Part 6 (2/2)
”By Metsu's favor we are able to penetrate into those interiors which are so jealously closed to strangers. Most often it is by a window that serves as a frame for his picture that Metsu gives us access to the boudoirs of fas.h.i.+onable ladies, and makes us take them by surprise, sometimes in velvet _deshabille_ writing their secrets; sometimes finis.h.i.+ng their toilette in view of a hoped-for visit; and sometimes breathing over the keys of their clavecin the sighs of their hearts and the thoughts they do not express.”
=His Carefulness in selecting Details.=--”Metsu rarely paints an interior without introducing the pet spaniel of the period, which often contributes much to our comprehension of the scene by the character of its att.i.tude.
”There are some Dutch masters who unintelligently acc.u.mulate innumerable details everywhere. They make a picture of manners the pretext for a ridiculous display of furniture, crystal, l.u.s.tres, _chinoisarie_ and curiosities of every kind; their interiors resemble bazaars. Metsu puts beside his subjects only those details necessary to make the intrigue clear, and to explain the conversation.
=His Treatment of Still Life.=--”However great may have been his talent for painting still life, he never allowed himself to be carried away, like so many others, by that vulgar pleasure; but, on the other hand, what finis.h.!.+ what a precious touch! And then how he loves to give full value to the beauties of local color, or to shade a Turkey carpet, or to grade down the lights on gold and silver vases. What pleasure he takes in the Bohemian gla.s.ses and the transparent liquors that half fill them! The gla.s.ses in his pictures have great importance, for the life of a retired Dutchman is spent in continual smoking and drinking; but in Metsu we no longer see the Pantagruelesque gla.s.ses of several stages that Van Ostade's peasants always have in their hands; these are fine and more discrete gla.s.ses, of elegant form, tall and oblong gla.s.ses in which the Haarlem beer froths; gla.s.ses cut and fas.h.i.+oned in twenty different ways, octagon gla.s.ses each facet of which ends with a curve and which cut the light with their sharp edges, or gla.s.ses the calyx of which forms a reversed cone on a heron's claw, or elongates into a swan's neck, and finishes like a trumpet; lastly, the gla.s.ses of the grandparents, sometimes of an imperishable thickness and solidity, sometimes as delicate, light, and thin as an onion skin.”[15]
=Favorite Subjects.=--Metsu is fond of representing the patricians of his day and their womankind either in pleasant entertainment, or, more frequently, in individual figures engaged in quiet work. A picture of this cla.s.s is The Amateur Musicians. The lady on the left is very quietly playing her instrument with the same sense of repose that is expressed by the lady who seems to be writing down the notes. Only on the face of the elegant gentleman standing behind her chair is painted a merry, almost roguish, smile.
[Ill.u.s.tration: METSU The Amateur Musicians]
=The Elegance of Metsu's Figures.=--The figures are drawn with certainty; the artistic handling of the subject is remarkable; and a fine feeling for color is shown in the selection of the tones. In Metsu's figures we notice an elegance and a n.o.bility which are not found elsewhere except in Ter Borch.
=The Influence of other Artists on Metsu.=--It is strange that the earliest works of Metsu, which are the most broadly painted ones, show little of Dou's influence, which is always so unmistakable in his pupils, so that Bode believes he finds in them the working of Hals's influence; and, in fact, the large pictures of Metsu's early period are painted with a broad brush in Hals's gray tones. When Metsu removed to Amsterdam, he fell more under Rembrandt's influence, and the beautiful chiaroscuro of his later works incontestably proves this.
=His Miscellaneous Works.=--Metsu's Biblical and allegorial pictures are the least important of his works. Besides The Amateur Musicians, signed by Metsu, the Mauritshuis possesses a fine Portrait of a Huntsman dated 1661, and a great academical, constrained allegory of Justice Protecting the Widow and Orphan, a picture that was found in the vestibule of a house in Leyden in 1667. It was painted in 1655.
