first sensation is a feeling of horror and disgust of the corpse. Its
forehead is in shadow, its open eyes are turned upward, its mouth half
shut as if in amazement; the chest is swollen, its legs and feet are
rigid, the flesh is livid and looks as if it would be cold to the
touch. In great contrast to this stiffened corpse are the living
attitudes of the students, the youthful faces, the bright eyes, intent
and full of thought, revealing, in different degrees, eagerness to
learn, the joy of comprehension, curiosity, astonishment, the effort
of the intellect, the activity of the mind. The face of the master is
calm, his eye is serene, and his lips seem smiling with the
satisfaction of intimate knowledge of his subject. The whole group is
surrounded by an air of gravity, mystery, and scientific solemnity
which imposes reverence and silence. The contrast between the light
and shade is as marvellous as that between death and life. Everything
is painted with infinite pains; it is possible to count the little
folds of the ruff, the wrinkles in the face, the hairs of the beard.
It is said that the foreshortening of the corpse is incorrect, and
that in some places the finish degenerates into hardness, but
universal approval places the "Lesson in Anatomy" among the greatest
works of art in the world.
Rembrandt was only twenty-six years old when he painted this picture,
which consequently has the mark of his early work. The impetuosity,
audacity, and unequalled assurance of his genius, which shine forth in
his maturer works, are not yet seen, but his immense power of painting
light, his marvellous chiaroscuro, his fascinating magic of contrast,
the most original features of his genius, are all to be found here.
However little we may know about art, and however much we may have
resolved not to sin by excess of enthusiasm, when we come face to face
with Rembrandt van Rijn, we cannot help opening the flood-gates of
language, as the Spanish say. Rembrandt exerts an especial fascination.
Fra Angelico is a saint, Michelangelo is a giant, Raphael is an angel,
Titian a prince, Rembrandt is a spectre. What else can this miller's son
be called? Born in a windmill, he arose unexpectedly without a master,
without example, without any instruction from the schools, to become a
universal painter, who depicted life in every aspect, who painted figures,
landscapes, sea-pieces, animals, saints, patriarchs, heroes, monks, riches
and poverty, deformity, decrepitude, the ghetto, taverns, hospitals, and
death; who in short, reviewed heaven and earth, and enveloped everything
in a light so mysterious that it seems to have issued from his brain. His
work is at the same time grand and minute. He is at once an idealist and a
realist, a painter and an engraver, who transforms everything and conceals
nothing--who changes men into phantoms, the most ordinary scenes of life
into mysterious apparitions; I had almost said who changes this world into
another that does not seem to be and yet is the same. Whence has he drawn
that undefinable light, those flashes of electric rays, those reflections
of unknown stars that like an enigma fill us with wonder? What did this
dreamer, this visionary, see in the dark? What is the secret that
tormented his soul? What did this painter of the air mean to tell us in
this eternal conflict of light and shadow? It is said that the contrasts
of light and shade corresponded in him to moods of thought. And truly it
seems that as Schiller, before beginning a work, felt within himself an
indistinct harmony of sounds which were a prelude to his inspiration, so
also Rembrandt, when about to paint a picture, beheld a vision of rays and
shadows which had some meaning to him before he animated them with his
figures. In his paintings there is a life, a dramatic action, quite
distinct from that of human figures. Flashes of brilliant light break
across a sombre surface like cries of joy; the frightened darkness flies
away, leaving here and there a melancholy twilight, trembling reflections
that seem to be lamenting, profound obscurity gloomy and threatening,
flashes of dancing sunlight, ambiguous shadows, shadows uncertain and
transparent, questionings and sighs, words of a supernatural language like
music heard but not understood, which remains in the memory like a dream.
Into this atmosphere he plunged his figures, some of them enveloped by the
garish light of a theatrical apotheosis, others veiled like ghosts, others
revealed by a single ray of light darting across their faces. Whether they
be clothed with pomp or in rags, they all are alike strange and fantastic.
The outlines are not clear; the figures are loaded with powerful colors,
and are painted with such bold strokes of the brush that they stand out in
sculpturesque relief, while over all is an expression of impetuosity and
of inspiration, that proud, capricious, profound imprint of genius that
knows neither restraint nor fear.
