"even among his technically well-equipped contemporaries; by virtue of
his isolated vision, he is of all the Little Dutchmen the one inimitable
weaver of spells."
=Jan Wijnants's Love for the Dunes.=--Jan Wijnants (1615-80) has two
pictures in the Mauritshuis, Clearing in the Forest (1659) and Road
through the Dunes (1675). Wijnants, the Haarlemite, loved his dunes, and
when he lived for years in Amsterdam (probably he died there), he
painted them even more frequently,--every little hill, with its sandy
rises and with little stunted trees, and those roads marked with deep
wagon-ruts, almost always bright and illumined with warm sunshine. How
had he observed them? How did he always know how to discover the
paintable spot? Frankly, his fancy sometimes made the hills somewhat
higher than we really find them at Haarlem; indeed, sometimes, he
created landscapes with so poetic a flight, or we might say he sometimes
composed them to such an extent that in truth we might seek them in vain
in Holland; as, for instance, the great pictures in the Munich museum.
We are, therefore, forced to conclude that he had seen Claude Lorraine's
pictures, and wanted to paint somewhat in the same spirit. In Haarlem he
was painted by Wouwermans, and as a fine little cavalier.
=His Pictures enlivened by other Artists.=--When he settled down in
Amsterdam in 1660, the always ready Adriaen van de Velde often assisted
him by enlivening his landscapes with charming little figures. He had no
idea that at present a Wijnants would be so much more highly valued on
account of his little figures than it would be without them. Lingelbach
undertook this work later, straining after Van de Velde but not
reaching him. In his early pictures, Wijnants is somewhat labored; but
by and by he acquires that sureness of painting which must have become
ever easier to him because he almost always painted the same subjects
and the same style of landscape. In his last pictures he was quite broad
and decorative in style, but less convincing. One picture with fine
little figures by Lingelbach bears the date 1675. In his Clearing in the
Forest (1659) he has depicted his favorite subjects: the old oaks
mutilated by the storm and partly stripped of their bark; the fallen
trunk of a tree and large, handsome plants, whose leaves pour raindrops
over the blades of grass that have pushed their way up between them. Van
de Velde has added to this lovely landscape a distant farm, cattle
walking along the road, and a pond crossed by a rustic bridge. "With
such simple objects," exclaims Blanc, "Wijnants and his pupil have
produced a masterpiece, expressing a poetry that few could perhaps
explain, but which every well-organized man can feel."
=Neglect of Dutch Scenery by Dutch Artists.=--Wijnants, like Van Goyen,
is not only an excellent painter but chief of a school. Until their time
the artists of the Netherlands hunted for scenery outside of their
country; for instance, Memling and Saftleven chose the borders of the
Rhine; others, like Savery, liked to wander in the Tyrol; others, like
Paul Bril, visited the Alps; others, like Everdingen, went to Norway to
get inspiration from pine forests and foaming cascades; and Asselijn,
Berghem, Jan Both, Moucheron, and Pynacker sought the sunny clime of
classic Italy. Into the "Italian landscapes," which they either brought
home or finished from memory when they returned, they frequently
introduced among the classic ruins and sunlit verdure the cattle and
peasants of their own country.
=Wijnants the Leader of a new School.=--Wijnants was one of the first to
take pleasure in his own country. In the environs of Haarlem, his native
town, he saw much that would make pictures of charm; so, while other
painters were roaming in foreign lands, he took walks in the
neighboring meadows and followed the paths that led to the dunes,
noticing everything on the way,--the tufts of grass, the shrubs, the
moss-covered stones, the trees, the roads, the hillocks, the flowers,
and taking note of the reflections of light on the bark of the trees,
the lichens growing on the stump of a tree, the common bugloss, burdock,
and thistle, and the swarming insects. Wijnants was the first to show
that poetry was to be found in the lonely walk that led to the sea.
