[Illustration]
DUTCH ETCHERS
_OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY_
_By_
LAURENCE BINYON
_Of the Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum_
[Illustration]
LONDON
SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED, ESSEX STREET, STRAND
NEW YORK, MACMILLAN AND CO.
1895
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
_PLATES_
PAGE
The Two Plough Horses.
From the etching by Paul Potter. B. 12 _Frontispiece_
The Wife Spinning.
From the etching by A. Van Ostade. B. 31 _to face_28
Sea Piece.
From the etching by L. Backhuysen. B. 4 ” ” 52
Ox and Sheep.
From the etching by A. Van de Velde. B. 12 ” ” 74
_ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT_
FIG.
1. The Spectacle Seller. By Ostade. B. 29 8
2. Peasant with a Pointed Cap. By Ostade. B. 3 10
3. Game of Backgammon. From a drawing by Ostade. British Museum 12
4. The Child and the Doll. By Ostade. B. 16 14
5. Man and Woman Conversing. By Ostade. B. 37 16
6. The Barn. By Ostade. B. 23 19
7. The Humpbacked Fiddler. By Ostade. B. 44 22
8. Peasant paying his Reckoning. By Ostade. B. 42 25
9. Saying Grace. By Ostade. B. 34 27
10. The Angler. By Ostade. B. 26 29
11. The Tavern. By Bega. B. 32 33
12. Tobias and the Angel. By H. Seghers. M. 236 36
13. The Flight into Egypt. By Rembrandt. M. 236 39
14. Three Men under a Tree. By Everdingen. B. 5 42
15. Landscape in Norway. By Everdingen. B. 75 43
16. Drinking the Waters at Spa. By Everdingen. B. 96 45
17. The Cornfield. By J. Ruisdael. B. 5 49
18. The Burnt House on the Canal. By Van der Heyden 51
19. Fishing Boats. By R. Zeeman. B. 38 54
20. Road, with Trees and Figures. By Breenbergh. B. 17 56
21. Landscape. By Both. B. 3 59
22. A Ram. By Berchem. B. 51 61
23. Title Piece. By Berchem. B. 35 64
24. The Bull. By Paul Potter. B. 1 66
25. Studies of a Dog. By Paul Potter. British Museum 69
26. The Cow. By Paul Potter. B. 3 72
27. Mules. By K. Du Jardin. B. 2 73
28. Pigs. By K. Du Jardin. B. 15 76
29. A Goat. By A. Van de Velde. B. 16 78
DUTCH ETCHERS
OF
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
INTRODUCTION
I
When, towards the close of the last century, Adam Bartsch began that
monument of his industry and patience, _Le Peintre Graveur_, he devoted
the first volumes of his twenty-one, not to the early engravers of
Germany or Italy, but to the Dutch etchers of the seventeenth century.
These were, in fact, the idols of the amateur of that day; and the
indiscriminate praises which Bartsch lavishes on mediocre artists, like
Waterloo or Le Ducq, sufficiently show how uncontested was their rank,
and how fashionable their reputation.
Since then their vogue has considerably declined. Rembrandt, of whom
Bartsch treated in a separate work, is perhaps more admired, more
studied than he ever was. His etchings, reproduced in more or less
accurate forms, are not only familiar to artists and to students, but,
to a certain extent, reach even the general public. But Rembrandt’s
glory has obscured the fame of his countrymen and contemporaries. Like
Shakespeare by the side of the lesser Elizabethans, he stands forth
alone and dazzling, and, though they enjoy a titular renown, they suffer
a comparative neglect.
Yet, if Rembrandt is by far the greatest, others are great also. The
following pages are designed to serve as a sort of introduction to the
more notable among these etchers, in the same way that Mr. Hamerton’s
monograph, the first of the present series of the _Portfolio_, was
intended as an introduction to the etched work of Rembrandt.
And first, let us warn the reader who is familiar perhaps with
masterpieces like the _Christ Healing the Sick_ and _Rembrandt Drawing
at a Window_, _Clement de Jonghe_, or _The Three Trees_, but who is not
yet acquainted with the etchings of Ostade and Paul Potter, not to
expect too much. Few of these lesser masters approach Rembrandt in the
specific qualities of the etcher: he is beyond them all in
draughtsmanship, far beyond them in the intensity of his imagination.
Yet the best of them must rank high.
It is his immensity of range which marks off Rembrandt, more even than
his transcendent powers, from the rest of the Dutch etchers. Not only
did his production exceed by far the most prolific among them, but he
touched on almost every side of life. Yet he was not the school in
epitome, as a hasty enthusiasm might affirm. With all his breadth of
sympathy, his insatiable curiosity, he was not quite universal. The life
of animals, the growth and beauty of trees, the motion of the
sea-waves--none of these attracted Rembrandt deeply. And here, to
supplement him, we have the work of men like Potter, Backhuysen,
Ruisdael, each developing his peculiar vein.
All of these etchers whom we have to consider are, however, independent
of Rembrandt and his influence. The Rembrandt school has been expressly
excluded from the present monograph. For, interesting as some of those
artists are, the first thought suggested by their work is that it
recalls Rembrandt: the second thought, that it is not Rembrandt. It is
their relation to their master that interests us rather than any
intrinsic excellence of their own.
