Part 8 (1/2)
Although his two most important works are in the galleries of Vienna and Berlin, and splendid examples hang in the Louvre, Dresden, and Ca.s.sel, the Mauritshuis owns two very fine examples. One is a Table with Fruits, very tasteful in arrangement and soft in treatment; the other is a Garland of Flowers and Fruits, enlivened with insects.
When Sir Joshua Reynolds visited the Prince of Orange's collection, he saw these pictures and noted: ”Fruits by De Heem, done with the utmost perfection.”
=His Greatness as a Painter of Fruits, Flowers, and Insects.=--De Heem was one of the greatest painters of still life in Holland; no artist of his cla.s.s combined form and color more successfully. His drawing is correct, and his colors are brilliant and combined harmoniously. He is familiar with every object of stone and silver, every flower, whether humble or gorgeous, every fruit of Europe or the tropics, every twig and leaf and blossom. Burger has said of Heda, but it is true of De Heem, that ”he glorified insects, b.u.t.terflies, and all the minute beings that swarm in vegetation, and made the moths drink in cups of chased gold.”
=His Pictures that point a Moral.=--De Heem was also famous for his pictures that point a moral or ill.u.s.trate a motto--those canvases known as Vanitas. Here the snake lies coiled under the gra.s.s; there a skull rests on blooming plants. ”Gold and silver tankards or cups suggest the vanity of earthly possessions; salvation is allegorized in a chalice amid blossoms; death, as a crucifix inside a wreath.” Sometimes De Heem painted alone, or with men of his school, Madonnas or portraits surrounded by festoons of fruits and flowers. He was so fond of the festoon that he sometimes painted it alone. Sometimes, too, a nosegay is figured alone.
=Cornelis de Heem's Subjects like those of his Father.=--The Hague Gallery also owns Fruits by his son Cornelis (1631-95). The latter painted precisely the same subjects as his father and with scarcely less success. Still life, flowers, fruits, oysters, and lemons on a plate; cold hams, boiled lobsters, flowers, knives, forks, gla.s.ses, watches, clocks, etc., are all treated by him with the utmost cleverness. Crowe says:
”He is not inferior to his father in drawing and warmth of color, and with an equally solid impasto, almost surpa.s.ses him in melting softness of touch. He is, however, in rare instances, somewhat gaudier. Under these circ.u.mstances it is easy to understand that his works are often mistaken for those of his father.”
=Abraham Mignon, Pupil and Imitator of De Heem.=--Another pupil was Abraham Mignon (1640-79), who is represented in the Mauritshuis by Flowers and Fruits, and two canvases called Summer Flowers, which show the influence of his master. Mignon's fruits and flowers have all the bloom of nature; his b.u.t.terflies and other insects seem to live and feed on the leaves, buds, and blossoms; and the dewdrops on the leaves and petals have all the transparency of real water. He was very popular in his day and was overwhelmed with commissions.
=Jacob Walscapelle.=--Jacob Walscapelle is also supposed to have been a pupil of De Heem, and many of his pictures have been attributed to one of the De Heems.
=Maria van Oosterwyck, an Excellent Painter of Flowers.=--Another pupil was Maria van Oosterwyck (1630-93), who usually painted flowers in vases or gla.s.ses, and occasionally fruits. In 1882 the Mauritshuis acquired a picture of Flowers, by this artist, who, perhaps, because of the rarity of her pictures, is not so widely known as she deserves to be. Although her flowers are not always arranged with taste and the colors are often gaudy, yet Crowe thinks she represents them with the
”utmost truth of drawing, and with a depth, brilliancy, and juiciness of local coloring unattained by any other flower-painter. At the same time, her execution, in spite of great finish, is broad and free, and the impasto excellent.”
She was much admired in her day and received commissions from Louis XIV., William III. of England, Augustus I. of Poland, and the Emperor Leopold.
=Jan van Huysum, the Correggio of Flowers and Fruits.=--”If De Heem, by the harmony of his warm golden color, be called the t.i.tian of flowers and fruits, Jan van Huysum's bright and sunny treatment ent.i.tles him to the name of the Correggio of the same branch of art.
In masterly drawing and truth of single objects, both masters may be cla.s.sed on the same level, only that De Heem's princ.i.p.al subjects were fruit; Van Huysum's were flowers, in which he entered into greater detail; for instance, in the gloss of the tulip, the pollen of the auricula, and the dewdrop on the petal. It is to these merits, fitted as they are to the capacity of the greater number of admirers of art, that Van Huysum owed the eager demand for, and high payment of his pictures by princes and wealthy amateurs, even in his own day, and also that of all painters of his cla.s.s he still commands the highest prices.”[22]
=Van Huysum's Pictures in The Hague.=--Jan van Huysum (1682-1749) is not so well represented in his own country as in the Louvre (which contains eleven fine examples), Berlin, St. Petersburg, Munich, Hanover, and Dresden. The Rijks owns but six, and The Hague only three,--an Italian Landscape, Fruits, and Flowers. The two latter are such beautiful examples of Van Huysum's art that they deserve study. In the one are found that marvellous blush and downy bloom for which he was so famous, while the other reveals his delicate treatment of petals and his graceful arrangement. In Fruits, a peach, two plums, a small bunch of grapes and some gooseberries are beautifully grouped, as to form and color, on a marble table. Its pendant, Flowers, is an exquisite picture of a full-blown rose and a rosebud, a pink and a convolvulus, placed on a marble console. A b.u.t.terfly of the admiral variety has alighted on the rosebud.
