Part 18 (1/2)
=Roelofs, Painter of A Marshy Landscape.=--Familiar to the Holland traveller is the Marshy Landscape, so true to nature and so charming in color.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ROELOFS Marshy Landscape]
If he had painted nothing else, Willem Roelofs (1822-97) would deserve his reputation because of this work.
This painter was born in Amsterdam and was a pupil of H. van de Sande Bakhuijzen for about a year; then he remained for six years in Utrecht; and settled in Brussels, where he remained forty years, finally returning to Holland. This painter's chief desire is to express himself poetically.
=The Inexhaustible Supply of His Favorite Subjects.=--”His pictures are truly beautiful: cattle standing up to their knees in rich green pasture land; luxuriant meadows; secluded pools reflecting the blue sky and the moving clouds; lakes with floating lilies; rivers, streams, n.o.ble trees, ca.n.a.ls, and the thoroughly Dutch windmill.
Roelofs may be called the pioneer in our country of a broader school of painting, especially that pertaining to landscape. Much of this he may be said to have taken from the French.... Of late years he has added more cattle to his pictures; but whether cattle or trees, land or water, they are painted with the firm belief that they needed no embellishment, but were good enough to be represented exactly as they were. For Roelofs will not invent a subject. And why, indeed, should he do so? Is the supply exhausted? _He_ does not think so, for no summer pa.s.ses but he packs up his paint-box and with his little stool, his easel, and his umbrella, goes off either to Noorden, or Abcoude, or to Voorschoten, to study nature again and again, as if he did not know her well already.”[27]
=J. Maris, Skilful in producing Ethereal Effects.=--Of Jacob Maris, Zilcken writes:
”No painter has so well expressed the ethereal effects, bathed in air and light, through floating silvery mist, in which painters delight, and the characteristic remote horizons blurred by haze; or again the gray yet luminous weather of Holland, unlike the dead gray rain of England, or the heavy sky of Paris.”
This artist may be studied in this gallery by A Beach, two Views of a Town, The Ferry, and The Two Windmills, which latter represents two windmills standing as sentinels over a rather dreary landscape at the edge of a river and a ca.n.a.l.
=His Training and his Aim in Art.=--Jacob Maris (1837-99) was born in The Hague and was sent to Stroebel's studio, and later studied in the Antwerp Academy of Drawing. He was also a pupil of Louis Meyer in The Hague, and in 1865 went to Paris and studied with Hebert. Returning to The Hague, he devoted himself to landscape. He painted views of streets, country lanes, small hamlets, windmills, ca.n.a.ls, rivers, and, sometimes, _genre_ pieces. In all his work his aim was to make an impression. One day he said: ”A picture is finished as soon as you can see what it is intended to represent.”
=Marius on the Beauty of his Work.=--The Dutch critic, G. H. Marius, writes:
”If you stand before one of Maris's pictures for a long time you discover many objects which you had not noticed at first--houses, bridges, trees, all looming out of the mellow misty light which is diffused over the entire canvas.... What an endless variety of windmills he immortalizes! Some of his canvases have but a small solitary windmill, while others have a crowd of these gigantic, c.u.mbersome structures. Some pictures have a fringe of them upon the horizon.
”However simple the subject, it is ofttimes made almost dramatic by the rays of the setting sun, or by the brilliancy of a silver-lined cloud. These effects of light and shade are rapidly pa.s.sing, and we gaze with admiration upon the skilful work of a man who can produce such a faithful picture, which his eye could have seen but momentarily. Sometimes he paints a ca.n.a.l with a barge pulled by a weary-looking horse, tramping along the muddy road the ruts of which are filled with water from recent rain (his horses are generally white). Or it is a bit of rich agricultural land, the long furrows stretching into the far distance; against a wonderful sky you see the profiles of distant houses, trees, mills, etc., all dying away into the horizon, showing the flatness of our Dutch landscape, where there is nothing to impede or obstruct the eye for miles.”
=Willem Maris's Relish for painting Cows.=--Willem Maris (1844- ) studied with his brothers Jacob and Matthys, and all three worked together. As early as 1868 he sold a picture which found its way to The Hague Gallery. This, representing cattle in a green meadow, at once showed his talent for painting warm sunlight. A typical picture of Cattle hangs in this gallery; for the chief subjects of Willem Maris's pictures are cows in meadow lands; sometimes they are waiting to be milked, or are being milked; sometimes they are standing or lying under the trees; and sometimes they are knee-deep in one of the lakes.
Mr. Marius says:
=Willem's Style contrasted with his Brother Jacob's.=--”The two brothers Maris [Jacob and Willem] treat their skies in exactly opposite manners. The one depicts clouds, threatening storm, and changeable weather, whereas the younger brother gives us only suns.h.i.+ne and a sky of turquoise blue; if, however, clouds are introduced, they are like small white feathers or like the petals of a white rose. Each in his own way true to nature, and beautiful to gaze upon, yet methinks that we must give the preference to the one who gives us that greatest of all blessings, suns.h.i.+ne.
”A very favorite aspect of his is a cloudless sky, the brightest of suns, and part of the canvas thrown into deep shade, producing a wonderful contrast.
”Another bewitching feature, so truly Dutch, in Maris's landscapes, is the rising mist after the heat of the day. It rises from the meadows at sunset and covers the land like a cloak, especially after a hot day when the ground has been baked.”
=A Socialistic Artist with Romantic Visions.=--Matthys Maris, the second of the three, joined his brother Jacob in Paris, and eventually he settled in London.
”Thys Maris found rest and isolation in a suburb of London; a few faithful friends, such as Swan (the animal painter) and Van Wisselingh, break in occasionally upon his solitude. But his ideas are still socialistic, not only theoretically, but materially; and, without looking around, he gives what he receives. On this point he is likewise very sensitive. To be waited on by another, although that service is paid for, he considers humiliating; and, in order to avoid such a possibility, he lives without the comfort of attendance.
”Many might pa.s.s by the works of Maris without even noticing them; many may consider them impossible and inexplicable, and pa.s.s on, almost out of humor, perhaps even angry with them; the rational spectator will put questions to which he will receive no satisfactory replies.
”Though in his early years he painted still-life pieces, his fame rests chiefly on his visionary women seen in his romantic dreams, and portrayed with the clouds and mists of dreamland about them.”[28]
In this gallery The Bride represents him worthily.
=Two Pictures representing Albert Neuhuys.=--Albert Neuhuys, born in Utrecht in 1844, studied in the Academy of Drawing in Antwerp, and settled in Amsterdam, the painter of landscapes and scenes from homely and humble life. He is represented by The Doll's Dressmaker and By the Cradle, which represents a mother leaning over the cradle of her baby lying comfortably on pillows. It is interesting to note how thickly the artist has spread the paint on the canvas.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A. NEUHUYS By the Cradle]
=A Characteristic Picture by Christoffel Bisschop.=--Christoffel Bisschop (1828-1904) may be studied by The Lord Gave and the Lord hath Taken Away, Sunday in Hindeloopen, Sister of the Bride, and Winter in Friesland, also called Repairing Skates. This is a very characteristic and typical picture. Friesland is not only the home of a peculiar style of brightly painted furniture, but also the home of a school of skating of which there are two schools,--the Dutch and the Frisian. The latter, which is the older, aims at speed; and the skater wears a peculiar kind of skate, well shown on the foot of the young girl seated on the right, who is having the other skate repaired. The carved and colored sledges are also typical of Friesland. An escort waits at the door. The painter was himself a native of Friesland, and therefore depicts the costumes, furniture, houses, and people of this most picturesque corner of Holland with accuracy, charm, and sympathy.