REMBRANDT
Rembrandt was a master of both landscape motives, able alike to record with truthfulness the physical aspects of a scene or to infuse it with romantic suggestion; and nowhere more remarkably than in his etchings. In these, with a few lines that summarize the salient features of the scene, or with tonal effects of light and shade that elaborate and enrich the facts, he executed plates of pure landscape or of landscape as a setting for the figures. Among his paintings the examples of pure landscape are rare. The beautiful Tobit and the Angel of the National Gallery may be considered one, as the figures are insignificant, and another, which, however, is a sea-piece, is in the Liechtenstein Gallery (No. 606): water, dotted with a boat and a few distant sails, stretching back to a low horizon, over which spreads a vast open creamy sky, with some finely buoyant clouds. It is as a setting to figures, especially in the Biblical subjects, that Rembrandt’s use of landscape may best be studied. Here it serves as an orchestration to the theme, enriching it with sensuous and emotional suggestion, and giving a free range to the artist’s romantic and dramatic imagination.
PHILIPS KONINCK
Rembrandt’s best-known pupil in landscape was Philips Koninck, who was born in Amsterdam, 1619, and died there in 1688, some of his career being spent abroad. The character of his work suggests that he, too, may have been influenced directly by Hercules Seghers, for he affected far-reaching panoramas of flat country, interrupted by occasional low hills and traversed by streams. A fine sky extends above the ground, which is constructed in tones of warm pale yellow, olive green, and reddish brown. Notwithstanding the comparatively large size of the canvases and the extent of the scene included, the latter has been felt so synthetically, as well as comprehensively, that there is no lack of unity. An excellent example is The Dunes, “The Valley of the Rhine near Arnheim,” owned by Sir William van Horne of Montreal. Another memorable example is in the Dresden Gallery, Dutch Landscape, a view from the dunes looking across the level country. This canvas is scarcely so large, but involves the same sense of bigness. The foreground, which shows some red-roofed cottages amidst the olive greens, is constructed in an ample way; a river occupies the middle distance, and the further plain is dotted with little trees. Overhead is a sky of drabbish gray and rosy cream. The Berlin Museum owns a handsome example with figure and cattle in the foreground, and the Rijks Museum contains two. Here also are to be seen four portraits by Koninck of Joost van den Vondel, two at the age of seventy-eight and two at eighty-seven; the subject evidently being a friend of the artist, for on the back of one of the pictures is a dedicatory inscription.
The great nursery of Holland landscape was the city of Haarlem. Van Goyen, it is true, belonged to Leyden, while Amsterdam, which produced Seghers and Koninck, in course of time claimed many others. But the majority were citizens of Haarlem or at least spent a portion of their working life in that city. They include Salomon van Ruisdael and his nephew Jacob; Pieter Molyn, Jan Wynants, Allart van Everdingen, and the painters of landscape with animals and figures, Philips Wouwerman, Adriaen van de Velde, and Nicolaes Berchem.
Salomon van Ruisdael (about 1600-1670), it has been conjectured, may have been a pupil of Van Goyen’s because of a similarity between the early work of both, that has lead to their pictures being attributed to each other. But later the similarity disappears, Van Goyen displaying an ampler and more poetic style, while Salomon van Ruisdael continues to be the industrious painter of landscapes that, while admirably faithful to the appearance of nature, are comparatively prosaic in feeling. While he was a member of the Guild of St. Luke in Haarlem and lived there continuously, he visited other cities, for some of his pictures exhibit views of Leyden, Dordrecht, and Nimwegen. The characteristic of his work is a quiet, homely dignity, that, while it gives a pleasant record of the Holland of his day, seldom stirs one to enthusiasm. Perhaps his chief claim to recognition is that he was the teacher of Jacob van Ruisdael.
Pieter Molyn (about 1600-1661) was a successful teacher, who had the capacity to foster the individuality of his pupils. Among these the most famous was Gerard Terborch, who occasionally collaborated with his master by introducing figures into his landscapes. Molyn’s own pictures were inclined to be meager in composition, and dryly precise in execution.
Jan Wynants (about 1605-1679), again, was fortunate in having a collaborator, for more than one hundred and fifty of his pictures were enlivened with figures by that skilful and attractive artist, Adriaen van de Velde. They add brilliance and animation to landscapes that in themselves are painstaking but apt to be monotonous.
Allart van Everdingen (1621-1675) is not to be confounded with his brother Cæsar, who was a rather indifferent painter of portraits, genre and historical pictures. Allart was a pupil of Pieter Molyn and then worked in Sweden, subsequently spending seven years in Haarlem and the last twenty-two years of his life in Amsterdam. His fame also rests on his connection with Jacob van Ruisdael, who was induced by the success of Everdingen’s Swedish landscapes to abandon the direct study of nature and to invent scenes of romantic impressiveness. In the Rijks Museum there is a chance, in Nos. 2078 and 907, to compare side by side the work of these two men. The result, I think, is to discover that, while they may use practically the same material in the same way, Ruisdael gives a character to each object, that makes you feel as if he had penetrated into the heart as well as the marrow of the scene, while Everdingen remains merely a lover and recorder of the picturesque.