.
The picture is signed (on a shovel hanging against the wall), and
dated 1661. It is, says Mr. J. T. Nettleship in a comparison between
Ostade and George Morland, "a marvellous example of the _atmosphère de
tableau_. Everything takes its place, but is also a wonder of finish.
The whole picture gives you a large feeling of space and tone. And
there is no bogeydom, no straining after weirdness; the whole is a
common workshop, the scene of the man's daily life; he feeds well, one
is sure--if he has dreams his face does not betray them, it is just
the face of a born craftsman. It is impossible to look at this picture
without acknowledging the influence such work must have had on Morland.
But Morland never achieved such delicacy united to breadth, such finish
combined with harmony of effect, though before he took the wrong turn
he came near achieving it" (_George Morland_, p. 23).