Dutch Painting In The Seventeenth Century

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

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We have seen now with what variety and perfection the Dutch artists painted their national hearthside: and next we must consider how they painted their homeland. Midway between the genre painters and the landscape-painters stands Aart van der Neer (1603-77), who forms a bridge, as it were, between the two groups. Born three years before Rembrandt, he, like Jan van Goyen (1596-1656), is one of the early pioneers of landscape painting, yet by the the little figures in his landscapes he tells us a great deal of the life of Holland. Thus his ‘Skating Scene’ in the Wallace Collection has been ranked by the famous Dr Bode as ‘among the most perfect landscape delineations of winter,’ but it is also a charming picture of manners, giving us a glimpse of the life on the ice in seventeenth-century Holland.

Towards the end of his life Aart van der Neer deteriorated as other ‘Little Master’ did also; in addition to painting, he kept a tavern, and possibly business losses in the wine trade drove him to do inferior but more immediately saleable work during his last years. Nearly all his best work was done before 1665, when he was not dependent on painting for a livelihood, but a happy amateur who could paint what he liked. He was one of the first artists to attempt painting night scenes, but though the novelty of his moonlit views attracted attention his winter landscapes in daylight are usually considered to be his best work.

Agriculture has always been an important industry in Holland, and the local artists who catered so well for the needs of the citizen did not forget to make an appeal also to farmers. Of many who made a specialty of painting cattle, Paul Potter (1623-54) is the most celebrated, though he died in his twenty-ninth year. His big picture ‘The Bull’ is a favourite show piece at The Hague, where guides—most conservative critics—wax enthusiastic about its accuracy. Courageous people, however, have been known to confess that they find its precise statement of fact a little dull, though few dare to be so severe as Dr Muther, who once described Potter’s cattle as ‘essentially Dutch, for they know neither passions, nor struggles, nor movement, but chew the cud phlegmatically or lie down in comfortable repose.’

Cattle also figure largely in the paintings of Albert Cuyp (1620-91), who is splendidly represented in English collections. Cuyp was no mere animal painter: his principal interest lay neither in the beast nor in the earth, but above in the mighty vault of the heavens. He does not so much set out to paint cattle as to use cattle, and we may see in his ‘River Scene’ how effectively cows can be used as dark spots which bring out by contrast the luminosity of the sky, and as prominent objects in the foreground which emphasize the great stretch of flat landscape which reaches out to the horizon. The glowing light and golden color of Cuyp have placed him among the great sky painters of the world, and his work has for centuries been an example and an incentive to British landscape painting.

Apart from all other Dutch painters of landscape—seeming, indeed, to belong to another race—stands the austere and majestic figure of Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-82). Though he took all Nature for his province, and in his youth painted her more peaceful aspects, we instinctively associate his sublime spirit with holy spots ‘both savage and enchanted.’ It is difficult to think of him as eight years younger than Cuyp, for so serious and austere is his vision that we can hardly believe Ruisdael was ever young. Even when he paints a simple seaside scene like ‘The Shore at Scheveningen’ he gives dramatic intensity to the scene by the rolling clouds in the sky which seem to repeat the restlessness of the agitated waves. Again, in his famous painting of ‘The Mill’, for all the stillness of the scene, we feel that this is the calm before the storm—as, indeed, the sky betokens. Grandly designed as this painting is, it is one of the quietest works of the artist, who, though infinitely varied in his choice of subject delighted especially in painting waterfalls, cascades, and rocky cliffs, Ruisdael, says a gifted American painter, Mr John La Farge,

Is as different from Cuyp as shadow is from sunshine; and his grave and solemn mind gives to the simplest and most commonplace of landscapes a look of sad importance, which is almost like a reproach of lightmindedness to any other man’s work which happens to hand alongside.

Meindert Hobbema (1638-1700) was Ruisdael’s pupil and friend, but as different in temperament from his master as a man could well be. Ruisdael approaches Nature with devoutness of a worshipper approaching a shrine; Hobbema, with the unconscious ease of a man entering his own home. He painted the same subjects over and over again, but he painted them so naturally, so freshly and convincingly, that they take us straight back to Nature, not to the pictures of another artist. In the humbleness and sincerity of his naturalism he expresses everybody’s feeling of delight and thankfulness in sunny weather and fresh country air. ‘The Avenue’ is probably the best beloved landscape in the National Gallery, London, and this and other works by Hobbema have had a profound and far-reaching effect on British landscape. Out of his smiling and friendly art grew our Norwich school of landscape. Gainsborough acknowledged his worth by word and deed, and the last sentence ever uttered by John Crome was, ‘Oh, Hobbema, my dear Hobbema, how I have loved you!’ It is sad to think that this simple, honest, and most easily understood painter, a man of genius who has given happiness to millions for six generations, fared so poorly in his profession of painting that when he was thirty he sought another means of livelihood. He sought and obtained a small position in the wine customs, and thus made himself independent of picture buyers and dealers. He saw his master, the great painter Ruisdael, battling with poverty and becoming no more prosperous as the years rolled on, so Hobbema wisely determined to look elsewhere for his bread and butter and make landscape painting his hobby and pastime. It is significant to note that his supreme masterpiece, ‘The Avenue’ was painted some years after he had become a civil servant, and when, without having to think of what the buyer might or might not like, he could indulge to the full his feeling for the pattern in landscape and his sense of beauty in the elements of Nature.

It must be admitted that if Holland had a galaxy of artistic talent during the seventeenth century she did little to encourage genius. As so often happens in modern times, the mediocre painters made the best income, while the men of genius starved. This state of affairs is not satisfactory, but it is not inexplicable. The men who prospered and made money were, as a rule, painters like Gerard Dou, who painted every feather on a bird, every scale of a fish, the shine of a copper pan, and the luster of an earthenware pot. These were things within the range of everybody’s observation and interest, and demanded no imagination, no culture. Therefore the painters of pots and pans, of insects, fruit and flowers, all prospered, while great artists like Rembrandt, Hals, Vermeer, and Ruisdael, who concentrated their attention on higher things, were neglected. Anybody could understand a picture of a cat stealing a fish, but appreciate the beauty of pearly light stealing through high windows to lighten an apartment, presupposes some sense of poetry in the mind of the beholder.

Dutch Painting In The Seventeenth Century (continued)