Adriaen van Ostade
THE TRAVELERS
Jacob Ruysdael
The influence of Rembrandt on his contemporaries and on subsequent artistic productions is very great indeed; none of his followers, gifted though they be, approach him in excellence and universality. To the Northern mind there is a great fascination in presentments of the life of the common people. Brouwer, Brueghel, Teniers are among those partial to this theme, and each of them has done some experimental work with the etching-needle. In Germany we find plates relating to peasant life among the prints of Dürer, Holbein, and the little masters. Rembrandt has devoted a good many plates to character sketches of beggars and of peasants. Among the other Dutch etchers the greatest interpreter of the peasantry is without doubt Adriaen van Ostade. He shows them to us at their homes, or at the tavern, smoking, drinking, dancing, merrymaking. The gay, sunny side of their existence is revealed in his fifty etchings, which display a thorough command of the medium employed. In the scene which has been chosen as an example of his powers, we discern the sympathetic interest in country life which characterizes all his work. Jacob Ruysdael, the landscape painter, has sketched on the copper a number of characteristic subjects, none, perhaps, finer than this clump of sturdy, gnarled oaks, with roots bathed in a shallow pool. The distant trees are flooded with sunlight, while the foreground is toned down to a lower key. All this is done in the simplest possible manner. The whole plate speaks of close, careful observation, and truthfully, suggestively expresses actual nature. Another notable feature is the subordination of the figures. Here, as in Rembrandt’s “Three Trees,” the figures are quite subordinate; the quiet beauty of the scenery presented is the main theme of the artist’s message. Passing by numerous other delightful landscape etchers, Everdingen, Waterloo, Saftleven, likewise the gifted etcher of animals, Paul Potter, we must turn now to Nicolas Berghem, who combines animal life with landscape. In his masterpiece, known as the “Diamond,” there is apparent the close study of nature, characteristic of the period, also much clever mise en scène, but as we examine the plate more closely, we realize the admixture of Italian inspiration. The vigor of home influences is weakening, and the art of the South again asserts itself as we approach the eighteenth century. The same Southern influence pervades the landscapes of Jan Both; they are very pleasing, technically fine, but the evil which creeps into Dutch art is quite evident here. The ideal landscape of Titian, Poussin, and Claude Lorrain gradually warps the former frank realistic rendering of nature; elegance, hollow display gradually take the place of the good, wholesome naturalness of Dutch art.
With the advent of the eighteenth century, painting and the graphic arts decline to levels which we may pass by in this rapid survey.
THE DIAMOND
Nicolaes Berghem