Painters.=--First in this group comes Jan David de Heem (1606-03 or 04),
the pupil of his father, David de Heem, and not only the first to
develop the art of fruit-painting, but the greatest master of the class
that the school produced. In the beautiful arrangement of his subjects
he has been compared to Giovanni da Udine. He is also a great colorist;
some of his early works approach Rembrandt in their golden tone.
Although his two most important works are in the galleries of Vienna and
Berlin, and splendid examples hang in the Louvre, Dresden, and Cassel,
the Mauritshuis owns two very fine examples. One is a Table with Fruits,
very tasteful in arrangement and soft in treatment; the other is a
Garland of Flowers and Fruits, enlivened with insects.
When Sir Joshua Reynolds visited the Prince of Orange's collection, he
saw these pictures and noted: "Fruits by De Heem, done with the utmost
perfection."
=His Greatness as a Painter of Fruits, Flowers, and Insects.=--De Heem
was one of the greatest painters of still life in Holland; no artist of
his class combined form and color more successfully. His drawing is
correct, and his colors are brilliant and combined harmoniously. He is
familiar with every object of stone and silver, every flower, whether
humble or gorgeous, every fruit of Europe or the tropics, every twig and
leaf and blossom. Burger has said of Heda, but it is true of De Heem,
that "he glorified insects, butterflies, and all the minute beings that
swarm in vegetation, and made the moths drink in cups of chased gold."
=His Pictures that point a Moral.=--De Heem was also famous for his
pictures that point a moral or illustrate a motto--those canvases known
as Vanitas. Here the snake lies coiled under the grass; there a skull
rests on blooming plants. "Gold and silver tankards or cups suggest the
vanity of earthly possessions; salvation is allegorized in a chalice
amid blossoms; death, as a crucifix inside a wreath." Sometimes De Heem
painted alone, or with men of his school, Madonnas or portraits
surrounded by festoons of fruits and flowers. He was so fond of the
festoon that he sometimes painted it alone. Sometimes, too, a nosegay is
figured alone.
=Cornelis de Heem's Subjects like those of his Father.=--The Hague
Gallery also owns Fruits by his son Cornelis (1631-95). The latter
painted precisely the same subjects as his father and with scarcely less
success. Still life, flowers, fruits, oysters, and lemons on a plate;
cold hams, boiled lobsters, flowers, knives, forks, glasses, watches,
clocks, etc., are all treated by him with the utmost cleverness. Crowe
says:
"He is not inferior to his father in drawing and warmth of color, and
with an equally solid impasto, almost surpasses him in melting
softness of touch. He is, however, in rare instances, somewhat
gaudier. Under these circumstances it is easy to understand that his
works are often mistaken for those of his father."
=Abraham Mignon, Pupil and Imitator of De Heem.=--Another pupil was
Abraham Mignon (1640-79), who is represented in the Mauritshuis by
Flowers and Fruits, and two canvases called Summer Flowers, which show
the influence of his master. Mignon's fruits and flowers have all the
bloom of nature; his butterflies and other insects seem to live and feed
on the leaves, buds, and blossoms; and the dewdrops on the leaves and
petals have all the transparency of real water. He was very popular in
his day and was overwhelmed with commissions.
=Jacob Walscapelle.=--Jacob Walscapelle is also supposed to have been a
pupil of De Heem, and many of his pictures have been attributed to one
of the De Heems.
=Maria van Oosterwyck, an Excellent Painter of Flowers.=--Another pupil
was Maria van Oosterwyck (1630-93), who usually painted flowers in vases
or glasses, and occasionally fruits. In 1882 the Mauritshuis acquired a
picture of Flowers, by this artist, who, perhaps, because of the rarity
of her pictures, is not so widely known as she deserves to be. Although
her flowers are not always arranged with taste and the colors are often
gaudy, yet Crowe thinks she represents them with the
"utmost truth of drawing, and with a depth, brilliancy, and juiciness
of local coloring unattained by any other flower-painter. At the same
time, her execution, in spite of great finish, is broad and free, and
the impasto excellent."
She was much admired in her day and received commissions from Louis
XIV., William III. of England, Augustus I. of Poland, and the Emperor
Leopold.
=Jan van Huysum, the Correggio of Flowers and Fruits.=--"If De Heem,
by the harmony of his warm golden color, be called the Titian of
flowers and fruits, Jan van Huysum's bright and sunny treatment
entitles him to the name of the Correggio of the same branch of art.