=His Earliest Works.=--In his earliest period he painted landscapes representing views of imaginary lakes and harbors, woods with tall, lifeless trees, and cla.s.sic buildings and ruins--finished in a glossy and smooth style--which are now of little value in comparison with his fruit and flower pieces. The Italian Landscape, which the Mauritshuis acquired in 1816, is a very good example of this style.
=Fruits and Flowers his Forte.=--It is doubtful if any artist ever surpa.s.sed Van Huysum in the representation of fruits and flowers, to which he finally devoted himself with the greatest success. He set himself the task of surpa.s.sing De Heem and Abraham Mignon; and he studied the most exquisite fruits and flowers known. His taste in the arrangement of his groups in elegant vases, of which the ornaments and bas-reliefs were finished in the most polished and beautiful manner, and in graceful baskets on marble tables, is generally considered to be superior to that of any other flower-painter. He also shows great art in relieving flowers of various colors against each other, and often they stand out from a light transparent background. His fame rose to the highest pitch, and the first florists of Holland were ambitious of supplying him with their choicest flowers for subjects. Naturally, therefore, we find on his canvases beautiful groups and bunches of hyacinths, roses, pinks, primroses, and other garden buds and blossoms.
=His Skill in depicting Dewdrops and Insects.=--With marvellous skill he frequently introduces dewdrops of incomparable transparency that trickle down the leaves or sprinkle the fresh delicate petals. b.u.t.terflies and other insects are also depicted with a truthfulness and precision that give a perfect illusion, and often a bird's nest with eggs is introduced.
=His Exquisite Taste.=--Jan van Huysum's pictures are so bright that they have even been accused of being gaudy; but no critic has yet found fault with his exquisite taste and faultless velvet-like finish that seems to rival nature. His fruit pieces are inferior to his flowers, though they are worthy of great admiration. Those painted on a clear or yellow background are the most esteemed, and are distinguished from his early works, which are usually on a dark one, by a superior style of pencilling and a more harmonious color.
=Rachel Ruijsch.=--Another charming flower and fruit painter,--noted especially for her flowers,--Rachel Ruijsch (1664-1750), is represented in The Hague Gallery by two Bouquets. In 1693 she was married, but she always signed her maiden name, and in several ways,--Ruijsch, Ruysch, and Ruisch. She took great pains with her pictures, and the amount of time spent on them limited their number. She is said to have given seven years to two pictures, Flowers and Fruits, which she gave to one of her daughters for a wedding present.
Blanc has most sympathetically described her qualities. He says:
=Her Truthfulness to Nature.=--”Whether she is painting the flowers of the gardens or those of the field, which she groups so beautifully on marble tables and calls around them fluttering b.u.t.terflies and droning bees, or beautiful ripe fruits that refresh the eyes and mind, Rachel is always truthful, graceful, and clever. A colorist, she frankly selects the brightest tones and combines them marvellously; a draughtsman, she reproduces splendidly the most complicated forms, while preserving to each plant its individual elegance, its aspect, its way of holding itself, and foreshortening.”
=Her Love of Nature.=--”In all justice, therefore, the Dutch rank Rachel Ruijsch among their most excellent painters. She retained her love of nature in all its freshness; it even seems as if she had a weakness for rustic beauty, and that she found the same pleasure in wandering about the country that others have in gardens and greenhouses. Sometimes she even mingles thistles with her field flowers, which she carelessly throws on a table; sometimes she chooses an old tree-trunk overgrown with moss, upon which she places her bunch of spring blossoms, while the insects hum around them, and the wings of a beetle gleam through the shadow. Sometimes she brings a green frog from some pool in the neighboring meadow and gives him a place in her picture. In the infinite little world of great nature Rachel finds no creature unworthy of her brush--not even the snail that crawls on the leaf and is hunted away by the gardener, nor the little worm who moves his variegated rings and spins his thread, destined to clothe magnificent ladies, as he elevates himself into the air. Those insects that we deem vile she honors in her paintings: she lets them lie on her marble tables, crawl on the stem of the gla.s.s in which her peonies and pinks are arranged; and she even allows them to devour the plums and grapes of her picturesque collations. Nothing, however, is more charming than her birds' nests, lined with lightest down and tiny blades of gra.s.s, moss, and straw, expressed with the art and industry of a wren or a tomt.i.t.”
The larger picture in The Hague Gallery is a charming group of roses and tulips, with b.u.t.terflies and insects.
Rachel Ruijsch was a pupil of Willem van Aelst (1626-83?), whose Flowers (dated 1663) and Still Life (dated 1671) hang in The Hague Gallery.
=Description of One of Willem van Aelst's Pictures.=--M. de Burtin has described a picture by Willem van Aelst which gives an idea of all the works of this master:
”A table covered with a crimson velvet carpet bordered with golden fringe, on which stands a drinking-vessel of antique shape half filled with Rhine wine. The sides of this gla.s.s cup reflect several times and in different views the street with the most magical and astounding way, and in the very centre you see the reflection of the painter himself, holding his palette. On one side of the cup are placed, on a gla.s.s dish, four superb peaches and some roasted chestnuts; on the other side are bunches of red and white grapes. b.u.t.terflies and other insects add to the illusion, and the vine and peach leaves are artistically used to decorate the beautiful pyramidal group that stands out from a looped-back curtain of brownish yellow.”
=Resemblance of his Work to that of Van Huysum.=--Although his name is less celebrated than that of Van Huysum, Willem Aelst is not very far removed from him in his beautiful productions; and certainly he surpa.s.ses Evert van Aelst (1602-58) who was his uncle and master.