1053. A CHURCH AT DELFT.
Emanuel de Witte (Dutch: 1607-1692). Room X.
Witte was a native of Alkmaar, but settled at Delft, where he probably met another architectural painter, Dirk van Delen. "An exact knowledge of perspective, a perfect conception of light and shade, and a delicacy of execution which reveals every detail without degenerating into dryness, figures well drawn and sufficiently picturesque ... are the qualities which distinguish his works" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 245). The picture before us is not a very favourable specimen of the painter's skill. In the gallery at Hertford House one of his masterpieces may be seen. His style, says Mr. Phillips in his catalogue of that collection, "is absolutely opposed to that of the somewhat earlier painters of the Flemish School, Steenwyck the Younger and Pieter Neeffs the Elder, who obtained their chief effects by accuracy of linear perspective, while De Witte realised his by broad and masterly chiaroscuro. In his treatment of light and colour he shows some affinity to Pieter de Hooch." The date of his birth is uncertain; it should perhaps be 1617.
Notice the anti-Pauline practice of the worshippers ("Every man praying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. But every woman that prayeth with her head uncovered, dishonoureth her head"—1 Corinthians xi. 4, 5). Here it is the women who are "uncovered," the men who are "covered."