After all, every one likes to give his opinion: but who knows, if
Rembrandt could read all the pages that have been written to explain
the secret meanings of his art, whether he would not burst out
laughing? Such is the fate of men of genius: every one holds that he
has understood them better than his neighbor, and restores them in his
own way. They are like a beautiful theme given by God which men
distort into a thousand different meanings--a canvas upon which the
imagination of man paints and embroiders after its own manner.
I left the Hague Gallery with one desire ungratified: I had not found
in it any picture by Jerom Bosch, a painter born at Bois-le-Duc in the
fifteenth century. This madcap of mischief, this scarecrow of bigots,
this artistic sorcerer, had made my flesh creep first in the gallery
at Madrid with a work representing a horrible army of living skeletons
scattered about an immense space, in conflict with a motley crowd of
desperate and confused men and women, whom they were dragging into an
abyss where Death awaited them. Only from the diseased imagination of
a man alarmed by the terrors of damnation could such an extravagant
conception have issued. When you look at it, however long it may be
since you were afraid of phantoms, you feel a confused reawakening
dread. Such were the subjects of all his pictures--the tortures of the
accursed, spectres, fiery chasms, dragons, uncanny birds, loathsome
monsters, diabolical kitchens, sinister landscapes. One of these
frightful pictures was found in the cell where Philip II. died; others
are scattered throughout Spain and Italy. Who was this chimerical
painter? How did he live? What strange mania tormented him? No one
knows; he passed over the earth wrapped in a cloud, and disappeared
like an infernal vision.
On the first floor of the museum there is a "Royal Cabinet of
Curiosities," which contains some very precious historical relics,
besides a great number of different objects from China, Japan, and the
Dutch colonies. Amongst other things there is the sword of that Ruyter
who began life as a rope-maker at Vlissingen, and became the greatest
admiral of Holland; Admiral Tromp's cuirass perforated by bullets; a
chair from the prison of the venerated Barneveldt; a box containing a
lock of hair from the head of that Van Speyk who in 1831, on the
Schelde, blew up his vessel to preserve the honor of the Dutch flag.
Here, too, is the complete suit of clothes worn by William the Silent
when he was assassinated at Delft--the blood-stained shirt, the jacket
made of buffalo skin pierced by bullets, the wide trousers, the large
felt hat; and in the same glass case are also preserved the bullets
and pistols of the assassin and the original copy of his
death-warrant.
This modest, almost rough dress, that was worn at the zenith of his
power and glory by William, the head of the Republic of the
Netherlands, is a noble testimony to the patriarchal simplicity of
Dutch manners. There is perhaps no other modern nation, equally
prosperous, that has been less given to vanity and pomp. It is related
that when the Earl of Leicester, who was commissioned by Queen
Elizabeth, arrived in Holland, and when Spinola came to sue for peace
in the name of the King of Spain, their magnificence was considered
almost infamous. It is further said that the Spanish ambassadors who
came to the Hague in 1608 to negotiate the famous truce saw some
deputies of the Dutch States seated in a field, meanly clad and
breakfasting on a little bread and cheese which they had carried in
their saddle-bags. The Grand Pensionary, John De Witt, the adversary
of Louis XIV., kept only one servant. Admiral Ruyter lived at
Amsterdam in the house of a poor man and swept out his own bedroom.
Another very curious object in the museum is a cabinet which opens in
front like a book-case, representing in all its most minute details
the inside of a luxurious Amsterdam house at the beginning of the
eighteenth century. The Czar, Peter the Great, during his stay in
Amsterdam, commissioned a rich citizen of that town to make for him
this toy house, in order that he might take it back to Russia as a
souvenir of Holland. The rich citizen, whose name was Brandt, executed
the order like an honest Dutchman, slowly and well. The best
cabinet-makers in Holland made the furniture, the cleverest
silversmiths the plate, the most accurate printers printed the tiny
books, the finest miniature-painters painted the pictures; the linen
was prepared in Flanders, the hangings were made at Utrecht. After
twenty-five years of work all the rooms were ready. In the nuptial
chamber everything was prepared for the confinement of the young
mistress; in the dining-room stood a microscopic tea service on a
table which was the size of a crown; the picture-gallery, which was
seen through a magnifying glass, was complete; in the kitchen was
everything needful to prepare a savory dinner for a group of
Liliputians; there was a library, and a cabinet of Chinese objects,
bird-cages full of birds, prayer-books, carpets, linen for a whole
family trimmed with lace and fine embroidery: there were lacking only
a married couple, a lady's maid, and a cook rather smaller than
ordinary marionettes. But there was one drawback: the house cost a
hundred and twenty thousand francs, and the Czar, who as all know, was
an economical man, refused it, and Brandt, to shame the imperial
avarice, presented it to the Museum of the Hague.