Only the independent masters, therefore, are exhibited here; and from
these groups of etchers several of the greatest names in Dutch art are
absent. Frans Hals, Jan Steen, Vermeer of Delft, Hobbema, De Hooch--none
of these, so far as we know, has left a single plate. Adriaen Brouwer
etched a few; but they afford only the slightest indications of his
genius. And Albert Cuyp, who is the author of half a dozen small
etchings, showed in this line but little of his skill, and did not
apparently pursue it farther.
Yet the quantity of etched plates produced during this period in Holland
is immense, and most of the best work was published within the same two
or three decades. To take a single year, 1652, Potter’s studies of
horses, a set of cattle by Berchem, several plates by Du Jardin, one of
the finest pieces of Ostade, _La Fileuse_, appeared in it; while the
year following saw the publication of Adriaen van de Velde’s largest
etching, and Ruisdael’s _Three Oaks_ had been issued but three years
earlier. Rembrandt’s _Tobit Blind_ is dated 1651, and the _Three
Crosses_ 1653. This great fecundity has been necessarily a source of
some embarrassment to the writer; and though a number of minor men have
been omitted, several etchers have been included, whom for the sake of
completeness it was necessary to give some account of, but whom it is
hard to make interesting, and about whom enthusiasm is impossible.
II
Treating, as it does, of so considerable a number of masters, the
present monograph aims at indicating, as far as space would allow,
something of the relations between them, and at tracing the
interdependence of the various schools. To have taken the etchers
separately and considered their work apart, would have meant the
compilation of a tediously crowded catalogue.
But when once the masters are approached from the historical side, it is
impossible to treat them simply as etchers. It is as painters that they
influenced and were influenced. Consequently some account has had to be
taken of them as painters. And since some who produced little, and that
little not very remarkable, in etching, are yet of great significance as
artists, it has been impossible to treat each man simply on his merits
as an etcher. Hence, for instance, much more space has been devoted to
Ruisdael than the quality or the amount of his work on copper strictly
merits.
The lives of most of these artists have, till recently, rested on a
somewhat shifting foundation. Dates of birth and death have fluctuated
in various authors with easy rapidity. Of some, even now, nothing
certain is known.
But the researches of Dr. van der Willigen, Dr. Bredius, Dr. Hofstede de
Groot, and others in the archives of the Dutch cities have proved much,
disproved more, and set the whole subject in a clearer light. To Dr.
Bredius’ _Meisterwerke der königlichen Gemälde-Galerie im Haag_, and
[Illustration: _Fig. 1.--The Spectacle Seller. By Ostade. B. 29._]
still more to his _Meisterwerke des Rijks Museum zu Amsterdam_, the
writer is under special obligation, which he desires most gratefully to
acknowledge.
But in spite of many readjustments of chronology, materials for the
lives of these artists are singularly meagre. Doubtless their lives were
in most cases extremely simple. Many never left their native town, or
exchanged it only for a home a few miles off: Haarlem for Amsterdam, or
Amsterdam for the Hague. Others made the journey to Italy, or spent some
years in France or Germany; but here the journey itself is sometimes
only a matter of inference from the painter’s works. Birth, marriage,
and death: there is little beyond these, and the dates of their
principal productions, to record about many of these men.
Of the whole social life of the Holland of that day we know practically
nothing but what its paintings tell us. Had those paintings not
survived, what a blank would be left in our conceptions of this country
and its history! Most countries that have left us great art have left us
also great literature, and each is the complement of the other. The
marbles of the Parthenon have not only the enchantment of their
incomparable sculpture, but bring to our minds a thousand recollections,
gathered in the fields of literature. In a less degree, it is the same
with our enjoyment of Italian painting. It is one aspect of the
flowering time of the Renaissance, but not the only aspect, nor the only
material we have for investigating and realising that movement.
There was, no doubt, a certain amount of literature produced in
seventeenth-century Holland; but it does not penetrate beyond Holland.
Besides the names of Spinoza and of Grotius, who are great but not in
literature proper, not a single author’s name is familiar, nor any book
eminent enough to become a classic in translations. And it is certainly
not for the sake of the literature that a foreigner learns Dutch. Hence
a certain remoteness in our ideas about Holland, although it lies so
near us: a remoteness emphasised in England by the general ignorance of
the language.
When one looks at a picture by Watteau, one seems to be joining in the
conversation of those adorable ladies and their gallants; half
instinctively, one seems to divine the witty phrase, the happy
compliment that is on the speaker’s lips. But the conversations of Ter
Borch and of Metsu are mute and distant. We hear the jovial laughter of
Hals, but we cannot divine his jests and oaths. And Van de Velde’s merry
skating companies, and Ostade’s tavern-haunting peasants, and the family
groups in their gravely furnished rooms, rich with a sober opulence, of
De Hooch or of Jan Steen, all, in spite of their human touches and their
gaiety, affect us with a kind of haunting silence.
Mr. Pater, in one of the most finished and charming of his Imaginary
Portraits, _Sebastian van Storck_, called up a picture of the social
life of these times, very suggestive and delightful; but it was
noteworthy, how much of it was merely a reconstruction, in words, of
impressions from the contemporary pictures.
After all, however, our ignorance may not cost us much. We judge the
painters as painters, and by their works; we are not distracted by
[Illustration: _Fig. 2.--Peasant with a Pointed Cap. By Ostade. B. 3._]
other circumstances about them, and that is an advantage. They may have
had theories about painting, but fortunately we do not know them, except
by inference from their practice.
