Simon de Vlieger, a native of Rotterdam, where he was born in 1693, is another painter of stirring sea-fights, though he also represents the peaceful side of shipping; witness A River Scene, in the Rijks Museum, where a big-sailed merchantman from the Indies lies near some little boats on the wind-flecked water, a picture full of bracing suggestion.
Lieve Verschuier (1630-1686), also a native of Rotterdam, could present with vigorous effect the busy aspect of the harbor, as may be seen at the Rijks Museum in his Charles II Entering Rotterdam, 24 May, 1660.
But the greatest of this stalwart group were Willem van de Velde the Elder, and his son, Willem the Younger. Both were born in Leyden, the former in 1611, the younger in 1633, and, after a period in Amsterdam, settled in England, where the father died in London, 1693, and the son at Greenwich, in 1707. The characteristic of these men is their treatment of the shipping; for with them, as with the others, the shipping and the sky are of more concern than the water. They give the great galleons and bulky Indiamen the personality almost of sentient things: creatures of power and importance, swelling with the pride of consequence.
CHAPTER XI
VAN GOYEN AND HOBBEMA
THE greatest name in Holland landscape, second only to Rembrandt, as many believe, in Dutch art, is Jacob van Ruisdael. Of the comparative merits of the other two leaders of Dutch landscape, opinions may differ; but personally I give the palm to Van Goyen.
Jan Josephsz van Goyen, to give his full name, was born in Leyden, in 1576. He was the pupil of several teachers, including Esaias van de Velde. At about the age of twenty-one he made a journey to France in the company of one of his teachers. Later he visited Belgium and the northern part of France, the sketches of this trip being still preserved in the Print Collection of Dresden. Moreover, from the subjects of his pictures, it is evident that he traveled extensively in Holland. Toward 1634 he settled at The Hague, continuing to work there until his death in 1656. His pictures found ready sale, but he speculated unfortunately in houses and pictures and was a victim of that Dutch “South Sea Bubble,” the speculative mania in tulips. Consequently he died poor.
His work embraces three manners. The first, which lasted until about 1630, shows a tendency to brown, with highly colored figures in which notes of red predominate. This is the period of Esaias van de Velde’s influence. In the second period he begins to be himself; the color becomes more subdued, the skies more clear, and the tonality mingles grayness with the browns or becomes greenish. This lasts for some years, and then gradually a finer sense of picturesqueness regulates the compositions; the technique gains in breadth and authority; the tonality is attained almost without color.
An example of the early method is View of Dordrecht, in the Hague Gallery. The town is seen in the distance across an expanse of water, furred by the wind; in the left foreground, the harbor bank with figures and horses; a sail-boat scudding toward the right. It is a gray day, translated into tones of brown; an exquisitely impressionistic vision of the occasion and scene.
A very remarkable picture of the transition stage between the first and second periods is the Landscape (No. 990) of the Rijks Museum, illustrated in this book. In the coat of the man on the left the vivid spot of red appears; his companion’s coat is blue; and these two notes of color vibrate sharply against the drabbish lowering sky. The ground is buffish green and the oaks brown. It is a picture of extraordinary dramatic effect.
Two fine examples of the artist’s middle and later period are in the Berlin Gallery: View of Arnheim (1646) and View of Nimwegen (1649). The former shows a horseman in the foreground and a cart farther back, where a gleam of light strikes, while the distant town is in shadow; and above this striking contrast is a magnificent height of sky filled with light and scattered with a few loose, well-constructed clouds. The tonality is composed of cream, gray, brown, and green. The later example already shows the prevalence of brown. The architecture is constructed in tones of pale brown and buff; the water in front is grayish white, and the ample sky admits a little rose amid the grayish blue. It is a picture of large feeling, and yet the details are still drawn in with that wriggling stroke of the brown brush which characterizes Van Goyen’s work, especially in the beginning and more or less to the end. It exhibits the feeling of one who is an engraver, as indeed he was; it is drawing rather than painting. The result is that some of his pictures seem more than a trifle niggling in their method. On the other hand, while he never gets away from it, he gets the better of it. He continues to model with these diminutive curlicues of vermicelli, now brown, now green, but the method disappears in the big impression aroused by the ensemble. Other notable examples of his later period are The River and Banks of a Canal, in the Louvre.