he seemed like a man on a mountain top, looking on one side to sweet
meadows filled with flowers and sunlight, and on the other to a
desolate landscape over which a clouded sun is setting." With Saskia
died the best of Rembrandt. He made only one more portrait of
himself--before this he had made many; and in it he makes himself
appear a stern and fateful man. It was after Saskia's death that he
painted the "Night Watch," or more properly, "The Sortie."
Rembrandt's home, where he and Saskia were so happy, is still to be
seen on a quay of the River Amstel. It is a house of brick and cut
stone, four stories high. The vestibule used to have a flag-stone
pavement covered with fir-wood. There were also "black-cushioned,
Spanish chairs for those who wait," and all about were twenty-four
busts and paintings. There was an ante-chamber, very large, with seven
Spanish chairs covered with green velvet, and a walnut table covered
with "a Tournay cloth"; there was a mirror with an ebony frame, and
near by a marble wine-cooler. Upon the wall of this _salon_ were
thirty-nine pictures and most of them had beautiful frames. "There
were religious scenes, landscapes, architectural sketches, works of
Pinas, Brouwer, Lucas van Leyden, and other Dutch masters; sixteen
pictures by Rembrandt; and costly paintings by Palma Vecchio, Bassano,
and Raphael."
In the next room was a real art museum, containing splendid pictures,
an oaken press and other things which suggest that this was the
workroom where Rembrandt's etchings were made and printed.
In the drawing-room was a huge mirror, a great oaken table covered
with a rich embroidered cloth, "six chairs with blue coverings, a bed
with blue hangings, a cedar wardrobe, and a chest of the same wood."
The walls were literally covered with pictures, among which was a
Raphael.
Above was a sort of museum and Rembrandt's studio. There was rare
glass from Venice, busts, sketches, paintings, cloths, weapons,
armour, plants, stuffed birds and shells, fans, and books and
globes. In short, this was a most wonderful house and no other
interior can we reconstruct as we can this, because no other such
detailed inventory can be found of a great man's effects as that from
which these notes are taken: a legal inventory made in 1656, long
after Saskia had died and possibly at a time when Rembrandt wished to
close his doors forever and forget the scenes in which he had been so
happy.
Holland being truly a Protestant country, its artists have given us no
great Madonna pictures, although they painted loving, happy Dutch
mothers and little babes, but on the whole their subjects are quite
different from those of the painters of Italy, France, and Spain.
Rembrandt's studio was different from any other. When he first began
to work independently and to have pupils, he fitted it up with many
little cells, properly lighted, so that each student might work alone,
as he knew far better work could be done in that way. It is said that
his pictures of beggars would, by themselves, fill a gallery. He had a
kindly sympathy for the poor and unfortunate, and tramps knew this, so
that they swarmed about his studio doors, trying to get sittings.
There is a story which doubtless had for its germ a joke regarding the
slowness of an errand boy in a friend's household, but which at the
same time shows us how rapidly Rembrandt worked. The artist had been
carried off to the country to lunch with his friend Jan Six, and as
they sat down at the table, Six discovered there was no mustard. He
sent his boy, Hans, for it, and as the boy went out, Rembrandt wagered
that he could make an etching before the boy got back. Six took the
wager, and the artist pulled a copper plate from his pocket--he always
carried one--and on its waxed surface began to etch the landscape
before him. Just as Hans returned, Rembrandt gleefully handed Six the
completed picture.
He was a great portrait painter, but he loved certain effects of
shadow so well that he often sacrificed his subject's good looks to
his artistic purpose, and very naturally his sitters became
displeased, so that in time he had fewer commissions than if he had
been entirely accommodating.
His meals in working time were very simple, often just bread and
cheese, eaten while sitting at his easel, and after Saskia died he
became more and more careless of all domestic details.