And if seventeenth-century Holland has only expressed herself in
painting, she has known how to express herself with marvellous fulness.
Never before, and never perhaps since, has pictorial art been so
universally the speech of a nation; never has it been more various and
abundant. Instead of being the handmaid of religion or the adornment of
a court, it is now for the first time itself: full-blooded, active,
exuberant, scorning nothing, attempting everything. Modern with all the
added richness that the modern spirit allows in life and art, it
reflects the just pride and joy of a great nation arrived, through
incredible struggle and privation, at victory and peace.
Yet more wonderful even than this abundance is the fine tact, the
instinctive judgment, which guided such profuse creation.
For in all the great painters of Holland there is the same sure choice
of subjects proper to painting, the same sure avoidance of what does not
lend itself so much to painting as to some other expression of art.
Religious pictures in the old sense, pictures intended for churches,
were forbidden by the Protestant spirit. No court existed to patronise
the painters. Yet they seemed unconscious of being cut off from any
province. In the life around them they found overflowing material, and
their choice of subject was invariably simple, never a complex product
like the engravings of Dürer, half literary in their interest; never
anecdotic or moral. An excellent tradition was begun, which lasted
through the century.
Nor was this tradition due to the creative impulse of one man. There was
nothing in Holland parallel to the renovation, the re-creation rather,
of Flemish art by Rubens. Rembrandt came near the beginning, but he did
not start the period. One cannot say precisely how this great tradition
began; it seems as if the flowering time came all at once throughout the
country, with the mysterious suddenness of spring. Till the seventeenth
century, it was Italy from which Dutch artists took their inspiration,
but henceforward it is a native impulse. Only men of lesser importance
went to paint at Rome, and even then they took there more than they
brought away.
III
Considered as etchers, the Dutch masters range themselves somewhat
differently.
Only a few, seemingly, realised the specific capacities and limitations
of etching: the rest regarded it merely as a method of reproducing their
drawings, as an easier kind of engraving. This was probably the
conception of those who first applied acid to metal for the purpose of
reproducing designs, at the beginning of the sixteenth century: the art
had been formerly employed only in the damascening of swords or armour.
Albert Dürer is an exception; for, though he did not develop the method
far, he saw that it required a different kind of handling from that
suitable for the burin; and in his few etched plates the work is freer
and more open than that of his line-engravings.
The first men to use etching extensively were the Hopfer family of
Augsburg, who produced a great number of prints, chiefly decorative
designs.
It was employed in landscape by Altdorfer, Hirschvogel, Lautensack, and
others among the Little Masters. But these did little more than
[Illustration: _Fig. 3.--Game of Backgammon. From a drawing by Ostade.
British Museum._]
carry on the Nürnberg tradition of engraving, through another medium.
They had little or no influence on the Dutchmen.
A new and powerful stimulus, however, was to be given to etching with
the beginning of the seventeenth century, by the prolific and famous
French artist, Jacques Callot. Born in 1592, Callot produced a great
mass of work before his death in 1638, and his etchings, by which alone
he is known, had a great popularity in his lifetime. In 1624 he was
invited to Brussels by the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, and was
commissioned by her to commemorate the Siege of Breda, an event which
also occasioned a masterpiece to Velasquez, the famous _Lances_ of
Madrid. Callot undoubtedly brought the art into prominence and favour in
the Netherlands. Yet of direct influence over either Flemings or
Dutchmen, Callot had little or none. His spirit was too essentially
French, his method too individual, for him to be imitated by men of such
different race and temperament.
In 1627, however, Callot met, at Nancy, Claude Lorraine, and probably
instructed him in etching. Claude left Nancy for Italy in the same year,
and in the following year etched his first plates. Between 1630 and
1663, he published a considerable number, among them some of exquisite
delicacy and beauty. And from these etchings many of the Dutchmen derive
their inspiration; and Claude is said to have employed men like
Swaneveldt, Andries Both, and Jan Miel for inserting figures in his
landscapes.
Another foreign master who exercised a widespread influence over the
Dutch etchers was the German, Adam Elsheimer. Traces of this influence
pervade the history of Dutch art, as Dr. Bode in his _Studien zur
Geschichte der hollädndischen Malerei_ has very fully demonstrated.
Elsheimer etched a few plates; but, with all deference to Dr. Bode’s
authority, we find it difficult to attach to them the importance which
he gives them. Through the etchings and engravings made from his
pictures Elsheimer was undoubtedly a source of inspiration to the
Dutchmen, but scarcely through the rare and by no means remarkable
plates which he etched himself.
The real importance of Elsheimer, and the secret of his fascination over
his contemporaries, lie in his fresh treatment of light and shade.
Problems of lighting occupied his contemporaries, Caravaggio and
Honthorst, but these devoted their skill chiefly to effects of double
lighting and strong contrast; it was the rendering of luminous shadow
and subtle tones of twilight that Elsheimer was the first to attack. In
this he is a forerunner of Rembrandt, who undoubtedly took suggestions
from him, and was helped by him in his own development of chiaroscuro.
Rembrandt cannot be fully understood without a knowledge of what
Elsheimer had done before him.
But Rembrandt was by no means the only Dutch master who profited by the
German’s art. The whole of the Italianised Dutch school at Rome, men
like Poelenburg for instance, felt his influence more or less strongly.