In the streets of the Hague, from the first day, I had met women
dressed in such a peculiar manner that I had followed them to observe
every particular of their costume. At first sight I thought that they
must belong to some religious order or that they were hermits,
pilgrims, or women of some nomadic tribes which were passing through
Holland. They wore immense straw hats lined with flowered calico,
short chocolate-colored monk's cloaks made of serge and lined with red
cloth; their petticoats were also of serge, short and puffed out as
though they wore crinolines; they wore black stockings and white
wooden shoes. In the morning they might be seen going to market
bearing on their heads baskets full of fish or driving carts drawn by
dogs. They usually went alone or in pairs, without any men. They
walked in a peculiar manner, taking long strides, with a certain air
of despondency, like those who are accustomed to walking on the sand;
there was a sadness in their expression and appearance which
harmonized with the monastic austerity of their attire.
I asked a Dutchman who they were, and the only answer he gave me was,
"Go to Scheveningen."
Scheveningen is a village two miles from the Hague, and connected with
it by a straight road bordered along its whole length by several rows
of beautiful elms, which form a perfect shade. On either side of the
road, beyond the elms, there are small villas, pavilions, and cottages
with roofs that look like the kiosks of the gardens, and with facades
of a thousand fantastic shapes, all bearing the usual inscriptions
inviting to repose and pleasure. This road is the favorite promenade
of the citizens of the Hague on Sunday evenings, but on the other days
of the week it is almost always deserted. One meets only a few women
from Scheveningen, and now and then a carriage or the coaches that
come and go between the town and the village. As one walks along it
seems as though the road must lead to some royal palace surrounded by
a large garden or a wide park. The luxuriant vegetation, the shadow
and silence, call to mind the forests of Andalusia and Granada. One no
longer remembers Scheveningen and forgets that he is in Holland.
[Illustration: On the Road to Scheveningen.]
When the end of the road is reached the change of scene is so
sudden that it seems unreal. The vegetation, the shade, the likeness
to Granada,--all have disappeared, and one stands in the midst of
dunes, sand, and desert; one feels the salt wind blow and hears its
dull confused sound. From the summit of one of the dunes one may see
the North Sea.
One who has seen only the Mediterranean is impressed by a new and
profound feeling at sight of that sea and shore. The beach is formed
of very fine, light-colored sand, over which the outermost edges of
the waves flow up and down like a carpet which is being continually
folded and unfolded. This sandy sea-shore extends to the foot of the
first dunes, which are steep, broken, corroded mounds deformed by the
eternal beating of the waves. Such is the Dutch coast from the mouth
of the Meuse to the Helder. There are no mollusks, no star-fish, no
shells or crabs; there is not a single bush or blade of grass. Nothing
is seen but sand, waste, and solitude.
The sea is no less mournful than the coast. It corresponds closely to
one's ideas of the North Sea, formed by reading about the superstitious
terrors of the ancients, who believed it to be driven by eternal winds and
peopled by gigantic monsters. Near the shore its color is yellowish,
farther out a pale green, and still farther out a dreary blue. The horizon
is usually veiled by the mist, which often descends even to the shore and
hides all the waters with its thick curtain, which is raised to show only
the waves that come to die on the sand and some shadowy fisherman's boat
close to land. The sky is almost always gray, overcast with great clouds
which throw dense changeable shadows on the waters: in places these are as
black as night, and bring to mind images of tempests and horrible
shipwrecks; in other parts the sky is lighted up by patches and wavy
streaks of bright light, which seem like motionless lightning or an
illumination from mysterious stars. The ceaseless waves gnaw the shore in
wild fury, with a prolonged roar which seems like a cry of defiance or the
wailing of an infinite crowd. Sea, sky, and earth regard each other
gloomily, as though they were three implacable enemies. As one
contemplates this scene some great convulsion of nature seems imminent.