In masterly drawing and truth of single objects, both masters may be
classed on the same level, only that De Heem's principal subjects were
fruit; Van Huysum's were flowers, in which he entered into greater
detail; for instance, in the gloss of the tulip, the pollen of the
auricula, and the dewdrop on the petal. It is to these merits, fitted
as they are to the capacity of the greater number of admirers of art,
that Van Huysum owed the eager demand for, and high payment of his
pictures by princes and wealthy amateurs, even in his own day, and
also that of all painters of his class he still commands the highest
prices."[22]
=Van Huysum's Pictures in The Hague.=--Jan van Huysum (1682-1749) is not
so well represented in his own country as in the Louvre (which contains
eleven fine examples), Berlin, St. Petersburg, Munich, Hanover, and
Dresden. The Rijks owns but six, and The Hague only three,--an Italian
Landscape, Fruits, and Flowers. The two latter are such beautiful
examples of Van Huysum's art that they deserve study. In the one are
found that marvellous blush and downy bloom for which he was so famous,
while the other reveals his delicate treatment of petals and his
graceful arrangement. In Fruits, a peach, two plums, a small bunch of
grapes and some gooseberries are beautifully grouped, as to form and
color, on a marble table. Its pendant, Flowers, is an exquisite picture
of a full-blown rose and a rosebud, a pink and a convolvulus, placed on
a marble console. A butterfly of the admiral variety has alighted on the
rosebud.
=His Earliest Works.=--In his earliest period he painted landscapes
representing views of imaginary lakes and harbors, woods with tall,
lifeless trees, and classic buildings and ruins--finished in a glossy
and smooth style--which are now of little value in comparison with his
fruit and flower pieces. The Italian Landscape, which the Mauritshuis
acquired in 1816, is a very good example of this style.
=Fruits and Flowers his Forte.=--It is doubtful if any artist ever
surpassed Van Huysum in the representation of fruits and flowers, to
which he finally devoted himself with the greatest success. He set
himself the task of surpassing De Heem and Abraham Mignon; and he
studied the most exquisite fruits and flowers known. His taste in the
arrangement of his groups in elegant vases, of which the ornaments and
bas-reliefs were finished in the most polished and beautiful manner, and
in graceful baskets on marble tables, is generally considered to be
superior to that of any other flower-painter. He also shows great art in
relieving flowers of various colors against each other, and often they
stand out from a light transparent background. His fame rose to the
highest pitch, and the first florists of Holland were ambitious of
supplying him with their choicest flowers for subjects. Naturally,
therefore, we find on his canvases beautiful groups and bunches of
hyacinths, roses, pinks, primroses, and other garden buds and blossoms.
=His Skill in depicting Dewdrops and Insects.=--With marvellous skill he
frequently introduces dewdrops of incomparable transparency that trickle
down the leaves or sprinkle the fresh delicate petals. Butterflies and
other insects are also depicted with a truthfulness and precision that
give a perfect illusion, and often a bird's nest with eggs is
introduced.
=His Exquisite Taste.=--Jan van Huysum's pictures are so bright that
they have even been accused of being gaudy; but no critic has yet found
fault with his exquisite taste and faultless velvet-like finish that
seems to rival nature. His fruit pieces are inferior to his flowers,
though they are worthy of great admiration. Those painted on a clear or
yellow background are the most esteemed, and are distinguished from his
early works, which are usually on a dark one, by a superior style of
pencilling and a more harmonious color.
=Rachel Ruijsch.=--Another charming flower and fruit painter,--noted
especially for her flowers,--Rachel Ruijsch (1664-1750), is represented
in The Hague Gallery by two Bouquets. In 1693 she was married, but she
always signed her maiden name, and in several ways,--Ruijsch, Ruysch,
and Ruisch. She took great pains with her pictures, and the amount of
time spent on them limited their number. She is said to have given seven
years to two pictures, Flowers and Fruits, which she gave to one of her
daughters for a wedding present.
Blanc has most sympathetically described her qualities. He says:
=Her Truthfulness to Nature.=--"Whether she is painting the flowers of
the gardens or those of the field, which she groups so beautifully on
marble tables and calls around them fluttering butterflies and droning
bees, or beautiful ripe fruits that refresh the eyes and mind, Rachel
is always truthful, graceful, and clever. A colorist, she frankly
selects the brightest tones and combines them marvellously; a
draughtsman, she reproduces splendidly the most complicated forms,
while preserving to each plant its individual elegance, its aspect,
its way of holding itself, and foreshortening."