Crowe, who does not believe that this ”rough and frosty composition” is the work of Metsu, says:
”What Metsu undertook and carried out from the first with surprising success was the low life of the market and tavern, contrasted with wonderful versatility by incidents of high life and the drawing-room.
In each of these spheres he combined humor with expression, a keen appreciation of nature, with feeling and breadth, with delicacy of touch, unsurpa.s.sed by any of his contemporaries. In no single instance do the artistic lessons of Rembrandt appear to have been lost on him.
The same principles of light and shade which had marked his school work in The Woman Taken in Adultery[16] were applied to subjects of quite a different kind. A group in a drawing-room, a series of groups in the market-place, a single figure in the gloom of a tavern or parlor, was treated with the utmost felicity by fit concentration and gradation of light; a warm flush of tone pervaded every part, and, with that, the study of texture in stuffs was carried as far as it had been by Terburg, or Dou, if not with the finish or the _brio_ of De Hooch. Metsu's pictures are all in such admirable keeping and so warm and harmonious in his middle, or so cool and harmonious in his closing time, that they always make a pleasing impression. They are more subtle in modulation than Dou's, more spirited and forcible in touch than Terburg's; and, if Terburg may of right claim to have first painted the true satin robe, he never painted it more softly or with more judgment as to color than Metsu.”
One of the best pictures of Metsu's middle period is The Market Place of Amsterdam, in the Louvre.
=Two Fine Portraits by F. van Mieris.=--Frans van Mieris (1635-81) reached the highest rung of art in his portraits, of which The Hague Gallery possesses two fine examples. One is of Florentius Schuyl, Professor of Medicine and Botany in the University of Leyden, painted in 1666, and a still more important picture of the painter himself and his wife. He has made a charming _genre_ picture of it, which Sir Joshua Reynolds admired, not knowing who the characters were. The artist shows himself standing and pulling the ear of the beautiful little dog which his wife holds in her lap, while, to protect her pet, she gently wards off her smiling husband with her right hand. The little dog's mother is trying to spring into the lady's lap in order to take care of her offspring. Both the drawing and modelling here are masterly, and endow the scene with such charm that this work must be p.r.o.nounced one of the best by his brush. The tablecloth and the lute lying upon it are beautifully painted.
=Description of Soap Bubbles.=--Sir Joshua also noticed the picture of Soap Bubbles dated 1663, representing a boy at an open and vine-framed window, blowing bubbles that are exquisitely painted and show beautiful reflections and prismatic colors. His red hat with white plumes is lying on the window-sill, near a bottle containing a sprig of heliotrope, and above hangs a cage. Behind the child in the half-light stands a young woman with a dog in her arms. On the window-frame is written the date in Roman numerals. Willem van Mieris often imitated this composition of his father's, who frequently repeated it himself.
=Pictures by Van Mieris Full of Refinement.=--Van Mieris takes us into an elegant world, although he himself was fond of low life, a heavy drinker and the companion of Jan Steen. He was the son of a goldsmith and diamond-setter of Leyden, who wanted him to follow his business. He was naturally influenced by his earliest surroundings, and in his father's shop became familiar with the dress and manners of people of distinction. His eye was also fascinated by the sheen of jewelry and stained gla.s.s. Houbraken writes:
”Seeing his talent for painting his father placed him with Abraham Torenvliet, a famous gla.s.s painter and a good draughtsman. From him he pa.s.sed to the school of Gerrit Dou, where in a short time he eclipsed every one and gained the affection of the master, who loved to call him 'the prince of his pupils.' At the end of a few years, his father sent him to the historical painter Abraham van Tempel; but he did not remain long with him, for his natural taste would allow him to follow no other manner than that of Gerrit Dou,--a manner extremely finished, demanding attention and excessive care.”