The village of Scheveningen is situated on the dunes, which ward off
the sea, and hide it so entirely that from the shore nothing is to be
seen but the cone-shaped church-steeple rising like an obelisk in the
midst of the sand. The village is divided into two parts, one of which
is composed of elegant houses representing every kind of Dutch shapes
and colors, and built for the use of strangers, with "to let" posted
on them in various languages. The other part, in which the natives
live, consists of black cottages, little streets, and retreats which
foreigners never think of entering.
The population of Scheveningen, which numbers only a few thousands, is
almost entirely composed of fishermen, the greater number of whom are
very poor. The village is still one of the principal stations of the
herring fishery, where are cured those celebrated fish to which
Holland owes her riches and power. But the profits of this industry go
to the captains of the fishing vessels, and the men of Scheveningen,
who are employed as sailors, hardly earn a livelihood. On the beach,
in front of the village, many of those wide staunch boats with a
single mast and a large square sail may always be seen ranged in line
on the sand one beside the other, like the Greek galleys on the coast
of Troy: thus they are safe from the gusts of wind. The flotilla,
accompanied by a steam sloop, starts early in June, directing its
course toward the Scottish coast. The first herrings taken are at once
sent to Holland, and conveyed in a cart ornamented with flags to the
king, who in exchange for this present gives five hundred florins.
These boats make catches of other fish as well, which are in part sold
at auction on the sea-shore, and in part are given to the Scheveningen
fishermen, who send their wives to sell them at the Hague market.
Scheveningen, like all the other villages of the coast, Katwijk,
Vlaardingen, Maassluis, is a village that has lost its former
prosperity in consequence of the decline of the herring fishery,
owing, as every one knows, to the competition of England and the
disastrous wars. But poverty, instead of weakening the character of
this small population, beyond doubt the most original and poetical in
Holland, has strengthened it. The inhabitants of Scheveningen in
appearance, character, and habits seem like a foreign tribe in
comparison with the people of their own country. They dwell but two
miles from a large city, and yet preserve the manners of a primitive
people that has always lived in isolation. As they were centuries ago,
so are they now. No one leaves their village, and no one who is not a
native ever enters it: they intermarry, they speak a language of their
own, they all dress in the same style and in the same colors, as did
their fathers' fathers. At the time of the fishing only the women and
children remain in the village; the men all go to sea. They carry
their Bibles with them on their departure. On board they neither drink
nor swear nor laugh. When the stormy seas toss their little boats on
the crests of the waves, they close all the apertures and await death
with resignation. At the same moment their wives are singing psalms,
shut in their cottages rocked by the wind and beaten by the rain.
Those little dwellings, which have witnessed so many mortal griefs,
which have heard the sobs of so many widows, which have seen the
sacred joys of happy return and the disconsolate departure of many
husbands, with their cleanliness, their white curtains, with the
clothes and shirts of the sailors hanging at the windows,--tell of the
free and dignified poverty of their inmates. No vagabonds nor fallen
women come out of these homes; no inhabitant of Scheveningen has ever
deserted the sea, and none of her daughters has ever refused the hand
of a sailor. Both men and women show by their carriage and the
expression of their faces a serious dignity that commands respect.
They greet you without bending their heads, and look you in the face
as much as to say, "We have no need of any one."
In this little village there are two schools, and it is a curious
sight to see a swarm of fair-haired children with slates under their
arms and pencils in their hands disperse at certain hours among these
poverty-stricken streets.