Rembrandt finally married again, the second time choosing his
housekeeper, a good and helpful woman, who was properly bringing up
his little son, and making life better ordered for the artist, but he
had grown poor by this time for he was never a very good business
man. His beautiful house was at last sold to a rich shoemaker. Every
picture latterly reflected his condition and mood. He chose subjects
in which he imagined himself always to be the actor, and when his
second wife died he painted a picture of "Youth Surprised by Death";
he had not long to live. He became more and more melancholy; and
sleeping by day, would wander about the country at night, disconsolate
and sad. Finally, when he died, an inventory of his effects, showed
him to be possessed of only a few old woollen clothes and his brushes
The miracle in Rembrandt's painting is the deep, impenetrable shadow,
in which nevertheless one can see form and outline, punctuated with
wonderful explosions of light. Nothing like it has ever been seen. It
is the most dramatic work in the world, and the most powerful in its
effect. Other men have painted light and colour; Rembrandt makes gloom
and shadow living things.
This miracle-worker's funeral cost ten dollars; he died in Amsterdam
and was buried in the Wester Kirk.
PLATE--THE SORTIE
This picture is generally known as "The Night Watch," but it is really
"The Sortie" of a company of musketeers under the command of a
standard bearer. Captain Frans Banning-Cock and all his company were
to pay Rembrandt for painting their portraits in a group and in
action, and they expected to see themselves in heroic and picturesque
dress, in the full blaze of day, but Rembrandt had found a magnificent
subject for his wonderful shadows, and the artist was not going to
sacrifice it to the vanity of the archers.
This picture was called the "Patrouille de Nuit," by the French and
the "Night Watch," by Sir Joshua Reynolds because upon its discovery
the picture was so dimmed and defaced by time that it was almost
indistinguishable and it looked quite like a night scene. After it was
cleaned up, it was discovered to represent broad day--a party of
archers stepping from a gloomy courtyard into the blinding
sunlight. "How this different light is painted, which encircles the
figures, here sunny, there gloomy!... Rembrandt runs through the
entire range of his colours, from the lightest yellow through all
shades of light and dark red to the gloomiest black." One writer
describes it thus: "It is more than a picture; it is a spectacle, and
an amazing one... A great crowd of human figures, a great light, a
great darkness--at the first glance this is what strikes you, and for
a moment you know not where to fix your eyes in order to comprehend
that grand and splendid confusion... There are officers, halberdiers,
boys running, arquebusiers loading and firing, youths beating drums,
people bowing talking, calling out, gesticulating--all dressed in
different costumes, with round hats, plumes, casques, morions, iron
corgets, linen collars, doublets embroidered with gold, great boots,
stockings of all colours, arms of every form; and all this tumultuous
and glittering throng start out from the dark background of the
picture and advance toward the spectator. The two first personages are
Frans Banning-Cock, Lord of Furmerland and Ilpendam, captain of the
company, and his lieutenant, Willem van Ruijtenberg, Lord of
Vlaardingen, the two marching side by side. The only figures that are
in full light are this lieutenant, dressed in a doublet of
buffalo-hide, with gold ornaments, scarf, gorget, and white plume,
with high boots, and a girl who comes behind, with blond hair
ornamented with pearls, and a yellow satin dress; all the other
figures are in deep shadow, excepting the heads, which are
illuminated. By what light? Here is the enigma. Is it the light of the
sun? or of the moon? or of the torches? There are gleams of gold and
silver, moonlight coloured reflections, fiery lights; personages
which, like the girl with blond tresses, seem to shine by a light of
their own.... The more you look at it, the more it is alive and
glowing; and, even seen only at a glance, it remains forever in the
memory, with all its mystery and splendour, like a stupendous vision."
Charles Blanc has said: "To tell the truth, this is only a dream of
night, and no one can decide what the light is that falls on the
groups of figures. It is neither the light of the sun or of the moon,
nor does it come from the torches; it is rather the light from the
genius of Rembrandt."
This wonderful picture was painted in 1642 and many of the archer's
guild who gave Rembrandt the commission would not pay their share
because their faces were not plainly seen. This picture which alone
was enough to make him immortal, was the very last commission that any
of the guilds were willing to give the artist, because he would not
make their portraits beautiful or fine looking to the disadvantage of
the whole picture. This work hangs in the Rijks Museum in
Amsterdam. He painted more than six hundred and twenty-five pictures
and some of them are: "The Anatomy Lesson," "The Syndics of the Cloth
Hall," "The Descent from the Cross," "Samson Threatening His Step
Father," "The Money Changer," "Holy Family," "The Presentation of
Christ in the Temple," "The Marriage of Samson," "The Rape of
Ganymede," "Susanna and the Elders," "Manoah's Sacrifice," "The
Storm," "The Good Samaritan," "Pilate Washing His Hands," "Ecce Home,"
and pictures of his wife, Saskia.