=His Influence on other Artists.=--Nature seems to have been his chief
master; but he soon became the master of others. Adriaen van de Velde,
for instance, feeling his vocation for landscape, entered his studio in
Haarlem. It is said that one day his wife said to him, "Wijnants, this
child is your pupil to-day, but one day he will be your master." Instead
of being jealous, the painter never ceased to boast of his pupil's
talent, and even allowed him to contribute the figures in many of his
landscapes,--for Wijnants could paint only earth, trees, and sky. A
great number of the figures in Wijnants's pictures, therefore, are the
work of Adriaen van de Velde, who always introduces them modestly and in
such a way that they render the landscape even more attractive. Philips
Wouwermans and Lingelbach also were employed by Wijnants to add figures
to his pictures, and a few times Adriaen van Ostade aided him, also
Gael, Schellinkx (who painted the dunes very well himself), Jan
Wouwermans, Nicholas de Helt Stockade, the painter of battles, and
Wyntranck, the clever painter of farmyard animals.
=Dutch Landscape-Painters who followed Wijnants.=--Wijnants was, as has
been said, one of the creators of the Dutch landscape, one of the first
to imitate Nature in her humbler expression, finding beauty in common
things. After him came such landscape-artists as Philips Wouwermans,
Adriaen van de Velde, Daniel Schellinkx, Isaac Ostade, Karel Dujardin,
Paul Potter, and in some respects the great Ruisdael.
=Van de Velde's Favorite Subjects.=--Adriaen van de Velde (1635-72) was
a painter of animals, figures, interiors (rarely religious and
historical subjects). He is worthily represented in The Hague Gallery by
two pictures: a Dutch Roadstead and a Landscape with Cattle. Van de
Velde is also responsible for the figures in the pictures of Van der
Hagen (No. 47), Van der Heyde (No. 53), and Wijnants (No. 212), in this
gallery. Bode says:
=Impressionism and Naturalism.=--"Adriaen van de Velde is one of the
few artists by whom landscape and figures composed in a masterly
manner are both felt and thought out harmoniously. He stands so close
to our modern impression as does scarcely another of his day, being so
simple in his motives and going so straight to nature, that he knows
how to reveal the intimate connection between the outside world and
our own feeling. A real painter of moods, he excels in awakening in us
dark and gloomy feelings; his shadowy forest-glimpses on summer days,
with herdsmen reclining beside their panting cattle in obvious rest.
His bright mornings with the hunting-parties called together to the
halloo, with the gentlemen and nobles promenading on the walks near
their equipages, ring fresh and gay in the heart of the spectator; in
his homelike evening-feeling with the sound of the returning cattle,
he affects us with the feeling of happy departure and well-earned
rest."
[Illustration: A. VAN DE VELDE
A Dutch Roadstead]
=His Helpfulness to other Artists.=--The strong feeling in the figures,
and, particularly, the lifelike color of the landscape, is so individual
that almost all the landscape-painters of his home--Amsterdam--made use
of his assistance in peopling their landscapes,--Wijnants, Ruisdael,
Hobbema, Hackaert, F. R. de Moucheron, Ph. de Koninck, Verboom, and,
above all, Jan van der Heyde, have made excessive use of his services
and ability. Even with these artists, who were so foreign to each other
in style, the figures that he introduced are so fine that the force of
the landscape in both feeling and artistic effect is strengthened in the
highest degree; indeed, many of these pictures have attained a higher
fame solely through these contributions by the hand of Adriaen van de
Velde.
=His Skill as a Colorist.=--"The paintings of this artist have an
additional attraction in their rich and harmonious coloring, the
fineness of the tone, and the peculiar tender manipulation of the
pigments, which have such a soothing artistic effect.
"Some pictures painted in his last years have suffered by the sinking
in and change of color (notably the increase of blue in the green
leafage), by which some of their effect has been lost. The Landscape
with Cattle has not sunk in; but it has, nevertheless, lost some of
its original color in the green of the trees. The idyllic landscape
with its joyous, bright sunlight and its peaceful animal life, is a
good specimen of this style of Van de Velde's work. The picture is
signed 'A. V. Velde, 1663.'"[5]
=His Sea Pieces.=--The second picture of this artist in this gallery, A
Dutch Strand (1665) with numerous figures, is more important. Two
similar views of the seashore by him are at Cassel and in the Six
collection; and all these examples show that great and simple
representation of the sea, in which he is also remarkable for his fine
poetic feeling, equalling that in similar works by his brother Willem.