Nor was he without followers in the native school of landscape painters
and etchers in Holland, as we shall see when we come to them.
Elsheimer, in fine, though by no means a great painter, is of
considerable historical importance, and the admiration which he excited
in his
[Illustration: _Fig. 4.--The Child and the Doll. By Ostade. B. 16._]
own day can hardly be over-estimated. So great a man as Rubens admired
him so much that he had three of his landscapes on his walls, and made
copies from his paintings and designs.
This is the more remarkable, because Rubens rarely occupied himself with
the problems that fascinated Elsheimer. And while these problems were
of a kind to appeal to etchers, it was not on etching but on
line-engraving, an art admitting little scope for subtlety of
chiaroscuro, that Rubens cast his potent influence. Without using the
burin himself, he employed a number of brilliant engravers to reproduce
his designs, just as Raphael had employed Marc Antonio for the like
purpose. Even in our day, when public picture-galleries are numerous and
the distances between various capitals have so immensely shrunk, the
fame of the great painters rests still to a large extent on photographs
and engravings from their works; it is easy, therefore, to comprehend of
what capital importance it was for masters of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries to secure competent interpreters.
Line-engraving was admirably suited for the reproduction of pictures
like those of Rubens, with their large design and flowing sweep. And so
potent was Rubens’s example, that etching found in Belgium only a few
isolated, and with the single exception of Vandyck, unimportant
followers.
In Holland it was just the reverse. Perhaps it was the result of some
vital difference in temperament between the Flemings and the Dutchmen,
such as caused the one country to embrace the severer, soberer religion
of Protestantism, while the other clung to the more ancient creed of
Rome, with its strong appeal to the senses; at any rate, it seems
characteristic that line-engraving, with its capacity for reproducing
qualities of splendour and spacious action, should have found in Antwerp
its most effective, various, and brilliant exposition, while the
plainer, more self-contained, more intense spirit of the great Dutchmen
developed the more personal, intimate, subtle art of etching, as it had
never been developed before.
But Dutchmen, no less than Flemings, felt the need for reproducing their
designs, and here arose a difficulty. For etching is not, in spite of
modern successes, so well adapted to reproduction as line-engraving is.
As we have said, it was only a certain number of the Dutchmen who
divined this. Rembrandt, of course, perceived it; and though he spread
his fame by working steadily on copper as well as on canvas, he made his
etched work independent of his painting and never a simple reproduction
of pictures. Lesser men had not the intelligence to do as he did; and
many of the artists of whom we shall treat, though they produced fine
work on copper, cannot be esteemed true etchers.
We will begin our studies with one who was, beyond dispute, a born
etcher, Ostade.
[Illustration: _Fig. 5.--Man and Woman Conversing. By Ostade. B. 37._]
OSTADE AND HIS SCHOOL
I
Adriaen van Ostade was born in Haarlem, at the end of 1610. The
researches of Dr. Van der Willigen have placed this fact beyond doubt,
and the old tradition of his having been born at Lübeck must therefore
be set aside. In the baptismal register for December 10, 1610, there is
entered the name of Adriaen, son of Jan Hendricx, of Eyndhoven, and of
Janneke Hendriksen. On the 2nd of June, 1621, the birth of Isack, son of
the same parents, is recorded.
These dates have always been associated with the births of the brothers
Ostade, and there are other grounds for identifying them with the
Adriaen and Isack just mentioned.
Jan Hendricx was a weaver, and in consequence of the religious
persecutions of the time, left his native Eyndhoven, a village in North
Brabant, for Haarlem. This was some time before 1605, for in that year,
already a burgess of the town, he married. He had several children; and
in a document of 1650, two of them are mentioned as brother and sister
to Adriaen and Isack, who are thus proved to have been his sons. The
name of Ostade was taken from a hamlet close to Eyndhoven. Adriaen is
first mentioned with this surname as a member of the civic guard, in
1636.
Haarlem, M. Vosmaer has said, is in two things like Florence. It is a
city of flowers and a city of artists. Its archives show that from an
early time the arts flourished and were fostered there. Money was never
grudged for fine work in every branch of skilful industry, no less than
for good painting and good sculpture. The goldsmith, the potter, the
leather-worker, the stone-cutter, could find employment for their powers
and remuneration worth their skill. Haarlem was, in fact, a type of
those busy and prosperous cities where it seems that art thrives best;
for though art and commerce are often supposed to have a natural
disagreement, history shows them to have been the most apt companions.
But the city of Dierick Bouts, of Albert van Ouwater, of Jan Scorel, was
at the time of Ostade’s birth, in a condition even more favourable for
the production of fine work than it had been in the fifteenth and
following centuries. In 1573 occurred the famous siege by the Spaniards.
Those who had borne the burden of those terrible days were now growing
old; but the young generation received and handed on their heroic
memories, unembittered by thoughts of loss, suffering, or defeat. And
when, in 1609, peace came, and the United Provinces, acknowledged by
Spain, turned to enjoy their victorious repose, there was added the
sense of triumph to that of trials endured. It was the great time for
Holland. Her soldiers were famed as the finest in Europe. Her navy was
the most powerful, the best-manned. Her cities grew, and wealth poured
into them. A universal well-being pervaded the country, and a spirit of
joy and of expansion, like the glow of health, diffused itself in the
citizens.
