Part 6 (1/2)
=Crowe's Opinion of Ostade's Style.=--”There is less of the style of Hals in Adriaen Ostade than in Brouwer, but a great likeness to Brouwer in Ostade's early works. During the first years of his career, Ostade displayed the same tendency to exaggeration and frolic as his comrade. He had humor and boisterous spirits, but he is to be distinguished from his rival by a more general use of the principles of light and shade, and especially by a greater concentration of light on a small surface in contrast with a broad expanse of gloom. The key of his harmonies remains for a time in the scale of grays. But his treatment is dry and careful, and in this style he shuns no difficulties of detail, representing cottages inside and out, with the vine leaves covering the poorness of the outer side, and nothing inside to deck the patch-work of rafters and thatch, or tumble-down chimneys and ladder staircases, that make up the sordid interior of the Dutch rustic of those days. His men and women, attuned to these needy surroundings, are invariably dressed in the poorest clothes. The hard life and privations of the race are impressed on their shapes and faces, their shoes and hats, worn at heel and battered to softness, as if they had descended from generation to generation, so that the boy of ten seems to wear the cast-off things of his sire and grandsire. It was not easy to get poetry out of such materials. But the greatness of Ostade lies in the fact that he often caught the poetic side of the life of the peasant cla.s.s, in spite of its ugliness and stunted form and misshapen features. He did so by giving their vulgar sports, their quarrels, even their quieter moods of enjoyment, the magic light of the sungleam, and by clothing the wreck of cottages with gay vegetation.”[14]
=Ostade the Greatest Dutch Painter of Peasant Life in his Day.=--Adriaen van Ostade is rightly regarded as the greatest of the Dutch painters of the seventeenth century who represented the peasant life of that day. In song and dance, weddings and _kermesses_, at bowling, love-making, and drinking, Ostade always was an observer of country folk, although he himself was a townsman, and held a rather exalted position in the world.
His second wife seems to have raised him into a very high social cla.s.s of Amsterdam families, as numerous records of executions of wills, which the painter must have signed in Amsterdam, inform us. To some extent, his peasants involuntarily progress parallel with the force of his own life. In his earliest pictures, when Ostade was still a modest artist, his peasants are also still quite peasant-like; in his tavern-scenes things are still very lively. Later, when the painter became closely related to refined and well-to-do patricians, his peasants also became more prosperous and polite; in a word, more decorous. Unfortunately, his painting also became somewhat more polished and smooth, so that the early pictures, and particularly those of the middle period, more strongly delight the heart of an artist than the cool, smooth works of the later period. Ostade is eminent in his coloring, chiaroscuro, and composition: he knows how to arrange his groups in the most spontaneous and natural manner; and truly artistic is his method of illumination, for which, knowingly or unknowingly, he has to thank Rembrandt. In his earliest pictures, which have a somewhat cold tone grading into gray, reminding us of his teacher Hals (from 1631 to 1640), there still remains some local color. The subjects, mostly peasants in poor homes or in the tavern, are energetically conceived. Bode rightly says:
”Instead of the pleasant humor and the poetry of the prosperous middle cla.s.s which are common to the later pictures, these earlier works display an effort for characterizing according to life and movement; a keen humor in the spirit of Hals and Brouwer; and, particularly, a characteristic inquiry into the separate individualities, such as the lifelike representation of an expressive scene, the feasting, round dances, and fighting of his jovial peasant folk.”
=Bredius on the increasing Brightness of his Pictures.=--”He died in 1685. Before 1640 his chiaroscuro was already finer, and between 1640 and 1655 (his flowering-time) many of his pictures show no traces of Rembrandt's influence. The tone of his works was quite different and approaches a warm brown; the chiaroscuro, as, for instance, in his well-known Painter's Studio in Amsterdam; and later, very closely repeated (Dresden, 1663), attains the highest degree of freedom; then his pictures become somewhat slowly cooler, the tone gets constantly grayer, but the drawing always remains strikingly correct, the grouping natural, and the pictures become brighter, smoother, and more polished. In the meantime Ostade had become a finer, more respectable gentleman. Well on in years, he could leave this life without worry, and was buried at Haarlem by his admirers and pupils on May 2, 1685.”