XXXIV
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
_English School_
1723-1792
_Pupil of Thomas Hudson_
When Reynolds was "little Josh," instead of "Sir Joshua" he grew tired
in church one day, and sketched upon the nail of his thumb the
portrait of the Rev. Mr. Smart who was preaching. After service he ran
to a boat-house near, and with ship's paint, upon an old piece of
sail, he painted in full and flowing colours that reverend gentleman's
portrait. After that there was not the least possible excuse for his
father to deny him the right to become an artist.
The father himself was a clergyman with a good education, and he had
meant that his son should also be well educated and become a
physician; but a lad who at eight years of age can draw the Plympton
school house--he was born at Plympton Earl, in Devonshire--has a right
to choose his own profession.
At twenty-three years of age Sir Joshua was painting the portraits of
great folk, and being well paid for it, as well as lavishly
praised. His first real sorrow came at a Christmas time when he was
summoned home from London where he was working, to his father's
deathbed.
After that the artist turned his thoughts toward Italy, but where was
the money to come from? Earning a living did not include travelling
expenses, but a good friend, Captain Keppel, was going out to treat
with the Dey of Algiers about his piracies, and learning that the
artist wished to go to Italy he invited him to go with him on his own
ship, the _Centurion._ So while the captain was discussing pirates
with the dey, Sir Joshua stopped with the Governor of Minorca and
painted many of the people of that locality. Thence on to Rome!
Strange to say, Raphael's pictures disappointed the English artist,
and he said so; but Michael Angelo was to Reynolds the most wonderful
of painters, and he said that his pictures influenced him all the rest
of his life. He wished his name to be the last upon his lips, and
while that was not so, yet it was the last he pronounced to his fellow
Academicians in his final address.
It was in Italy that a distressing misfortune came upon Sir Joshua. He
meant to learn all that a man could learn in a given time of the art
treasures there, and while he was working in a draughty corridor of
the Vatican, he caught a severe cold which rendered him deaf. He
continued deaf till the end of his life and had to use an ear-trumpet
when people talked with him.
When he got back to England, Hudson, his old master, said
discouragingly: "Reynolds, you don't paint as well as when you left
England." On the whole his reception at home, after his long absence,
was not all that he could have wished, but he took a place in
Leicester Square, settled down to live there for the rest of his life,
and went at painting in earnest.
Although artists criticised him more or less after his return, the
public appreciated him and very soon orders for portraits began to
pour in upon him, and the flow of wealth never ceased so long as he
lived. It was said that all the fashionables came to him that did not
go to Gainsborough, but those who were partial to Sir Joshua declared
that all who could not go to him went to Gainsborough. The two great
artists controlled the art world in their time, dividing honours about
equally. It was said that all those women and men sat to Sir Joshua
for portraits "who wished to be transmitted as angels... and who
wished to appear as heroes or philosophers."
Sir Joshua was a charming man, generous in feeling--as Gainsborough
was not--and his closest friend was Dr. Johnson, the most different
man from the artist imaginable, but Reynolds's art and Johnson's
philosophy made a fine combination, each giving the other great
pleasure. Besides Johnson, his friends were Goldsmith, Garrick, Bishop
Percy, and other famous men of the time. These and others formed the
"Literary Club" at Sir Joshua's suggestion. About that time there was
the first public exhibition of the work of English artists, and Sir
Benjamin West and Sir Joshua Reynolds built the Royal Academy for that
first exhibition, with the help of King George's patronage. Joshua
Reynolds was knighted when he was made the first president of that
great body.