=Wouwermans's Delight in painting Horses.=--Philips Wouwermans's
(1619-68) half century of life was industriously spent in producing
about eight hundred pictures. Although his preference for the
representation of the horse is evident in almost all his works, there is
great variety in the treatment. Wouwermans is at the same time a
striking landscape-painter. In many of his pictures the landscape is
astonishingly often foreign and sometimes even Italian in subject, and
the figures are merely lay-figures. The Country Riding-School plainly
exhibits the artist's delight in horses. How beautifully painted are the
grays on the right! He draws a brown horse so often that it must have
been in particular favor. Some of his pictures must certainly have cost
the painter a great deal of time, especially when numerous figures occur
in them; as, for instance, in his horse-fairs and battle pictures.
=The Fruits of his Great Industry.=--It would appear that Wouwermans was
well paid, for he was able to give his daughter, who married the
flower-painter, De Fromantiou, a handsome dower,--Houbraken says 20,000
gulden! He was buried with pomp in Haarlem, on May 23, 1668, having
bequeathed to his widow, who was destined not to survive him two years,
a very good estate; and to us such a treasury of his art that we can
enjoy it all over the world, in almost every important public and
private collection.
=The Variety and Abundance of his Works.=--Whether he shows us the horse
wildly rearing in the battle or quietly watering at the river, or being
trained by an expert hand, or returning home to a well-cared-for stall
after a long ride, we always admire again the rich variety of the
master, who, an eminent horseman of knowledge and enthusiasm, never
wearies us as such. Many of his pictures are a true reproduction of the
farm life, or of the warfare of his day; and, on that account, have,
moreover, a historical value. Dresden alone possesses sixty-two, and St.
Petersburg fifty, of his pictures. The Hague Gallery has to be content
with nine. These are a Battle; the Hunt with Falcon; Arrival and
Departure from an Inn; A Country House; The Hay-Wagon; the Hunters'
Halt, a charming example of his earliest period; A Landscape with
Horses; and a Camp. In all these the horse plays an important part.
=Description of The Hay-Wagon.=--The Hay-Wagon is a popular work
representing a large canal and a large hay-wagon drawn by two horses,
and a man on horseback with a woman behind him on a pillion; farther
away are seen men loading boats with the hay. In the foreground on the
right are a woman with a little boy, a chariot drawn by a horse which is
led by a peasant.
[Illustration: P. WOUWERMANS
The Hay Wain]
=The Arrival at an Inn.=--The beautiful Arrival at an Inn represents an
inn and a barn. On the one side a coach is arriving, and on the left a
mounted lady and cavalier. Others are getting booted and spurred and
saddling mettlesome steeds prefatory for departure. In the left
foreground, a dwarf, a charlatan, and a monkey, eating a simple meal,
regardless of the bustle around them, give a touch of the life of the
travelling mountebank. A handsome castle closes the view on the left.
[Illustration: P. WOUWERMANS
The Arrival at the Inn]
=Crowe's Appreciation of Wouwermans.=--"Wouwermans's authentic works
are distinguished by great spirit and animation, and are infinitely
varied and full of incident, though dealing recurrently with cavalry
battle pieces, military encampments, scenes of cavalcades, and hunting
and hawking parties. He is equally excellent in his vivacious
treatment of figures, in his skilful animal painting, and in his
admirable and appropriate introduction of landscape backgrounds. Three
different styles have been observed as characteristic of the various
periods of his art. His earlier works are marked by the prevalence of
a foxy brown coloring, and by a tendency to an angular form in the
draughtsmanship; the productions of his middle period have greater
purity and brilliancy, and his latest and greatest pictures possess
more of force and breadth, and are full of a delicate silvery gray
tone."[6]
=Reynolds on Wouwermans's Three Different Manners.=--On his visit to the
Royal Collection in 1781, Sir Joshua Reynolds was greatly impressed with
the pictures of this artist, and said:
"Here are many of the best works of Wouwermans whose pictures are well
worthy the attention and close examination of a painter. One of the
most remarkable of them is known by the name of The Hay-Cart; another,
in which there is a coach and horses, is equally excellent. There are
three pictures hanging close together in his three different manners:
his middle manner is by much the best; the first and last have not
that liquid softness which characterizes his best works. Besides his
great skill in coloring, his horses are correctly drawn, very
spirited, of a beautiful form, and always in unison with their ground.
Upon the whole, he is one of the few painters whose excellence in his
way is such as leaves nothing to be wished for."