=Ter Borch's Freedom from Grossness.=--Ter Borch (1617-81) is excellent as a portrait-painter, but still greater as a painter of _genre_ subjects. He depicts with admirable truth the life of the wealthy and cultured cla.s.ses of his time, and his work is free from any touch of the grossness which finds so large a place in Dutch art. His figures are well drawn and expressive in att.i.tude; his coloring is clear and rich, but his best skill lies in his unequalled rendering of textiles in draperies.
=The Elegance of his Sitters.=--Ter Borch was not only an excellent painter of Conversations, he was, indeed, the creator of his _genre_.
With a little less wit and a little less taste, perhaps, than Metsu, he charms you with his family concerts, his _tete-a-tete_ lovers, his light afternoon repasts, and in selecting for heroes the most elegant cavaliers of the world in which he lived. His pretty pages with great puffed sleeves striped with velvet, and those blond ladies with transparent complexions, plump hands, and round waists, const.i.tute a type that no artist has so well represented as Ter Borch. Before depicting these delightful and familiar scenes, he first learned to imitate all that could add to the charm of these pictures of private life,--silken draperies, Turkish rugs, leather, ermine, velvet, and satin,--more particularly satin, and _white_ satin above all else. The most striking example we shall see at the Rijks, in the picture called Paternal Advice, known also as the _Robe de Satin_.
=Resemblance between his Paintings and those of Metsu.=--There is so much resemblance between Gerard Ter Borch (or Terburg) and Metsu that at first it is hard to distinguish them. Their subjects are much the same; for instead of painting scenes of low life--inns with carousing peasants, etc.--both turn with sympathy to high life; _sujets de mode_ is the name given to their works in which satins, velvets, silks, and lace, rich robes and mantles, elegant hangings, and table-carpets figure so largely.
=The Difference between Ter Borch and Metsu.=--The difference between Ter Borch and Metsu is defined by Blanc, who says it is the difference between _bonhomie_ and _finesse_; the one is naive and gracious, the other ingenious and piquant. Both, however, are charming in the way they introduce us into a house and show us some little comedy that is being played by the unconscious lovers, family group, or party of friends.
Like Metsu, Ter Borch is particularly fond of making music a motive of his pictures. A timid love often expresses itself to the notes of a mandolin or lute; sometimes we surprise a musical party singing and playing instruments; a lady composing music or trying a new piece for the first time, while her gallant and richly dressed lover stands by her side. Sometimes we see a young lady quite alone in jacket of puce-colored velvet plucking her lute, which rests on her satin skirt.
Sometimes again the conversation takes place in front of a clavecin, where the lady's hands are painted in correct position, though she pauses to hear what her lover has to say, while her spaniel sleeps on the foot-warmer.
=Ter Borch's Conversations characterized.=--”Pretty little dramas,”
Blanc calls these Conversations of Ter Borch, ”dramas without action or noise, which excite the thought only, and whose intrigue consists only in a clasp of the hand, the lowering of an eyelid, or the exchange of a glance and a smile.” He also calls attention to the type of woman represented by Ter Borch, Van Mieris, and Metsu, all of whom have high foreheads on which a few little curls wander, like those made fas.h.i.+onable at this period by Ninon de Lenclos, and known as ”_boucles a la Ninon_.”
=The Women of Ter Borch's Pictures.=--The women of Ter Borch's pictures are like Rousseau's pen-portrait of Madame de Warens, who
”had an air caressing and tender, a very gentle glance, ash-colored hair of uncommon beauty, which she arranged in a very _neglige_ style that produced a piquant effect. She was small and a little thick in the waist; but it would be impossible to find a more beautiful head or a lovelier bust, hands, and arms.”
Dr. Bredius, who calls attention to Ter Borch's position in the hall of fame as singular in the fact that he has never been a.s.sailed by critics, nor, on the other hand, sufficiently appreciated, says:
”Without striking originality, without any commanding dramatic quality, without humor, and without any startling light effects, Ter Borch is yet ent.i.tled to the name of the first _genre_ painter of Holland,--indeed, of all schools,--merely by his perfect talent and fulfilment as an artist. Rightly is Ter Borch called the most eminent painter of the Dutch school. Not only does he paint high society almost exclusively, but he does it in a distinguished style. The pose of his figures, the composition of his picture, the fine color, the admirable drawing, all breathe an elegance which is not met with elsewhere in the Dutch school. Thereby, he is the one and only master of his subject. What he paints is always completed to the highest degree. We never find in him a trace of effort. What he does must be so and not otherwise. We look for humor in him in vain; but n.o.bility we always find, and not least in his likenesses, which, notwithstanding their small dimensions, are 'the last word of a portrait.'”