=Her Love of Nature.=--"In all justice, therefore, the Dutch rank
Rachel Ruijsch among their most excellent painters. She retained her
love of nature in all its freshness; it even seems as if she had a
weakness for rustic beauty, and that she found the same pleasure in
wandering about the country that others have in gardens and
greenhouses. Sometimes she even mingles thistles with her field
flowers, which she carelessly throws on a table; sometimes she chooses
an old tree-trunk overgrown with moss, upon which she places her bunch
of spring blossoms, while the insects hum around them, and the wings
of a beetle gleam through the shadow. Sometimes she brings a green
frog from some pool in the neighboring meadow and gives him a place in
her picture. In the infinite little world of great nature Rachel finds
no creature unworthy of her brush--not even the snail that crawls on
the leaf and is hunted away by the gardener, nor the little worm who
moves his variegated rings and spins his thread, destined to clothe
magnificent ladies, as he elevates himself into the air. Those insects
that we deem vile she honors in her paintings: she lets them lie on
her marble tables, crawl on the stem of the glass in which her peonies
and pinks are arranged; and she even allows them to devour the plums
and grapes of her picturesque collations. Nothing, however, is more
charming than her birds' nests, lined with lightest down and tiny
blades of grass, moss, and straw, expressed with the art and industry
of a wren or a tomtit."
The larger picture in The Hague Gallery is a charming group of roses and
tulips, with butterflies and insects.
Rachel Ruijsch was a pupil of Willem van Aelst (1626-83?), whose Flowers
(dated 1663) and Still Life (dated 1671) hang in The Hague Gallery.
=Description of One of Willem van Aelst's Pictures.=--M. de Burtin has
described a picture by Willem van Aelst which gives an idea of all the
works of this master:
"A table covered with a crimson velvet carpet bordered with golden
fringe, on which stands a drinking-vessel of antique shape half filled
with Rhine wine. The sides of this glass cup reflect several times and
in different views the street with the most magical and astounding
way, and in the very centre you see the reflection of the painter
himself, holding his palette. On one side of the cup are placed, on a
glass dish, four superb peaches and some roasted chestnuts; on the
other side are bunches of red and white grapes. Butterflies and other
insects add to the illusion, and the vine and peach leaves are
artistically used to decorate the beautiful pyramidal group that
stands out from a looped-back curtain of brownish yellow."
=Resemblance of his Work to that of Van Huysum.=--Although his name is
less celebrated than that of Van Huysum, Willem Aelst is not very far
removed from him in his beautiful productions; and certainly he
surpasses Evert van Aelst (1602-58) who was his uncle and master.
Without carrying finish to excess and preserving a certain freedom of
touch, he knows how to express marvellously the delicate wings of a
butterfly, the down of a peach, the dewdrops on a bunch of grapes, the
feathers of a dead bird, and the wrinkles of a game-pouch.
=In Favor with Princes and Cardinals.=--Many of his works are in France,
where he spent four years, and in Italy, where he lived seven years
filling orders for princes and cardinals. He was only thirty years old
when he returned to his native town, Delft; but he removed to Amsterdam,
where his works brought high prices.
=His Favorite Subjects.=--The pictures by him representing dead birds
are, as respects picturesque arrangement, finely balanced harmony of
cool but transparent color, perfect nature in every detail, and
delicate, soft treatment, admirable types of the perfection of the Dutch
School. Specimens of this class are a picture in the Munich Gallery of
two dead partridges and instruments of the chase, and another in the
Berlin Museum signed "W. v. Aelst, 1653," representing a marble table
with two woodcocks and other small birds, and two French partridges
suspended above. His favorite subjects, however, were fruit and other
eatables, herrings, oysters, bread, etc., with glasses and gorgeous
vessels in gold and silver. Although Willem van Aelst owed much to his
uncle Evert van Aelst, so famous for his dead birds and instruments of
the chase, perhaps he owed still more to his other teacher, Otho
Marcellis van Schrieck (1613-73), who acquired celebrity, excelling in a
singular branch of art. He painted the humblest creatures,--frogs,
snails, lizards, worms, serpents, and curious plants. The name of his
master is unknown; but he painted entirely from nature and is said to
have kept a kind of museum of serpents, vipers, insects and other
curiosities. These he studied with great attention, and drew them with
extraordinary fidelity and care, reproducing also their glowing and
metallic hues.
