TO the Dutch method of treating Biblical subjects we have already alluded in the case of Rembrandt and Jan Steen. It shows in common the motive of translating the story into the vernacular of Dutch life, accompanied on the part of Rembrandt with strong emotional and dramatic appeal, expressed by means of color and chiaroscuro. It was also Rembrandt’s practice to employ models selected from the Ghetto in Amsterdam. Among his followers was a group of men who emulated his treatment of Biblical subjects, while they also distinguished themselves in portraiture. Hence the convenience of considering these two branches of Dutch painting in the same chapter. Moreover, the incongruity between the two is not so great as it may appear at first sight, since the Dutch perpetuated the Flemish tendency, which was also German, of not only personifying the sacred characters by personages of their own day, but of reproducing so faithfully their characterization that the heads were practically portraits.
Among the pupils of Rembrandt who varied portraiture with pictures from the Bible story were, in order of their age, Govert Flinck, Ferdinand Bol, Carel Fabritius, Gerbrandt van den Eeckhout, and Aert de Gelder; while another, who is known solely as a portrait-painter, was Dirck Dircksz Santvoort.
GOVERT FLINCK
This artist (1615-1660) began by being so close an imitator of Rembrandt’s method of chiaroscuro that many of his pictures used to be taken for his master’s; later, however, when the fashion for Italian art was revived, he abandoned the chiaroscuro and devoted himself to line and form. Indeed, he seems to have been an able opportunist; but to mistake him for Rembrandt suggests a shallow conception of the latter. Flinck’s Biblical masterpiece is probably the Isaac Blessing Jacob; in the Rijks Museum. The patriarch’s half-figure, as he sits propped up by pillows, is clad in a splendid crimson robe; the gesture of the arms is full of dignity, and the head crowned with the majestic character of old age. And the aged face of Rebecca is reverently characteristic. The color throughout is rich, and the light and shadow are warm and luminous. It is an effective rendering of a grave incident, but the latter has been seen rather than felt, and certainly not with the depth and poignancy of feeling that Rembrandt would have suggested. Another fine example of Flinck’s is in the Dresden Gallery—David Handing the Letter to Uriah. Crimson again appears in the king’s robe, contrasted with which is a large mass of golden yellow with red border, formed by the cloak of a secretary at his side, while Uriah’s figure, kept in shadow, is clad in peacock blue and purplish brown. The whole forms a splendid scheme of color, and again the characterization is extremely interesting, especially that of the black-haired and-bearded king, who shows a certain mingling of hardness and nervousness in his face and demeanor. The treatment is seriously conceived, but with rather a faint grasp of the dramatic possibilities involved in the theme.
In the Angel and the Shepherds of the Louvre there is still less feeling for the scene, except in so far as it offered an opportunity for chiaroscuro. Even the composition is rather perfunctory, the shepherds being huddled on the right, balanced by a cow and sheep on the opposite side of the foreground, while the angel who brings the message of Christ’s birth appears above in the center with cherubs. Nor is the chiaroscuro satisfactory, for while there are some nice passages of color in the lighted parts, the shadows are without quality and seem used only as foils to the light, and not as having individual value. More successful in its recollection of the Rembrandt manner, and altogether a picture of considerable charm, is the classical subject, Diana and Endymion, in the Liechtenstein Gallery, Vienna.
In the Dresden Gallery are two of the old-men studies that this artist frequently painted, while a more important example of his fondness for representing old age is shown in the Art-History Museum, Vienna. This Gray-Bearded Old Man suggests, like the others, the influence of Rembrandt, but superficially. It has the venerableness of old age, but not the power of expression that makes Rembrandt’s treatment of this subject so spiritually compelling.
The Louvre has a charming Portrait of a Little Girl, in an olive-green dress, holding a spade. In arrangement of costume and choice of color it is quite Rembrandtesque. Again, in the Berlin Gallery is a very pleasing Portrait of a Young Woman. But it is in the Rijks Museum that the portraiture of Flinck can best be studied, both in corporation pictures and single figures. They vary in quality from the quite impressive bust portrait (No. 931) of M. Johannes Wittenbogaert (?), with its mellow flesh tints and strong suggestion of character, to the showy but perfunctory Fête of the Civil Guard, Münster,, 1648. In this there is no charm of flesh and little of fabrics. The whole is pompously theatrical, done apparently for “business,” with no eye to anything but satisfying the vanity of the subjects.
FERDINAND BOL
Ferdinand Bol (1616-1680) in the beginning of his career reproduced the manner of Rembrandt. His coloring was mellow and enriched by chiaroscuro. Later, about 1650, the chiaroscuro became less pronounced and the color insipid. While he is esteemed chiefly for his portraits, he also treated Biblical subjects, as may be seen by three examples in the Dresden Gallery and two in the Rijks Museum. The most pleasing of the Dresden pictures is Jacob Presented to Pharaoh by Joseph. There is a very characteristic look of scrutiny in Pharaoh’s face, while his jewel-bespangled cloak, with its broad border of white and black fur, affords a fine mass of scintillating color, juxtaposed to the rich creamy costume of Joseph and the crimson of the old man’s. The picture, indeed, presents a very handsome color-scheme, though one may discover a certain stiffness and theatricality in the gesture of Joseph’s hands. The accompanying picture, Rest of the Holy Family during Its Flight into Egypt, is over six feet high and suggests a canvas too large for the material introduced, so that one third of it is filled up with supernumerary articles, such as a saddle and a basket of tools. One suspects that the picture may have been intended as a decoration for some wall-space, as the very large example in the Rijks Museum certainly was. For this, Abraham Receiving the Angels was one of five panels painted for a room in a house at Utrecht, the other four being now in the abbey of Middelburg in Zeeland. A mild reflection of Italian Renaissance feeling is suggested by the comme il faut disposition of the angels’ draperies, but their coloring of golden amber is finely Rembrandtesque; so, too, the glow of the yellowing beech-tree that spires up into the top of the composition, and the plum-gray velvet of Abraham’s robe. The picture, in fact, while shallow in its treatment of the incident, is finely decorative. On the other hand, the Salome Dancing before Herod, a work apparently of Bol’s later period, is an absurdly bad picture, bright and flimsy in color and entirely trifling as a study of form.
Of Bol’s capacity in portrait-painting a good example is Portrait of a Mathematician, in the Louvre. He is shown resting one arm on a balustrade, the body, in black with a white collar, being in profile, while the gray-haired head, covered with a black cap, is facing round to the spectator, as he points with a ruler to a geometrical figure on a blackboard. It is a piece of honest characterization, blending vivacity and dignity. In quite a different vein is his portrait of a girl in profile in the Liechtenstein Gallery. She has soft pale blond hair, and the figure is enveloped in that yellow tonality which marks Bol’s transition from the Rembrandtesque manner to his later one. The girl with her protruding forehead bears a striking resemblance to a girl, painted by Rembrandt, in Room VI of the same gallery, and a comparison of the two pictures offers an interesting commentary upon the essential difference between the master and one of his most successful pupils.