Johannes Lingelbach (1623-74), a native of Frankfort-on-the-Main,
settled in Amsterdam on his return from Italy. He was frequently
employed by Wijnants to insert figures and animals in his landscapes. He
was a successful imitator of Wouwermans.
=Crowe's Estimate of Lingelbach's Powers.=--"Lingelbach's coloring, as
was almost always the case with Wijnants's, and also with Wouwermans's
in his latest manner, is characterized by a cool and often delicate
silvery tone, which with him sometimes degenerates into coldness and
want of harmony. In his flesh, especially, a cold red tone often
prevails, added to which, neither in clearness nor impasto, does he
equal the above-named masters. He ranks, however, high for skill in
composition, good drawing, careful execution, to which is sometimes
added a happy vein of humor. He may be studied under all his different
aspects in the galleries of the Louvre, The Hague, and Amsterdam. Of
the four pictures by him in the gallery of The Hague, the Italian
Seaport, dated 1670, is remarkable for a power and warmth quite
unusual in this painter."[7]
=Examples showing the Variety of Lingelbach's Style.=--The variety of
his style is well exhibited in The Hague Gallery by four pictures of
different dates. These are the Italian Seaport, with large figures,
signed and dated 1670; the Departure of Charles II. from Scheveningen
for England in 1660, a very rich, luminous, and fine work; a small
Cavalry March, in which the little figures are beautifully executed and
are thoroughly original; and a Landscape with a Hay-Wagon, much in the
manner of Philips Wouwermans.
=Weakness of the Mauritshuis in Marines.=--The Mauritshuis is weak in
marines: two by Willem van de Velde; three by Backhuysen, two by Abraham
Storck, a view of the Amstel at Amsterdam by Torenburg (1737-86), a few
Italian Seaports, and a few Beaches at Scheveningen painted by the
landscape artists are all that the gallery owns.
=Excellence of W. van de Velde's Marines.=--Willem van de Velde
(1633-1707) stands very high in the ranks of the marine painters of the
seventeenth century. In the last years of that century we have artists
like Simon de Vlieger, Jan van de Capelle, Hendrik Dubbels, and Abraham
van Beyerex (in his rare marines); but Van de Velde is a master in his
sphere, especially when he represents the calm sea under bright
sunlight.
In his View on the Y we obtain enjoyment from the fine aerial
perspective, the correct drawing of the ships, and the numerous little
figures. The accuracy of the detail does not detract from the wonderful
composition, the play of the sunlight on sail and water, and the
beautiful sky, lightly flecked with clouds. Probably, the gaily
decorated ship on the left is the yacht of the Princes of Orange; the
boat which is being rowed away from it is bringing important visitors to
shore, while the trumpeter on the ship loudly announces their departure.
Although not of the very first rank, this picture belongs to the best
work of the master's middle period.
The other picture, of exactly the same size, is also identical in
subject and treatment. Both are small. The other picture owned in the
Mauritshuis is the Capture of the Royal Prince (June 18, 1666).
=His Greatness as a Marine Painter.=--"There is no question that
Willem van de Velde the younger is the greatest marine painter of the
whole Dutch school. His untiring study of nature of which his numerous
sepia drawings are the best evidence, his perfect knowledge of lineal
and aerial perspective and the incomparable technical process which he
inherited from his school,--all these qualifications enabled him to
represent the great element under every form, whether that of the
raging storm, the gentlest crisping wind, or of the profoundest calm,
with the utmost truth of form and color. Nor are his skies, with their
transparent ether and light and airy clouds, less entitled to
admiration than his seas; the surface of which he diversified, with
the purest feeling for the picturesque, by various vessels, near and
distant, which are drawn with a knowledge that extends to every rope.
Finally his various lightnings create the most charming effect of
light and shade. With this combination of qualities, so calculated to
please a seafaring nation, it is no wonder that he should have become
the most popular painter with the Dutch and English."[8]
=The Fulness of his Knowledge of the Sea and Ships.=--Both England and
Holland, the two greatest sea nations, agree that Willem van de Velde
was the greatest marine painter up to his time. In fact, no one had so
well observed the motion of the waters, their breaking, or their repose;
and no one knew so well the habits of sailors, the rigging of boats,
their behavior and their variety. He knew how to make them picturesque,
whether isolated between the sky and the water in the most beautiful
lines, or in cleverly foreshortening them while they gently rock on the
waves singly, or in picturesque groups. Nobody has better understood the
profound calm of the ocean, or better expressed the emotion produced by
an infinite horizon.