=Two Pictures by Beijeren, and Two by Seghers.=--Another famous Flowers
is that by Abraham van Beijeren (1620 or 1621-75), which was acquired at
the Van Pappelendam sale in Amsterdam in 1889. A fine Fish and Lobster
by the same painter should also be studied. The visitor will perhaps
notice as he passes two pictures by Daniel Seghers (1590-1661), one a
garland of flowers around a statuette of the Virgin; the other, a
garland of flowers around the bust of William III. The bust was a later
addition.
=Other Painters belonging to the Same Group.=--An interesting and
curious work is Shells, by Balthasar van der Ast (?-1656). There is also
a still life (1644) by Pieter Claez. To this group should be added
Pieter Roestraeten (1627-1700), famous for his great vases of gold and
silver, bas-reliefs, musical instruments, etc., which he designed with
precision. He spent most of his time in London, where he was injured in
the Great Fire (1666). Belonging to the same group are Pieter de Ring
and Willem Kalf, whom we shall see in the Rijks, and the strange
Christoffel Pierson, whose specialty was still life (particularly the
attributes of the chase) and portraits. His works are very rare; but a
peculiar combination of portraiture and still life hangs in The Hague
Gallery, representing the pastor of the Protestant Church at Hoorn,
Joris Goethals, and noticeable for the number of hunting implements and
objects hanging on the wall. Though sombre and monotonous in tone, his
touch and drawing are masterly. He thoroughly understood composition and
distributed lights and shadows with skill. Pierson was turned aside from
painting historical subjects and portraits by the success of Leemens, a
painter of dead game, guns, etc., and speedily surpassed his model.
Jan van Os, Georgius Jacobus Johannes van Os, and Marie Margrita van Os
we shall see in the Rijks.
=Portrait of Rubens's Second Wife.=--Although Holland is not the land
where we can study Rubens (1577-1640) in all his greatness, yet the
Amsterdam Gallery and more particularly The Hague Gallery possess some
splendid pictures by his hand. In the latter hang the portraits of his
two wives. That of his second wife, the buxom Helena, whom he married on
December 6, 1630, and who bore him five children, is a masterpiece of
the first rank; certainly an entirely individual work of the artist's
later period.
=Much of Rubens's Work done by his Pupils.=--Thus we immediately come to
the question: What has the master himself and what have his pupils done
on it? No master has left behind him a larger amount of painted surface
of canvas and wood; but how unequal is the artistic value of all this
material! We know how that happened. Overwhelmed with pressing orders
and surrounded by a large throng of sometimes very able pupils, he often
only made a sketch, leaving the chief work to his best pupils, and
finally adding a few corrections; perhaps here or there a head or a
figure that particularly interested him. Rubens made no secret of this
fact; he often openly acknowledged what he and what his scholars had
done on a work.
=Dr. Sperling's Visit to Rubens's Studio.=--An eye-witness, the Danish
physician, Otto Sperling, who visited Rubens's studio in 1621, describes
the master as walking up and down in his vast hall among his many
pupils, making remarks and going over a picture here and there finally
with a few brush-strokes. The Doctor jocularly adds: "It is supposed
that everything is the work of Rubens, by which this man has amassed
enormous wealth, and has been rewarded by kings and princes with great
gifts and many jewels."
=His Pupils not very often allowed to assist him in Portraits.=--One
should remember that this assistance of his pupils was generally
confined to his greater historical pictures and church pieces; but the
portraits that Rubens painted are not always entirely the work of his
hand. Sometimes an order for a portrait was repeated, and his students
made the replica of a well-known personality. Rubens painted portraits
of small dimensions and then left them to be enlarged by able pupils;
but he himself added the final touches.
=Dr. Bredius on the Portraits of Rubens's Two Wives.=--"Even in the
case of the portrait of one of his wives, we are not quite sure
whether the work is exclusively his own. There exist such a marvellous
number of these portraits, and, moreover, of such varied artistic
value, that we must at last conclude that the family and friends of
these ladies, who belonged to the best families in Antwerp, all
ordered portraits from Rubens, who painted some of them entirely and
others only in part.
