PORTRAIT AND FIGURE PAINTERS: The real inaugurators of Dutch
portraiture were Mierevelt, Hals, Ravesteyn, and De Keyser.
Mierevelt
(1567-1641) was one of the earliest, a prolific painter, fond of the aristocratic
sitter, and indulging in a great deal of elegance in his accessories of dress
and the like. He had a slight, smooth brush, much detail, and a profusion of
color. Quite the reverse of him was
Franz Hals (1584?-1666), one of the
most remarkable painters of portraits with which history acquaints us. In giving
the sense of life and personal physical presence,
Single Piece Paintigns,he was unexcelled by any one.
What he saw he could portray with the most telling reality. In drawing and
modelling he was usually good; in coloring he was excellent, though in his late
work sombre; in brush-handling he was one of the great masters. Strong, virile,
yet easy and facile, he seemed to produce without effort. His brush was very
broad in its sweep, very sure, very true. Occasionally in his late painting
facility ran to the ineffectual, but usually he was certainty itself. His best
work was in portraiture,
cheap oil paintings, and the most important of this is to be seen at
Haarlem, where he died after a rather careless life. As a painter, pure and
simple, he is almost to be ranked beside Velasquez; as a poet, a thinker, a man
of lofty imagination, his work gives us little enlightenment except in so far as
it shows a fine feeling for masses of color and problems of light. Though
excellent portrait-painters,
Ravesteyn (1572?-1657) and
De Keyser
(1596?-1679) do not provoke enthusiasm. They were quiet, conservative,
dignified, painting civic guards and societies with a knowing brush and lively
color, giving the truth of physiognomy, but not with that verve of the artist so
conspicuous in Hals, nor with that unity of the group so essential in the making
of a picture.
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FIG. 82.—REMBRANDT. HEAD OF WOMAN. NAT. GAL. LONDON.
The next man in chronological order is
Rembrandt (1607?-1669), the
greatest painter in Dutch art. He was a pupil of Swanenburch and Lastman, but
his great knowledge of nature and his craft came largely from the direct study
of the model. Settled at Amsterdam, he quickly rose to fame, had a large
following of pupils, and his influence was felt through all Dutch painting. The
portrait was emphatically his strongest work. The many-figured group he was not
always successful in composing or lighting. His method of work rather fitted him
for the portrait and unfitted him for the large historical piece. He built up
the importance of certain features by dragging down all other features. This was
largely shown in his handling of illumination. Strong in a few high lights on
cheek, chin, or white linen,
abstract paintings on canvas, the rest of the picture was submerged in shadow,
under which color was unmercifully sacrificed. This was not the best method for
a large, many-figured piece, but was singularly well suited to the portrait. It
produced strength by contrast. "Forced" it was undoubtedly, and not always true
to nat ure, yet
nevertheless most potent in Rembrandt's hands. He was an arbitrary though
perfect master of light-and-shade, and unusually effective in luminous and
transparent shadows. In color he was again arbitrary but forcible and
harmonious. In brush-work he was at times labored, but almost always
effective.
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Mentally he was a man keen to observe, assimilate, and express his
impressions in a few simple truths. His conception was localized with his own
people and time (he never built up the imaginary or followed Italy), and yet
into types taken from the streets and shops of Amsterdam he infused the very
largest humanity through his inherent sympathy with man. Dramatic,
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he was; yet this was not so apparent in vehement action as in passionate
expression. He had a powerful way of striking universal truths through the human
face, the turned head, bent body, or outstretched hand. His people have
character, dignity, and a pervading feeling that they are the great types of the
Dutch race—people of substantial physique, slow in thought and impulse, yet
capable of feeling, comprehending, enjoying, suffering.
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His landscapes, again, were a synthesis of all landscapes, a grouping of the
great truths of light, air, shadow, space. Whatever he turned his hand to was
treated with that breadth of view that overlooked the little and grasped the
great. He painted many subjects. His earliest work dates from 1627, and is a
little hard and sharp in detail and cold in coloring. After 1654 he grew broader
in handling and warmer in tone, running to golden browns, and, toward the end of
his career, to rather hot tones. His life was embittered by many misfortunes,
but these never seem to have affected his art except to deepen it. He painted on
to the last, convinced that his own view was the true one, and producing works
that rank second to none in the history of painting.
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Rembrandt's influence upon Dutch art was far-reaching, and appeared
immediately in the works of his many pupils. They all followed his methods of
handling light-and-shade, but no one of them ever equalled him, though they
produced work of much merit.
Bol (1611-1680) was chiefly a
portrait-painter, with a pervading yellow tone and some pallor of
flesh-coloring—a man of ability who mistakenly followed Rubens in the latter
part of his life.
Flinck (1615-1660) at one time followed Rembrandt so
closely that his work has passed for that of the master; but latterly he, too,
still life oil paintings, came under Flemish influence. Next to Eeckhout he was probably the nearest to
Rembrandt in methods of all the pupils.
Eeckhout (1621-1674) was really a
Rembrandt imitator, but his hand was weak and his color hot.
Maes
(1632-1693) was the most successful manager of light after the school formula,
and succeeded very well with warmth and richness of color, especially with his
reds. The other Rembrandt pupils and followers were
Poorter (fl.
1635-1643),
Victoors (1620?-1672?),
Koninck (1619-1688),
Fabritius (1624-1654), and
Backer (1608?-1651).
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