It was natural that art, too, should feel this new influence. And in
Haarlem, where the siege had destroyed so much of the old town, and
modern buildings of warm red brick had sprung round the vast surviving
monument of the middle ages, the Groote Kerk of St. Bavon; in Haarlem
especially, a new spirit, intensely modern, began to possess the rising
painters. From art which lavished its parade of dexterity on the old
mythological fables, handled without heart or meaning, from the smooth
and pallid conventionalities of Cornelis Corneliszoon, and the
extravagant cleverness of Goltzius, these men turned to the life that
was around them. Among them were artists like Jan de Bray, Esaias van de
Velde, Dirk and Frans Hals. It was in the studio of Frans Hals that the
young Ostade learnt to paint. Already in 1616, Hals had painted his
superb group of the civic guard, and was now in the fulness of his
extraordinary power. The exuberant joy and energy, the confident
sincerity, the swift and certain touch, intimate with realities, that
marked Hals, were typical of the country and the time. Life--that is
the
[Illustration: _Fig. 6.--The Barn. By Ostade. B. 23._]
absolute necessity for such an artist: for him everything that has life
is a possible subject, a possible realm to conquer. A subject that he
cannot feel, as well as conceive, his instinct rejects at once. A great
pride of life is what characterises Hals’ pictures human life in all its
fulness he accepts: unhindered by the shrinkings of more fastidious
natures, he enjoys with a robust enjoyment.
It is the same also with Ostade; but the pupil was too individual an
artist to repeat his master. Ostade felt, perhaps, that he could never
rival those magnificent portrait-groups, and his own preferences, his
own gifts, led him to a different choice of subject.
Perhaps some who have seen Ostade’s pictures and found them coarse and
ignoble, have imagined the painter of them to be equally coarse and
ignoble-looking as his boors. His portrait shows him a man of somewhat
severe, keen countenance, in plain attire; a grave man, one would say,
with humour lurking in his gravity, as often happens; it is a portrait
that might be taken for that of an Englishman of the Commonwealth.
Ostade was, in fact, a well-to-do citizen of the middle class. His
collection of pictures, sold at his death in 1685, was, as we know from
the _Haarlem Gazette_, extensive; and the fact that it contained two
hundred of his own paintings, proves that he was, unlike so many of his
compeers, far removed from want.
Of Ostade’s life, apart from his production, we know almost nothing. He
was a member of the _Oude Schuts_, the ancient and honourable Company of
Arquebusiers. He was married twice; first, in 1636, to Machtelgen
Pietersen, who died in 1642; and again to a second wife, whose name is
not known, by whom he had a girl, Johanna Maria. This daughter married a
surgeon, Dirk van der Stoel, into whose hands Ostade’s etched plates and
proofs passed at his death.
In 1647 and 1661 Ostade is mentioned as a member of the government of
the Guild. In 1662, he was dean of the Guild. An incident of his earlier
years is of interest, as showing his liberal spirit. In 1642 he joined
Salomon Ruysdael, at a meeting of the Guild, in protesting against the
policy of protection, which inspired Haarlem Guild, like many others, to
oppose the importation of works of art from other towns or their sale in
Haarlem.
Ostade seems never to have travelled, like many of his countrymen,
beyond the borders of Holland, nor ever to have changed his home, except
from one street of Haarlem to another.
He died in 1685.
On an early afternoon of May his body was carried from his house in the
Kuis-straat to the Groote Kerk, a little company of his friends
following.
II
With most of the Dutch artists, etching was a subordinate
accomplishment, and their work on copper is but a less interesting
reflection of their work on canvas. This cannot be said of Ostade. As
with Rembrandt, his etched work is the complement, rather than a
supplement merely, of his painting. To the present writer, indeed, his
etchings have more interest than his pictures. The latter are numerous;
they may be seen in almost all galleries of importance, and the reader
is doubtless familiar with their characteristics. Delightful as they
often are, they do not rival those of Adriaen Brouwer, who was by four
years Ostade’s senior, and who, though born a Fleming, worked mostly in
Holland, and entered Hals’ studio at the same time. There are a few
plates attributed to Brouwer; but, if genuine, these show that he never
thoroughly mastered the technique of etching; none of them approaches
the least successful plates of Ostade. Brouwer as a painter, on the
other hand, surpasses beyond question all the painters of peasant life,
whether of Holland or of Flanders.
Ostade does not manage paint with the freedom of a great master, but his
drawing is always superb. The drawing reproduced (Fig. 3) is a
characteristic specimen. It is the end of a game of backgammon. The game
is won, but the defeated player refuses to accept his defeat without a
careful scrutiny. In the attitudes, the gestures of players and
onlookers, everything is vital; the moment is admirably caught.
There is an etching also of a game of backgammon, but it does not
directly illustrate the drawing.
Ostade did, however, make use of sketches for his etchings. There is in
the British Museum a sketch for _The Father of a Family_ (B. 33). A
comparison of this with the etched plate is interesting. There is a
certain affinity to Rembrandt in the manner of drawing; less summary and
swift, but masterful and free. And, like Rembrandt, Ostade does not use
his sketch as a finished thing, and copy it faithfully and minutely. His
[Illustration: _Fig. 7.--The Humpbacked Fiddler. By Ostade. B. 44._]
interest in the subject has not died out; he is alert for a new posture,
a fresh touch, a livelier handling of some part of his design, that may
improve the whole. In this case the drawing, which is of a different
shape from the print and much broader, contains at the left the figure
of a man seated and cutting a loaf of bread on his knees. Ostade felt
that this figure disturbed the unity of the piece no less than the sense
of home seclusion, and he omitted it from his work on the copper. This
reveals the born etcher: one who works with directness, swiftness,
passion; whose needle takes the impulse of his thought immediately, who
never works in cold blood.
