Part 19 (2/2)
Alfonso and Leo studied the collection of portraits at Boyman's Museum, and sketched in the River Park the happy people who were grouped under trees, by the fish ponds, and along the gra.s.sy expanses. Alfonso bought a photograph of the ill.u.s.trious Erasmus. It is about ten miles to Delft, once celebrated for its pottery and porcelain, a city to-day of 25,000 inhabitants. Here on the 10th of July, 1584, William of Orange, Founder of Dutch independence, was shot by an a.s.sa.s.sin to secure the price set on William's head by Farnese.
Our two artists visited a church in Delft to see the marble monument to the memory of the Prince of Orange, which was inscribed ”Prince William, the Father of the Fatherland.” Not far is Delft Haven which Americans love to visit, and where the pious John Robinson blessed a brave little band as it set sail to plant in a new world the tree of Liberty.
At length the artists reached The Hague, which for centuries has been the favorite residence of the Dutch princes, and to-day is occupied by the court, n.o.bles, and diplomatists. No town in Holland possesses so many broad and handsome streets, lofty and substantial blocks, and s.p.a.cious squares as The Hague.
Alfonso and Leo hastened to Scheveningen, three miles west of The Hague, on the breezy and sandy sh.o.r.es of the North Sea, a clean fis.h.i.+ng village of neat brick houses sheltered from the sea by a lofty sand dune. Here bathing wagons are drawn by a strong horse into the ocean, where the bather can take his cool plunge. Scheveningen possesses a hundred fis.h.i.+ng boats. The fishermen have an independent spirit and wear quaint dress. A public crier announces the arrival of their cargoes, which are sold at auction on the beach, often affording picturesque and amusing scenes, sketches of which were made. The luminous appearance of the sea caused by innumerable mollusca affords great pleasure to visitors, twenty thousand of whom every year frequent this fas.h.i.+onable sea-bathing resort.
The second evening after the artists' arrival at Scheveningen, as they sauntered along on the brick-paved terrace in sight of white sails and setting sun, Alfonso was agreeably surprised to meet in company with her mother, Christine de Ruyter, a young artist, whose acquaintance he had made in the Louvre at Paris.
Christine's father, prominent for a long time in the vessel trade, had recently died, leaving a fortune to his wife and two daughters, one of whom, Fredrika was already married. They were descended from the famous Admiral de Ruyter, who in 1673 defeated the united fleets of France and England off the coast of Scheveningen, which fact added much of interest to their annual visit to this resort. While Leo talked with the mother, Alfonso listened to Christine, as she told much about the historic family with which she was connected, and in return she learned somewhat of young Harris's family and their visit to Europe.
Christine, who was about Alfonso's age, had fair complexion, light hair, and soft blue eyes. Her beauty added refinement that education and wide travel usually furnish.
It was seen in Alfonso's face and in his marked deference that Christine filled his ideal of a beautiful woman. Christine and her mother and the young artists were registered at the Hotel de Orange, so of necessity they were thrown into each other's company. They drove to The Hague, compared the statues of William of Orange with each other; rode along the elegant streets, south through the Zoological and Botanical Gardens, through the park, and to the drill grounds. A half-day was spent in visiting the ”House in the Woods,” a Royal Villa, one and one-half miles northeast of The Hague. This palace is beautifully decorated, particularly the Orange Salon, which was painted by artists of the school of Rubens.
Alfonso and Leo enjoyed their visits to the celebrated picture gallery, which contains among many Dutch paintings the famous pictures by Paul Potter and Rembrandt. Paul Potter's Bull is deservedly popular. This picture was once carried off to Paris, and there ranked high in the Louvre, and later the Dutch offered 60,000 florins to Napoleon for its restoration.
Christine, who was well conversant with art matters, knew the location and artistic value of each painting and guided the young Americans to works by Van Dyck, Rubens, the Tenniers, Holbein, and others. She was proud of a terra-cotta head of her ancestor, Admiral de Ruyter. The party soon reached Rembrandt's celebrated ”School of Anatomy,” originally painted for the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons. Tulp is in black coat with lace collar and broad-brimmed soft hat, dissecting a sinew of the arm of the corpse before him. He is explaining, with gesture of his left hand, his theory to a group of Amsterdam surgeons. No painter ever before succeeded in so riveting the attention of spectators in the presence of death. The listeners appear altogether unconscious of the pallid corpse that lies before them on the dissecting table.
Invited by Christine's mother, the young artists accompanied the De Ruyters to Amsterdam, the commercial capital of Holland, with 300,000 inhabitants. They live on ninety islands formed by intersecting ca.n.a.ls, which are crossed by three hundred bridges. The buildings rest on foundations of piles, or trees, which fact gave rise to Erasmus's jest, that he knew a city where the people dwelt on tops of trees, like rooks.