=His Love of Elegant Accessories.=--Houbraken calls Metsu a painter of _sujets de mode_. This term applies also to Frans van Mieris; for certainly with him costumes, materials, and accessories play an important part. If his people were less attractive one might imagine that they were only a pretext for showing off the velvet jackets, satin skirts, and rich furs. Very often Van Mieris shows us a s.p.a.cious and magnificently decorated hall, in the background of which a richly dressed lady and her lover are walking; again he allows us to peep into a charmingly furnished room where a lady in white satin is playing the lute to entertain her guest, a handsome cavalier in black velvet; or we surprise a lady as she is about to drink a gla.s.s of wine which a page offers her on a silver salver. At other times we find a group of ladies and gentlemen about to enjoy a light repast; or see a table invitingly spread with luscious fruit in rich silver dishes; or watch a lady feed her parrot. Sometimes the pet monkey is discerned behind the looped-back curtains of taffetas. Frans van Mieris seldom chose panels above 12 by 15 inches in size. He never ventured to design life-sized figures.
=The Kind of Subjects he treated Best.=--”Characteristic of his art in its minute proportions is a s.h.i.+ny brightness and metallic polish. The subjects which he treated best are those in which he ill.u.s.trated the habits or actions of the wealthier cla.s.ses; but he sometimes succeeded in homely incidents and in portraits, and not unfrequently he ventured on allegory. He repeatedly painted the satin skirt which Terburg brought into fas.h.i.+on, and he often rivalled him in the faithful rendering of rich and highly colored woven tissues. But he remained below Terburg and Metsu, because he had not their delicate perception of harmony, or their charming mellowness of touch and tint; and he fell below Gerard Dou, because he was hard and had not his feeling for effect by concentrated light and shade. In the form of his composition, which sometimes represents the framework of a window enlivened with greenery, and adorned with bas-reliefs, within which figures are seen to the waist, his model is certainly Gerard Dou.”
=His Lack of Humor.=--”It has been said that he possessed some of the humor of Jan Steen, who was his friend, but the only approach to humor in any of his works is the quaint att.i.tude and look of a tinker in a picture at Dresden, who glances knowingly at a worn copper kettle which a maid asks him to mend.... If there be a difference between his earlier and later work, it is that the former was clearer and more delicate in flesh, whilst the latter was often darker and more livid in the shadows.”[17]
Blanc says:
”Among so many Dutch painters who copy nature it is very pleasant to find one who deigns to select his models, and who, preferring grace to ugliness, would rather paint beautifully women elegantly dressed than _magots_. Strange, indeed! He loved distinction, yet lived in a tavern; he loved luxury, and was soon ruined; and, in spite of a life devoid of dignity, Van Mieris always kept a love of beauty and elegance, as is shown in his delicate faces, fine complexions, beautiful hands, grace of att.i.tude, taste in costume and furniture, and choice of splendid materials.”
=Willem van Mieris.=--The Grocer's Shop, by his son and pupil, Willem van Mieris (1662-1747), signed and dated 1717, also hangs in The Hague Gallery. In extreme finish and minuteness of painting, this picture would not disgrace Mieris the Elder or Gerrit Dou.
=Its Wealth of Still Life.=--You see only two figures, a young boy who is buying and a young woman who is selling; but these figures are of no more importance than the foods of all kinds exposed in the shop, on the sill of the window, and outside. The lower part of the window is decorated with a bas-relief, representing Cupids playing with a bird.
This bas-relief is half hidden by a superb piece of tapestry, on which the painter has placed a basket of dried fruits. Great bags of grain, peas, and beans, and everything that is sold by the bushel are exposed on the pavement of the street, with a bucket and some tubs filled with olives, sardines, and anchovies. On the wall hang a basket and a bird-cage, and a magnificent damask curtain with large flowers falls in graceful folds from an outside ring. Among the innumerable details of the shop you note a little rat gnawing at the grains which have fallen through a hole in one of the sacks.
The pendant to this picture hangs in the Louvre, where it is called _Marchande de Volailles_.
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