III
Let us now consider the etchings themselves. There are just fifty in
all, and nine or perhaps ten of the number are dated. The earliest date
is 1647, the latest 1678. Arranging the dated plates in order of time,
we get the following table. The references are to the numbers in
Bartsch, _Peintre-Graveur_, Vol. I.:--
1647.
The Hurdy-Gurdy Player. B. 8.
The Barn. B. 23.
The Family. B. 46.
1648.
The Father of the Family. B. 33.
1652.
The Wife Spinning. B. 31.
1653.
The Tavern Brawl. B. 18.
Saying Grace. B. 34.
1671.
The Cobbler. B. 27.
1678.[1]
The Child and the Doll. B. 16.
To this may possibly be added _The Humpbacked Fiddler_ (B. 44). Neither
Bartsch nor Dutuit appears to have noticed a date on this plate; but it
seems clear that it is there, following the signature, though obscured
by lines. The writer inclines to decipher it as 1631 or 1651; but it is
impossible to be positive on the point. These data would doubtless serve
many critics with material for constructing a chronological list of the
whole of the etchings. But this amusement shall be left to the reader.
The etchings, as a matter of fact, do not present any marked variety of
treatment. Ostade was not, like Rembrandt, a master of many styles; nor
did he develop any particular style by continually surpassing his own
successes. We can only say that he seems to have attained his greatest
mastery in a middle period, about 1650. _The Wife Spinning_ of 1652 is
not followed by any dated piece that at all rivals it. _The Cobbler_ of
1671, for instance, which was a failure in the first biting, betrays
also a certain languor of handling, very different from the
inexhaustible care and skill bestowed on the earlier plate.
This inference is confirmed by what we know of Ostade’s work on canvas.
His first period dates from 1630 to 1635; then follows a middle period
in which, influenced by Rembrandt, he adopted a warmer scheme of colour;
lastly, in a third period, he began to repeat himself and decline.
Beyond such general deductions it does not seem worth while to go. In
Rembrandt’s case the question of chronology is of extreme interest and
significance, but in Ostade there is no development to speak of, and to
labour after exhibiting it would be waste of time.
Next, as to the various states of the etchings. The reverence for first
states and rare states, common to collectors, has from their point of
view its own justification; but they are apt perhaps sometimes to
confuse the æsthetic value of a print with its market value. Artists, on
the other hand, are sometimes prone to dismiss the whole question of
states as tedious and absurd. It is, however, of great importance that
the etcher should be judged on his own merits and not on the merits, or
demerits, of other people. Ostade undoubtedly made alterations in his
plates during printing and thus created “states”; but many more states
were created after his death by other hands re-working the worn copper.
It is reasonable to suppose that the last state touched by the artist is
the one that he would wish to be taken as typical of his perfect work.
But the question arises: Which is the last state touched by the artist?
The work of later hands, added to a plate after the artist’s death, does
not concern us; but the development of the etching up to that state when
the artist leaves it as a finished thing, must interest us greatly. How
are we to decide?
In the case of Ostade, we are helped a little by external data. As we
[Illustration: _Fig. 8.--Peasant paying his Reckoning. By Ostade. B.
42._]
have seen, the plates were sold at his death in 1685. We know also that
they were sold again by their new possessor, Dirk van der Stoel,
Ostade’s son-in-law, in 1686; and eight years later again, in 1694. What
state they were in then we can only conjecture: but we may infer
something from what we know to have been their state in 1710 or a little
later.
In the year just mentioned a French engraver, Bernard Picart, arrived in
Holland; and some time after his arrival he published a collection of
the etched work of Ostade and of his pupil Bega. The book of Ostade’s
etchings was bought, perhaps on its publication, by Hans Sloane: and
through him it has passed into the possession of the British Museum.
Whoever examines it will notice at once the inequality of the plates:
some are worn and harshly retouched, some are passable, a few are even
good. Something of this is due to the delicately-worked plates, giving
out sooner than those more coarsely etched. Probably also some were more
in demand than others. Thus, to take a few examples: while _The Painter
in His Studio_ (B. 32) is in the tenth and last state, and _Peasant
Paying His Reckoning_ (B. 42) is in the seventh or last but one, _The
Dance in the Tavern_ (B. 49) is in the fourth out of seven states in
all, and _The Empty Jug_ (B. 15) in the fourth out of eight states in
all. And several of the smaller plates are still in the second state.
In determining therefore the extent to which later hands have worked on
the etchings, each must be considered separately. Only in a few cases,
probably, are those in Picart’s edition still in the condition left by
the master himself; and most seem to have been retouched more than once.
Every one will judge for himself the precise point at which new work
comes in: and opinion will always differ on such questions. As Ostade
was not always successful in his first biting, the second state is
generally the most representative. _Peasant Paying His Reckoning_ is a
very different thing in Picart’s edition from the brilliant second state
of the same etching.
