Part 16 (1/2)
”This picture is signed: an open book on the table bears the word Meer.”
=Van der Meer's Later Style.=--In later pieces his style is reminiscent of De Hooch and Metsu, but it is brighter and the tone more enamelled.
In most instances the scene is in a small room lighted by a cas.e.m.e.nt window. Sometimes the painter himself is seated in a studio; sometimes a girl and her lover are together; sometimes a woman is seated at the clavecin. The Milkmaid in the Six Collection is noted for its brilliancy of tone, harmonious distribution of tints, delicacy of gradations, and solidity of touch.
=His Portrait-painting.=--Van der Meer was also a splendid portrait-painter and excelled in landscapes, in which he sacrificed figures to trees, cottages, and lanes. There is a charming little picture of this cla.s.s in the Six Collection, representing a row of brick houses with people, in the style of Pieter de Hooch. It is said that he was killed by the fall of his house at the time when Simon Decker, a vestryman of the Delft Church, was sitting to him for his portrait.
=Pieter de Hooch (1635-78).=--This master who was so long neglected and is now regarded as at least the equal of Ter Borch, Metsu, and Van Mieris, is well represented in the Rijks, though absent from The Hague Gallery. His talent is exhibited chiefly in his Conversations. Burger says he has never seen a single picture by De Hooch that is not of the first rank.
=Burger on De Hooch's Choice of Subjects.=--”Sometimes he paints interiors--people are playing at cards, or having a family concert, or reading, or drinking, or conversing. Sometimes he paints exteriors; then the painter introduces us to domestic occupations, and the innocent recreations of private life, as, for instance, a servant was.h.i.+ng linen in a back yard, or cleaning fish, or plucking a fowl; or perhaps there are ladies and their cavaliers playing at bowls in a garden with trim gravelled walks.”
=His Excellent Painting of Interiors.=--”When he paints interiors, this artist rarely neglects to show, on the right or left, doors opening on a staircase or revealing a leafy alley, or the trees along a quay, so that his pictures almost always seem to be the antechamber of another picture. In this characteristic style of De Hooch, when the interior of the apartment is moderately lighted, the sun s.h.i.+nes outside, and we feel its heat and brilliance in the vistas gradually lost to view in the background, so inimitably managed in the artist's manner.... Pieter de Hooch seems to have been in Rembrandt's secrets, and knew how to adapt the genius of that great master to familiar scenes, just as Gonzales Coques had adapted the genius of Rubens.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: P. DE HOOCH The Country House]
=Seven Fine Examples of his Work in the Rijks.=--The Rijks Museum owns seven fine examples of this master's work. The Portrait of a Man is said to be that of the painter at the age of nineteen; but this is doubtful.
One of the most celebrated interiors shows a woman about to let a child drink from a jug of beer at the entrance to a cellar. This picture is very attractive for the simple att.i.tudes, and for the depth of the equally sustained warm harmony. ”The execution,” says Crowe, ”is a model of softness and juiciness.” The most glowing example, however, of this warm lighting is a woman cleaning the hair of a child, in the Van der Hoop Room. The woman wears a skirt of deep blue and a bodice of red, bordered with white fur, while the child has a skirt of green and a gray bodice. Behind them is an alcove bed with green curtains, and to the right, in the foreground, a little chair. An open door on the left allows you to see into another room with a pa.s.sage and courtyard beyond.
A little black dog seen from behind lies on the reddish tiles. The picture is beautiful in its treatment of three successive planes of light.
Another picture in the same collection represents apparently a pair of lovers who seem to be teasing each other. The lady seen in profile is squeezing a lemon into a gla.s.s, and the young man sitting opposite with his elbow on the table looks at her with a subtle smile. The costumes are elegant--the lady wears a straw-colored skirt and a rose-colored jacket. The man has on a garnet-colored doublet, scarlet knee-breeches, and white stockings. He is bareheaded and wears a wig. If it were not for the pipe in his hand he would remind you of Moliere's gentlemen.
They are sitting in a kind of courtyard of a house with a red-tiled roof, and a window with red shutters is also visible. At the door of the house a woman is standing with a gla.s.s in her hand. A servant is busy with a kettle by the window. On the right there is an opening into a clump of trees, suggesting a park, and to the left another enclosure.
One of the most beautiful pictures in the collection, a marvel very difficult to describe because its superlative value lies in its luminous effect, is thus described:
=A Picture Highly valued for its Luminous Effect.=--”We are in a room, the door of which, in the background on the left, opens onto the quay of a ca.n.a.l. A girl pa.s.ses along the path; next we see a tree, a stretch of the ca.n.a.l, and on the opposite bank another street, flooded with sunlight, in which two cloaked men have halted in front of a house. Above the door, which is slightly arched, is a large window with small panes in four compartments, one of which is open. Under the light falling from the window, in the corner of the room, a girl in a blue bodice and white ap.r.o.n is seated, with her head turned toward a youth who is entering through on the extreme right in the foreground.