Scheveningen is not only a village famous for the originality of its
inhabitants which all foreigners visit and all artists paint. There
are, besides, two great bathing establishments, where English,
Russians, Germans, and Danes meet in the summer. The flower of the
Northern aristocracy, princes and ministers, indeed half the Almanach
de Gotha, come here; then there are balls, fantastic illuminations,
and fireworks on the sea. The two establishments are placed on the
dunes, and at all hours of the day certain carriages which look like
gypsy caravans, drawn by strong horses, are driven from the shore into
the sea, where they turn round. Whereupon ladies step out from them
and bathe in the water, letting their fair hair blow about in the
wind. At night the band plays, the visitors walk out, and the beach
is enlivened by an elegant, festive, ever-changing crowd, in which
every language is heard and the beauty of every country is
represented. A few steps distant from this gayety the misanthrope can
find solitude and seclusion on the dunes, where the music faintly
strikes his ear like a far-off echo, and the houses of the fishermen
show him their lights, directing his thoughts to domestic life and
peace.
The first time I went to Scheveningen I took a walk on those dunes
which have been so often painted by artists, the only heights on the
immense Dutch plain that intercept the view--rebellious children of
the sea, whose progress they oppose, being at the same time the
prisoners and the guardsmen of Holland. There are three tiers of these
dunes, forming a triple bulwark against the ocean: the outer is the
most barren, the centre the highest, and the inner the most
cultivated. The medium height of these mountains of sand is not
greater than fifteen metres, and all together they do not extend into
the land for more than a French league. But as there are no higher
elevations near or remote, they produce the false impression of a vast
mountainous region. The eye sees valleys, gorges, precipices, views
that appear distant and are close at hand--the tops of neighboring
dunes on which we imagine a man ought to appear as large as a child,
and on which instead he seems a giant. Viewed from a height, this
region looks like a yellow sea, tempestuous yet motionless. The
dreariness of this desert is increased by a wild vegetation, which
seems like the mourning of the dead and abandoned nature--thin,
fragile grass, flowers with almost transparent petals, juniper,
sweet-broom, rosemary, through which every now and then skips a
rabbit. Neither house, tree, nor human being is to be seen for miles.
Now and then ravens, curlews, and sea-gulls fly past. Their cries and
the rustling of the shrubs in the wind are the only sounds that break
the silence of the solitude. When the sky is black the dead color of
the earth assumes a sinister hue, like the fantastic light in which
objects appear when seen through colored glass. It is then, when
standing alone in the midst of the dunes, that one feels a sense
almost of fear, as if one were in an unknown country hopelessly
separated from any inhabited land, and one looks anxiously at the
misty horizon for the shadow of a building to reassure him.
In the whole of my walk I met but one or two peasants. The Dutch
peasants usually speak to the people they meet on the road--a rare
thing in a Northern country. Some pull off their caps at the side with
a curious gesture, as if they did it for a joke. Usually they say
"Good-morning" or "Good-evening" without looking at the person they
are greeting. If they meet two people, they say, "Good-evening to you
both," or if more than two, "Good-evening to you all." On a pathway in
the middle of the first dunes I saw several of those poor fishermen
who spend the whole day up to their waists in water, picking up the
shells that are used to make a peculiar cement or to spread over
garden-paths instead of sand. It must cost them at least half an hour
of hard labor to take off the enormous leather boots that they wear to
go into the sea; this would give an excuse to an Italian sailor for
swearing by all the saints. But these men, on the contrary, perform
the task with a composure that makes one sleepy, without giving way to
any movement of impatience, nor would they raise their heads until
they had finished even if a cannon were to be fired off.
On the dunes, near a stone obelisk recording the return of William of
Orange from England after the fall of the French dominion, I saw for
the first time one of those sunsets which awaken in us Italians a
feeling of wonder no less than that awakened in people from the North
by the sunsets at Naples and Rome. The sun, because of the refraction
of light by the mists which always fill the air in Holland, is greatly
magnified, and diffuses through the clouds and on the sea a veiled and
tremulous splendor like the reflection of a great fire. It seemed as
if another sun had unexpectedly appeared on the horizon, and was
setting, never again to show itself on earth. A child might well have
believed the words of a poet who said, "In Holland the sun dies," and
the most cold-blooded man must have allowed a farewell to escape his
lips.
As I have spoken of my walk to Scheveningen, I will mention two other
pleasant excursions that I made from the Hague last winter.