The student of Ostade will find Dutuit’s book[2] indispensable: it
contains all that was known of the etchings and their different
impressions up to the year of its publication. And the author’s own
collection was perhaps unrivalled. Nevertheless, it is not perfect. The
states are described with an extraordinary superfluity of detail, and
the one or two differentiating circumstances are buried in a mass of
irrelevant description. Verification is therefore a matter of time and
labour.
There are also a few states still undescribed. Still, for those who have
an appetite for “states,” Dutuit is very satisfying.
[Illustration: _Fig. 9--Saying Grace. By Ostade. B. 34._]
IV
Ostade’s etched work is, considered as etching, unequal. Sometimes, as
for instance in _The Cobbler_ (B. 27), the first biting was not a
success; at other times, as in the _Man Laughing_ (B. 4), the _Saying
Grace_ (B. 34), or the _Fiddlers_ (B. 45), the plate has been
over-bitten. The plate which Bartsch calls _La Fileuse_ (_The Wife
Spinning_. B. 31) [Plate I.], is one which represents very fully some of
Ostade’s characteristic excellences as an etcher. It is a fine example
of his success in bathing his subject in atmosphere. One feels the quiet
afternoon warmth upon the cottage-front, as the woman who spins feels
it, as the child feels it, as the two basking pigs feel it. That
softness of air, which in our northern climate gives even to the near
trees a kind of impalpable look, and which seems to clothe things with
itself--that is what Ostade has sought to render with mere etched lines;
and he has triumphed over immense difficulties. His figures detach
themselves with a wonderful reality, with no hard brilliancy, no
superfluous shadows. There is a fine absence of cleverness in such quiet
mastery of means.
More remarkable still is the little plate (B. 42) which is reproduced in
Fig. 8. The amount of knowledge, of feeling for light and shadow, of
subtle and sure draughtsmanship in this small etching is astonishing.
The problem of painting daylight as it is diffused in a room through the
window, which, of all painters in the world, Jan Vermeer and Pieter de
Hooch, and, in a different way, Rembrandt and Ostade himself, have most
fully mastered, is here attacked in etching, and with extraordinary
success. What seems strange is that a problem so fascinating, one which
had evidently a strong seduction for Ostade in his painting, should have
been attempted by him so rarely in his etchings. _The Painter in his
Studio_ (B. 32) is another success in the same line, while the _Players
at Backgammon_ (B. 39) is partly a failure, through the biting having
gone wrong. But, as a rule, Ostade prefers out-of-door effects.
None of the etchings quite rivals, in the writer’s judgment at least,
this little plate, _Peasant Paying his Reckoning_. But there are several
typical small pieces which have a great charm. The _Spectacle-seller_
(B. 22, Fig. 1), for instance, is an admirable composition, and the
[Illustration]
etching rich. The _Humpbacked Fiddler_ (B. 44, Fig. 7), and the _Man and
Woman Conversing_ (B. 25, Fig. 5), though the needle has been used
somewhat differently in each, have similar merit.
But the plates that interest, perhaps, most, are not always those which
are etched the best. The chief glory of Ostade is his imaginative
draughtsmanship, and akin to this are his vivid human sympathy and his
humour. These are not so manifest in the plates we have mentioned as in
some others.
But before passing to those pieces which show these qualities at their
[Illustration: _Fig. 10.--The Angler. By Ostade. B. 26._]
best, let us notice one which is unlike any of the others. This is _The
Barn_ (B. 28, Fig. 6). Had the execution of this plate matched the
feeling it evinces, it would have been a fine achievement. Who does not
know the strange, vague impression which such a barn as this produces on
the mind? The cool dimness, the mysterious shadow among the rafters,
penetrated here and there by soft rays, the atmosphere of the farm,
scent of hay, cries of fowls, mingling in a sense of imperturbable
antiquity--all exhale an intangible emotion impossible to express in
language, but which a painting or an etching could well convey. Ostade
has conceived his subject finely; but the acid and the needle have
imperfectly seconded his design. Rembrandt would have given us out of
such material a memorable plate indeed. But let us not deny Ostade his
due. Much in the piece is admirable: note especially the softness with
which the light comes through the chinks on to the hay.
In _The Angler_ (B. 26, Fig. 10) the difficulties attempted are less
great, and there seems little wanting to entire success. Here Ostade’s
human interest is engaged, and whenever this is so, he is great. The
stationary posture, the muscular habit of the angler, with lax body but
firm wrist, is perfectly given; as is the slackening of the line, the
indolent gaze of the boy leaning on the rail, and the sleepy impression
of a still summer day without breezes.
It is in such expressive drawing of the human body that Ostade shows
himself a master. The delighted eagerness of the baby in Fig. 4; the
jerk of its short limbs and crowing of its lips; or in _The Music Party_
(B. 30), the boisterous, maudlin pleasure of the man who sits in the
chair, beating time with his hand to the laborious scraping of the
fiddler, catching what he can of the score, with what humour and
expression are these portrayed! One hears the terrible discord and the
cheerful thump of the peasant’s fist accompanying it.
Another piece of imaginative drawing is _The Brawl_ (B. 18). The loose,
ineffectual, lurching stroke of the drunken man, the startled effort of
the fat man as he springs up from his barrel, the terror of the woman
clasping her baby closer, the mingled fear, anger, and surprise of the
little man who has provoked the quarrel and prepares to defend
himself--all are excellent.