In one hand he holds his hat, and presents a letter with the other.”[26]
=A Pleasing Sunlight Effect.=--Another picture shows a sunlight effect, in which both De Hooch and Vermeer of Delft delighted. There is a window on the left, above a table covered with a Turkey-red table-cloth, which is silhouetted brightly on the lower part of the opposite wall, close to a chimney piece. A servant is sweeping in front of the latter. Another woman, almost full-face, is seated, holding a baby in a yellow frock, with a child's cradle beside her. She wears a blue velvet jacket and red skirt. Behind her a door opens into a courtyard, and gives us a glimpse of the town. The rest of the background consists of a gray wall, on which hangs a picture. There is also a picture over the fireplace.
=The Sick Lady.=--Very similar to the pictures by Jan Steen and Metsu is Hooghstraten's The Sick Lady, who, very pale and with drooping head, sits by a table on which her left elbow rests. On the red cloth, which is covered with a piece of white linen, stand a pot and a phial. She wears a white cap, a yellow jacket bordered with ermine, a Persian-blue skirt, and a white ap.r.o.n. Her hands are clasped at her waist, and her feet rest on a foot-warmer. Behind the table stands the doctor in his conventional costume of black. The bed, draped with green curtains, is seen in the background, where, to the left, a short flight of stairs leads to a series of rooms opening one into another in the style of Pieter de Hooch. The figures, about a foot high, are very finely drawn.
Burger says:
”The general harmony of color is strange, distinguished, and original.
There are tones of straw-color, tones of pearl-color, and silvery tones, happily brought together, a clever distribution of light, and lightness in the shadows.”
=Jan Steen's Style patterned after Hals and A. van Ostade.=--Jan Steen shows the influence of his models, Hals and Adriaen van Ostade, in several of the seventeen pictures of this artist owned by the Rijks Museum. His own portrait and those in the Oostwaard picture (dated 1659) are strong, bright, and clear with the qualities he admired in Hals. The other pictures are all distinguished by correct drawing, admirable freedom and spirit of touch, and clear and transparent color. They range in subject from the stately interiors of grave and opulent burghers to tavern scenes of jollity and debauch.
=Some of the Seventeen of his Pictures owned by the Rijks.=--There are two pictures of the charlatan who puffs his pills, draws teeth, and sells everything helpful to those sick in body or in mind, from a love-philtre to the Elixir of Life. Here, also, we see doctors and patients, card-parties, marriage-feasts, and the festivals of St.
Nicholas and Twelfth Night. His delightful rendering of children is also fully exemplified here. In detail, the pictures are as follows: A Portrait of Himself, showing a rather handsome man with oval face, arched brows, and well-cut mouth; A Charlatan Selling his Wares, in which the chief figure is standing on a platform beneath the shade of a tree, while around him are many little figures variously grouped, forming comic episodes; The Baker Oostwaard with his Wife and a Son of the Painter (1659). The baker is arranging his wares, and the little boy is blowing on a horn. The Scullion represents a woman scouring a pewter pot. She is in a kitchen, and wears a white jacket and a blue skirt. On the table by which she stands are utensils and a lantern.
[Ill.u.s.tration: JAN STEEN The Parrot Cage]
=Description of The Parrot Cage.=--The Parrot Cage is a domestic scene, in what appears to be a tavern or a middle-cla.s.s hall, in which there is a bed, a chair, and a table, at which two men are playing backgammon, while a third looks on smoking a pipe. At the big fireplace an old woman is broiling oysters, which are likely to spoil, as she is taking more interest in the backgammon than in her own task. A boy seated on a low stool is feeding a kitten with milk from a spoon, and watching a woman of graceful figure who is offering a biscuit to a parrot in a cage.
The Orgy is famous for the dash and abandon with which it is painted.
=The Village Wedding and Other Pictures.=--The Rijks owns also The Birthday of the Prince of Orange, The Happy Return, The Rake, The Dancing Lesson, in which merry children are teaching a cat to dance; The Village Wedding, a little masterpiece, in which the light is treated as if by Ostade, and where the bride and groom are seated at a table with friends, while musicians play for many dancers.
=Description of The Happy Family.=--In The Happy Family we see a simply furnished room, in which is a bed, and next it a cupboard, on the top of which stand a mortar, some platters, and a vase of flowers; a happy family group is seated at a table. Hanging on the bed curtains is the legend in Dutch, ”As the old ones sing so will the young ones pipe.”