[Ill.u.s.tration: TER BORCH The Despatch]
=Description of The Despatch.=--The Despatch, dated 1655, belongs to his second period. On a low chair beside a table on which stand a decanter and beaker, an officer is sitting with his wife or sweetheart. She is sitting on the floor reclining against his knee. Both are young. He holds the despatch in his hand and she looks somewhat distressed. In front of them stands the trumpeter, who, it appears, has brought the message. The officer is fully dressed, and on the table beside him lie his weapons.
=His own Likeness, painted by Himself.=--The other picture of Ter Borch's in this gallery is his own likeness, painted by himself about 1660. He is dressed entirely in black and stands out strongly against a gray background. He wears a large wig, the curls of which shade his rather melancholy face, distinguished by a long nose and grayish moustache. It was probably painted while Ter Borch was a burgomaster of Deventer.
=Caspar Netscher's Family Group.=--Much in the same style as Ter Borch's Conversations is Netscher's Family Group. Caspar Netscher (1639-84) was a pupil of Ter Borch, and this is one of the best works of his best period. The painter, in a red slashed jacket, is accompanying on his lute his daughter, who is singing, and whose timidity is well expressed.
She wears a dress of white satin and has feathers in her hair. On the other side of the table covered with a Persian carpet, and in the half light, sits Netscher's wife. On the back of the arm-chair in which Netscher is sitting is his signature and the date 1665. Netscher is also represented by two portraits--Mr. and Mrs. Van Waalwijk.
=Few Examples of Metsu.=--Metsu, like many other Dutch masters, is poorly represented in the great public galleries of his own country.
While The Hague Gallery has but three and the Rijks only four, the Louvre, for example, has eight and Dresden six.
Those who have seen pictures by Metsu (1630-67), Ter Borch, or Caspar Netscher, will have a better knowledge of the customs and costumes of the upper cla.s.ses at the period of the Stadtholders, their faces, their polished manners, their interiors, and even their thoughts, than if they had read many books of travel, whole volumes of geography, description, and history.
=The Rich Dutchman as painted by Metsu.=--As he appears in the pictures of Gabriel Metsu, the rich Dutchman is domesticated, methodical, and well regulated in his life. His house is the universe for him. In this cherished and well-arranged abode, he concentrates as many joys as the ancient kings of Asia a.s.sembled in the palaces of Susa or Ecbatana. His country's and his own s.h.i.+ps have ”ploughed the sea from end to end, penetrating to j.a.pan for porcelain and amber, and bringing back from Goa pepper and ginger.” From the ends of the earth have come to him all things that could charm his family life and distract the melancholy that the sad nature of the North and its long winters inspire. Asia has sent to him her muslins, spices, and diamonds; the polar ice has furnished him with the furs that edge the velvet robes which his wife and his eldest daughter wear indoors. The birds, insects, sh.e.l.ls, and mineral specimens of the most distant climes fill his cabinet, carefully arranged under gla.s.s. In his gardens flourish rare plants, the choicest flowers and bulbs cultivated by himself or under his own eyes. His furniture, of exquisite taste and workmans.h.i.+p, carefully looked after and incessantly cleaned, does not suffer by the changes of fas.h.i.+on; it is transmitted from father to son, and lasts for generations. His alcove bed is supported by ebony columns and closed in with green damask curtains. Hanging from the ceiling, a candelabrum of gilt bronze spreads its branches twisted into elegant volutes. The floors are waxed till they are a pleasure to the eye, the windows are polished, the door-k.n.o.b is s.h.i.+ning, the furniture gleams like a mirror, and yet the daylight falling through lightly tinted taffeta curtains sheds over all these objects only a soft, moderate, and harmonious radiance.
=How Metsu depicts the Manners of the Dutch.=--”The manners of Holland, as well as its material physiognomy in civil life, its interiors, its furniture, the decoration and luxury of its apartments, are all written down in Metsu's pictures with charming clearness, which is all the more pleasing since this merit seems to be involuntary in the painter. After two hundred years, his work may serve for the complete reconst.i.tution of a well-to-do interior as it was composed in the seventeenth century by the climate of the country, the character of its inhabitants, and the historic circ.u.mstances in the midst of which the Dutch merchants, the masters of the commerce of the world, then lived.