The same qualities pervade Ostade’s largest plate, the _Dance in the
Tavern_ (B. 49), which also shows his extraordinary art in composition
at its best.
There are people, and perhaps always will be, who find in work such as
Ostade’s nothing but vulgarity. And some, who cannot help enjoying his
fine drawing, find themselves repelled by his choice of subjects.
It seems difficult to understand this repulsion. For in his etchings, at
any rate, Ostade shows no exclusive preference for the coarse and
sordid. Mr. Hamerton has accused him of deadness of heart and apathy of
intellect, and declares him to be insensitive to all that is best among
the poor. But is this quite true?
An accomplished lady some time ago wrote an essay in condemnation of the
“vulgarity” of John Leech and Charles Keene in certain of their drawings
for _Punch_. Such criticism seems to argue an excessive delicacy or a
deficiency of humour. Ostade’s range was limited, compared with that of
those two great artists, but as a draughtsman he is in the same order
with them; and in the writer’s judgment he is equally free from that
dulness which has no sense for the fine or rare in men and things, that
acceptance of the common price, the common standard, which are the
attributes of real vulgarity.
Look, for instance, at the etching reproduced (Fig. 9). The subject has
been the theme of many painters and engravers. It is a subject easily
spoiled; a little too much of sentimental piety, a little too much of
satirical mockery, and the theme is made trivial or obvious. But
Ostade’s feeling is just right. There is no drawing of a trite moral,
as, for instance, in the treatment of the same subject by a later
engraver, Nicholas van Haeften. Nor is there a hint of mockery at the
discrepancy between the “good things” for which Heaven is thanked and
the humble pottage on the table. But is there not, besides the wonderful
sensitiveness of drawing in the figures, which makes one feel how the
toil-hardened, clumsy hands tremble awkwardly as they are clasped, and
how the boy, though his back is turned, is shutting his eyes resolutely
tight--is there not also a tenderness, a dignity in the whole?
Again, in the little plate, _The Child and Doll_, is there not true
feeling, expressed with a fine reticence, in the mother’s face and in
the child’s? The careful fondness of the mother is even better expressed
in another etching, where she hands a baby down to the eager arms of its
elder sister, a child of six or seven, who receives it with joyful
pride. The drawing reminds one of some of the exquisitely humorous and
exquisitely tender sketches of Leech.
V
It is when we come to the work of his pupils, Bega and Dusart, that we
realise best Ostade’s finer qualities.
Cornelis Pietersz Bega was born at Haarlem in 1620, and died there of
the plague in 1664, fully twenty years before his master.
According to Houbraken’s story, his real name was Begyn, which he
changed to Bega after being turned out of his father’s house for his
youthful escapades. The story is not incredible of such a youth as he
appears in his portrait, gay and somewhat vain-looking, with long
curling locks.
Bega’s etchings are thirty-eight in number, and have a very distinctive
air. Certain characteristics seem to indicate that his original bent was
towards a decorative treatment of his subject. His drawings show a care
for the happy disposition of drapery, remarkable in this school. He has
a feeling for large design, combined with great indifference to human
character. But such treatment was alien to the Dutch school in general;
nor did Dutch peasants lend themselves at all willingly, so it seems, to
passive decoration. Certainly a pupil of Ostade’s would have no
encouraging influences to help him forward on such lines. So, though
Bega adopts in part the themes and general handling of his teacher, the
rather flat design which he affects, his frankly artificial chiaroscuro,
his use of light and shadow as masses of black and white rather than as
opportunities of mystery, contrast strongly with Ostade’s solid
modelling, his pervading atmosphere, and his pre-occupying human
interest. One perceives that the master’s influence could not altogether
swamp the pupil’s natural impulse: but neither wins the day, and the
result is an unsatisfying compromise.
_The Tavern_ (Fig. 11) is a very characteristic plate. It is very
brilliant, and makes a powerful impression at first sight. But it does
not bear close study. There is a want of subtlety in it, and a want of
feeling; a certain hardness, combined with a certain cleverness, that
repels.
Bega’s two other large plates, also of tavern scenes, reveal just the
same qualities, and need not be further particularised.
In technical character, these etchings recall the Spanish etcher Goya,
who was also fond of producing a sharp, vivid, emphatic effect by a
similar artificial manner of lighting. Not improbably Bega’s etchings
may have been known to Goya, and given him a suggestion.
Bega had apparently no tenderness, and little or no interest in
[Illustration: _Fig. 11.--The Tavern. By Bega. B. 32._]
humanity. This deficiency, in one of the Dutch school, and trained in
the Dutch tradition, is notable. One has only to turn from his mother
and baby sitting by the window (B. 21) to Ostade’s _Child and Doll_, to
feel what a difference lies between the two.
Cornelis Dusart was a much later scholar. At Bega’s death he was only a
child of four, and he survived Ostade many years, living on till 1704.
When Ostade died, he finished his master’s uncompleted pictures, but
kept them till his death in his own possession.
Some of Dusart’s etchings, as for instance _The Village Fête_ (B. 16)
have a pleasing effect, with well-managed light and shade; but they
cannot be compared with the similar pieces by Ostade, whose method is
here carried on, but in an inferior manner. Yet he has a vein of his
own, a gross, riotous, extravagant vein, with a great fondness for
violent action. In the plate called by Bartsch _Le Violon Assis_ (B.
15), which was too large to be reproduced here, his specific qualities
appear to great advantage.