"While, for example, the present portrait of Rubens's first wife,
Isabella Brandt, whom he married in 1609, betrays the master's own
hand in the head and in part of the costume, the hands look to me to
be so extraordinarily like Van Dijck's work that I ask myself whether
the latter (about 1618) might not have had some part in this portrait.
On the other hand, the portrait of Helena Fourment, whom he married in
1630 (Isabella Brandt died in 1626) is handled with such a gush,
although very rapidly and with such geniality that hardly anybody
would say that this spirited portrait is not all his own.
"What flesh! what brilliance! what glow of color! what virtuosity in
the painting of the details and the material! What life streams from
this warm, youthful, proud wife upon her husband!"
Sir Joshua Reynolds describes these portraits thus: "Two portraits,
Kitcat size, by Rubens, of his two wives, both fine portraits, but
Eleanor Forman is by far the most beautiful and the best colored."
[Illustration: RUBENS
Helena Fourment]
=Description of Helena's Portrait.=--This is one of the most beautiful
of all Rubens's portraits of his second wife. Her face and figure are
not only wonderfully modelled and painted, but her red mouth has a
sweet, half-smiling expression, and dimples are ready to break out at
any moment and render the brilliant face even more brilliant. The eyes
are lustrous and handsome, beneath finely arched brows. The light silky
hair is roped with pearls, and a long plume falls gracefully from the
coquettish toque of velvet adjusted at an angle that suits the face
exactly. A pearl necklace and earrings adorn the ears and snowy neck, a
magnificent jewel with three pear-shaped pearls for pendants clasps the
front of the dress, jewels ornament the sleeves, and a great rope of
goldsmith's work passes from shoulder to shoulder. She wears a light
blue satin dress the sleeves of which are slashed with white, and a
black velvet cloak with gold buttons and a fur collar. The sleeves end
with delicate filmy frills at the wrist, and she gracefully holds in her
hand a couple of beautiful pink roses. The background is gray and the
curtain is red. This picture was painted in 1634, four years after
Rubens's marriage to the daughter of Daniel Fourment.
After Rubens's death the beautiful Helena was married to Jan B.
Broekhoven, Baron of Bergeijck. She died in 1673.
=Burger's Admiration for the Portrait of the First Wife.=--Not far away
from her portrait hangs that of Isabella Brandt, painted in 1620. Burger
admired it more than that of Helena, and went into ecstasies over the
"beautiful hands" crossed over her girdle. Isabella is dressed in black,
with a square and low-cut bodice and a gauze fichu. Her hair is adorned
with pearls.
=Portrait of Father Ophovius.=--The Mauritshuis possesses also a famous
portrait by Rubens of quite another character; this is that of a friend
whom he had sufficient influence to have made Bishop of Bois-le-Duc, the
Rev. Father Michael Ophovius, a Dominican monk. He is seen full face in
the costume of his order. He has an energetic head and is in robust
health. It is a broad and vigorous painting, and formerly adorned the
Dominican monastery at Antwerp.
=Two Pictures painted Partly by Rubens.=--Two other pictures by Rubens
should be studied. Adam and Eve in Paradise, in which, however, only the
figures are by Rubens (Dr. Bredius thinks the horse also); while the
landscape and other animals are by Jan Brueghel, also called Velvet
Brueghel. The latter also painted the landscape in the Naiads Filling
the Horn of Plenty, a picture that was once attributed to Van Bolen, but
now to Rubens. It is interesting to compare the landscape of the
Terrestrial Paradise by Jan Brueghel (Velvet) with the landscapes in the
above-mentioned pictures.
Copies of six pictures by Rubens are also owned by this gallery.
=Portraits by Van Dijck in The Hague.=--There are only three portraits
by Van Dijck (1599-1641) in The Hague Gallery: Portrait of Sir ----
Sheffield, painted in 1627; a Portrait of Anna Wake, his Wife, painted
in 1628; and a Portrait of the painter, Quintijn Simons. Of the latter,
Sir Joshua Reynolds said:
"A portrait by Van Dyck of Simon the painter. This is one of the very
few pictures that can be seen of Van Dyck which is in perfect
preservation; and on examining it closely it appeared to me a perfect
pattern of portrait-painting: every part is distinctly marked, but
with the lightest hand and without destroying the breadth of light;
the coloring is perfectly true to nature, though it has not the
brilliant effect of sunshine, such as is seen in Rubens's wife; it is
nature seen by common daylight."