Soon after the Academy was established, Reynolds began a series of
"discourses," which in time became famous for their splendid literary
quality, and some people, knowing his close friendship with Burke and
Dr. Johnson, declared that the artist got one of them to write his
"discourses" for him. This threw Johnson and Burke into a fury of
resentment for their friend, and the doctor declared indignantly that
"Sir Joshua would as soon get me to paint for him as to write for
him!" Burke denied the story no less emphatically. Besides these
speeches, which were a great advantage to the members of the Academy,
Sir Joshua instituted the annual banquet to the members, and King
George--who just before had given the commission of court painter to
one less talented than Sir Joshua--bade him paint his portrait and the
queen's, to hang in the Academy. This was a great thing for the new
society and advanced its fortunes very much.
Barry and Gainsborough were both churlish enough to envy Sir Joshua
and to quarrel with his good feeling for them, but both men had the
grace to be sorry for behaviour that had no excuse, and both made
friends with him before they died--Gainsborough on his death-bed.
Toward his last days the artist was attacked with paralysis, but grew
better and was able to paint again; then he began to go blind--he was
already deaf--and this affliction made painting impossible. Shortly
before his death, he undertook to raise funds for a monument to his
dead friend, Dr. Johnson, but he grew more and more ill, "and on the
23d February, 1792, this great artist and blameless gentleman passed
peacefully away."
That he was very painstaking in his work is shown by an anecdote about
his infant "Hercules." "How did you paint that part of the picture?"
some one asked him. "How can I tell! There are ten pictures below
this, some better, some worse"--showing that in his desire for
perfection he painted and repainted.
So untiring was he in seeking out the secrets of the old masters that
he bought works of Titian and Rubens, and scraped them, to learn their
methods, insisting that they had some secret underlying their work. So
anxious was he to get the most brilliant effects of colours that he
mixed his paints with asphaltum, egg, varnish, wax, and the like, till
one artist said: "The wonder is that the picture did not crack beneath
the brush." Many of these great pictures did go to pieces because of
the chances Sir Joshua took in mixing things that did not belong
together, in order to make wonderful results.
Sir George Beaumont recommended a friend to go to Reynolds for his
portrait and the friend demurred, because "his colours fade and his
pictures die before the man."
"Never mind that!" Sir George declared; "a faded portrait by Reynolds
is better than a fresh one by anybody else."
The same tender, sensitive and devoted nature which caused Sir
Joshua's mother to weep herself blind upon her husband's death,
belonged to the artist. All of his life he was surrounded by loving
friends, and his devotion to them was conspicuous. He, like Dürer and
several other painters, was a seventh son, and his father's
disappointment was keen when he took to art instead of to medicine. So
little did his father realise what his future might be, that he wrote
under the sketch of a wall with a window in it, drawn upon a Latin
exercise book: "This is drawn by Joshua in school, out of pure
idleness."
But by the time Joshua was eight years old and had drawn a fine
"sketch of the grammar-school with its cloister... the astonished
father said: 'Now, this exemplifies what the author of "perspective"
says in his preface: "that, by observing the rules laid down in this
book, a man may do wonders"--for this is wonderful.'"
Sir Joshua laid down--even wrote out--a great many rules of conduct
for himself. Some of these were: "The great principle of being happy
in this world is not to mind or be affected with small things." Also:
"If you take too much care of yourself, nature will cease to take care
of you."
When Samuel Reynolds, Joshua's father, consulted with his friend
Mr. Craunch, as to whether a boy who made wonderful paintings at
twelve years of age, would be likely to be a successful apothecary, he
told Craunch that Joshua himself had declared that he would rather be
a good apothecary than a poor artist, but if he could be bound to a
good master of painting he would prefer that above everything in the
world. This was how he came to be apprenticed to Hudson, the
painter. Young Reynolds's sister paid for his instruction at first--or
for half of it, with the understanding that Reynolds was to pay her
back when he was earning. At that time Reynolds wrote to his father:
"While I am doing this I am the happiest creature alive."
One day, while in an art store, buying something for Hudson, Reynolds
saw Alexander Pope, the poet, come in, and every one bowed to him and
made way for him as if for a prince. Pope shook hands with young
Reynolds, and in writing home, describing the poet, the artist said
that he was "about four feet six inches high; very humpbacked and
deformed. He wore a black coat and according to the fashion of that
time, had on a little sword. He had a large and very fine eye, and a
long handsome nose; his mouth had those peculiar marks which are
always found in the mouths of crooked persons, and the muscles which
run across the cheeks were so strongly marked that they seemed like
small cords." This is a masterly description of one famous man by
another.