=The Van de Velde Family.=--The family was talented. Willem the Elder,
born at Leyden in 1611, was a magnificent draughtsman, and taught his
sons, Willem and Adriaen, drawing. Willem, however, became a pupil of
Simon de Vlieger, and the pictures that he sent to his father, then in
the service of the English king, astonished the Court. James II. sent
for the young man and offered him a pension. In England he frequently
colored his father's drawings; and on the Thames from Greenwich to
London he had a great opportunity for the study of shipping.
=The Simplicity of W. van de Velde's Pictures.=--With very simple
details, Willem van de Velde produces marvellous effects. He paints the
ocean from the shore to the distant horizon; and this straight line is
in beautiful contrast to the rounded clouds, while the severity of the
tall masts is relieved by the curves of the puffing sails. Sometimes a
group of fishermen on the beach or the end of a wharf of piles is seen
in the foreground; but he more frequently begins his picture in the
middle distance and gives the foreground up to waves slightly agitated
or with a buoy tossing in the rising tide, in such a way as to suggest
that the picture was painted not from the shore but from a vessel at
anchor.
=W. van de Velde compared with other Painters.=--Sir Joshua Reynolds
said: "Another Raphael might be born; but there could never be a second
Willem van de Velde"; and Havard calls him "not only the greatest marine
painter of the Dutch school, but also one of the greatest in the whole
world." Blanc draws the following distinction between Van de Velde and
Backhuysen: "Backhuysen makes us fear the sea, whilst Van de Velde makes
us love it."
=Backhuysen, a Painter of Ships and Shipping.=--Backhuysen (1631-1708)
probably owed his darker moods to his master Allart van Everdingen, who
was a pupil of Pieter Molijn (1600-54), whose works are now so rare, and
who was also one of the founders of Dutch landscape-painting. Backhuysen
was a painter of ships and shipping, as well as of the sea, and had a
practical knowledge of nautical matters.
=Examples showing his Style.=--Three pictures in The Hague Gallery
afford good examples for study of his style. One, Entrance to a Dutch
Port, dated 1693, shows an agitated sea, very remarkable for the happy
distribution of sunlight and shadows of clouds upon the water, and broad
yet delicate treatment; another is a View of the Wharf Belonging to the
Dutch East India Company, and is dated 1696; and the third has for its
subject The Landing of William III. of England in the Oranje Polder in
1692.
=Imitators of Backhuysen.=--Pictures by Jan van de Capelle and Jan
Dubbels often pass for Backhuysen's; and another imitator is Abraham
Storck, who is greatly inferior in elegance of touch. Good examples of
Storck's style--a Marine and a Shore--hang in The Hague Gallery. Storck
was much influenced by Lingelbach. The latter was also quite successful
with his harbors and quays, with their shipping and human figures.
=Simon de Vlieger as a Painter of the Ocean.=--A greater painter,
however, is Simon de Vlieger (1601-59), who is supposed to have studied
under Jan van Goyen, and painted landscapes in the style of that master;
he is famous for his marines. He frequently painted sea pieces which
included the coast. He was the first to represent the ocean in its
varying moods. His execution is free and soft, and his aerial
perspective very fine. Like the majority of the Dutch painters he loved
to paint Scheveningen. His Beach at Scheveningen, signed and dated 1643,
is a fine example of his work.
=The Diversity of his Subjects.=--"De Vlieger often paints birds of
the farmyard, which, both in truth and delicacy, are equal to anything
produced either by Hondecoeter or Flamen. His horses, hares, and sheep
may certainly pair with those of Van der Hecke, Jouckeer, or Jean
Leducq; his pigs are observed differently from those of Karel
Dujardin, but perhaps they are more true to nature because he has not
put any malice or irony into his representation of them. The diversity
of his subjects, the talent he displays in grouping figures and
animals in an extensive landscape, or in a boat passing along a canal,
or on the beach of Scheveningen where, in The Hague picture, we see
them huddling together as if the ocean had just cast them ashore with
its shells and fishes; the art of lighting them so as to delight the
eyes without too greatly distracting the mind from the spectacle of
vast nature and the infinite ocean--all that makes Simon de Vlieger
one of the most remarkable Dutch masters."[9]