Alfonso took Leo into the suburbs to see diamond polis.h.i.+ng. The machinery is run by steam, and the work is done largely by Portuguese Jews. These precious stones are cut or sawed through by means of wires covered with diamond dust, and the gems are polished by holding them against rapidly revolving iron disks moistened with a mixture of diamond dust and oil.
Christine's people lived in a red brick mansion, the gable of which contained a portrait in relief of Admiral de Ruyter, and fronted a shaded street on a ca.n.a.l. Here the American artists were handsomely entertained.
They were driven to the picture galleries and the palace or town-hall in the Dam Square, where Louis Napoleon and Hortense once resided. From the tower which terminates in a gilded s.h.i.+p the artists obtained fine views of Northern Holland. Christine pointed out the Exchange and other objects of interest in the city, which abounds in narrow streets and broad ca.n.a.ls, the latter lined with fine shade trees. Many of the tall, narrow houses have red tile roofs, quaint fork-chimneys, and they stand with gables to the ca.n.a.ls. The docks show a forest of masts.
The environs of the city are covered with gardens; trees adorn the roads, while poplars and willows cross or divide the fields, which are studded with windmills and distant spires, and everywhere are seen fertile corps, black and white cattle, and little boats creeping slowly along the ca.n.a.ls.
A Hollander's wealth is often estimated by his windmills. If asked, ”How rich?” The reply comes, ”Oh, he is worth ten or twelve windmills.”
Holland seems alive with immense windmills. They grind corn, they saw wood, they pulverize rocks, and they are yoked to the inconstant winds and forced to contend with the water, the great enemy of the Dutch. They constantly pump water from the marshes into ca.n.a.ls, and so prevent the inundation of the inhabitants. The Hollander furnishes good ill.u.s.tration of the practical value of Emerson's words, ”Borrow the strength of the elements. Hitch your wagon to a star, and see the ch.o.r.es done by the G.o.ds themselves.”
To the west are seen the church spires of Haarlem, and its long ca.n.a.l, which like a silver thread ties it to Amsterdam. To the east the towers of Utrecht are visible, and to the north glitter in the morning sun the red roofs of Zaandam and Alkmaar.
Far away stretched the waters of the Zuider Zee, which Holland plans to reclaim by an enbankment from the extreme cape of North Holland, to the Friesland coast, so as to shut out the ocean, and thereby acquire 750,000 square miles of new land; a whole province. At present 3,000 persons and 15,000 vessels are employed in the Zuider Zee fisheries, the revenues of which average $850,000 a year. It is proposed to furnish equivalents to satisfy these fishermen. It is estimated that this wonderful engineering feat will extend over 33 years and cost $131,250,000.
Christine now conducted her artist friends out of the Palace and over to the Rijks Museum to see Rembrandt's largest and best work, his ”Night Watch.” It is on the right as you enter, covering the side of the room.
It represents a company of arquebusiers, energetically emerging from their Guild House on the Singel. The light and shade of the Night Watch is so treated as to form a most effective dramatic scene, which, since its creation, in 1642, has been enthusiastically admired by all art connoisseurs.
Rembrandt was the son of a miller, and his studio was in his father's wind-mill, where light came in at a single narrow window. By close observation he became master of light and shade, and excelled in vigor and realism. At $50 a year he taught pupils who flocked to him from all parts of Europe, but, like too many possessed of fine genius, he died in poverty. Later, London paid $25,000 for a single one of his six hundred and forty paintings. The Dutch painters put on canvas the everyday home-life and manners of their people, while the Flemish represented more the religious life of the lower Netherlands.
These journeys in Belgium gave Alfonso and Leo enlarged ideas as to the possibilities of portrait painting. In Alma Tadema, of Dutch descent, and Millais they saw modern examples of wonderful success, which made clear to them that the high art of portrait painting once acquired, both fame and fortune are sure to follow.
Christine de Ruyter had taken lessons of the best masters in Holland, Italy, and France. Few, if any women artists of her age, equalled or excelled her. Her conversations on art in the Netherlands charmed her two artist friends. She said, ”The works of art of the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries in the Netherlands seemed to grow out of the very soil of the low countries. Our old artists revelled in the varied costumes and manifold types that thronged the cities of the Hanseatic League. The artist's imagination was fascinated by the wealth of color he saw on st.u.r.dy laborers, on weather-beaten mariners, burly citizens, and sagacious traders.
”Rubens delighted often in a concentrated light, and was master of artistic material along the whole range. He painted well portraits, landscapes, battles of heroes, gallant love-making of the n.o.ble, and the coa.r.s.e pleasures of the vulgar. Nearly a thousand pictures bear the name of Rubens.
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