He finally was dismissed from his master's studio on the ground that
he had neglected to carry a picture to its owner at the time set by
Hudson, but the fact was the older artist had become jealous of the
work of his pupil, and would no longer have him in his studio.
Afterwards, while he was painting down in Devonshire--thirty portraits
of country squires for fifteen dollars apiece--he said: "Those who are
determined to excel must go to their work whether willing or
unwilling, morning, noon, and night, and they will find it to be no
play, but, on the contrary, very hard labour." This shows that
Reynolds's idea of genius was "an infinite capacity for hard work."
While Reynolds was on his memorable journey to Rome, he made several
volumes of notes about the pictures of great Italian artists--Raphael,
Titian, etc. And one of those volumes is in the Lenox Library, New
York City. He made a most characteristic and delightful remark in
regard to his disappointment in Raphael's pictures. "I did not for a
moment conceive or suppose that the name of Raphael, and those
admirable paintings in particular, owed their reputation to the
_ignorance_ ... of mankind; on the contrary, my not relishing them, as
I was conscious I ought to have done was one of the most humiliating
things that ever happened to me."
He loved home and country so much that while in Venice he heard a
familiar ballad sung in an opera, and it brought the tears to his eyes
because of its association with "home."
His young sister, was so undecided in her ways and opinions as to make
it impossible for Reynolds long to live with her, but she undertook to
be his housekeeper when he returned to London, and she also tried to
copy his pictures Reynolds said the results "made other people laugh,
but they made me cry."
Reynolds painted the portraits of two Irish sisters--the Countess of
Coventry and the Duchess of Hamilton--two of the most beautiful women
in all the British Empire. "Seven hundred people sat up all night, in
and about a Yorkshire inn, to see the Duchess of Hamilton get into her
postchaise in the morning, while a Worcester shoemaker made money by
showing the shoe he was making for the Countess of Coventry." Sir
Joshua declared that whenever a new sitter came to him, even till the
last years of his life, he always began his portrait with the
determination that that one should be the best he had ever
painted. Success was bound to attend that sort of man.
He painted every picture almost as an experiment; meaning to learn
something new with every work, and he spent more than he made in
perfecting his art. As he said: "He would be content to ruin himself"
in order to own one of the best works of Titian.
His deeds of kindness are beyond counting. He rescued his friend
Dr. Johnson from debt--thereby saving him from prison; and when a
young lad, "a son of Dr. Mudge," who was very anxious to visit his
father on the occasion of his sixteenth birthday, grew too ill to make
the journey. Reynolds said gaily: "No matter my boy. _I_ will send you
to your father." He painted a splendid portrait of the boy and sent it
to Dr. Mudge. This gift of a picture, however, was very unusual with
Reynolds, who, unlike Gainsborough who gave his by the bushel to
everyone, declared that his pictures were not valued unless paid
for. When Sir William Lowther, a gay and rich young man of London,
died, he left twenty-five thousand dollars to each of thirteen
friends, and each of the thirteen commissioned the painter to make a
portrait of Lowther, their benefactor. His work room was of interest:
"The chair for his sitters was raised eighteen inches from the floor,
and turned on casters. His palettes were those which are held by a
handle, not those held on the thumb. The stocks of his pencils were
long, measuring about nineteen inches. He painted in that part of the
room nearest to the window, and never sat down when he painted." The
chariot in which he drove about had the four seasons allegorically
painted upon its panels, and his liveries were "laced with silver";
while the wheels of his coach were carved with foliage and gilded.
Sir Joshua knew that it paid to advertise, and as he had no time to go
about in that gorgeous chariot he made his sister go, for he declared
that people seeing that magnificent coach would ask: "Whose chariot is
that?" and upon being told could not fail to be impressed with his
prestige. The comical inconsequence of this anecdote concerning a man
so important robs it of vulgarity.
The graceful anecdotes told of Reynolds are without number, but one
and all are to his advantage and show him to have been good and
gentle, a devoted and high-bred man.
PLATE--THE DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE AND HER DAUGHTER