Description of the Marriage of Peleus and Thetis.—"It is composed of fourteen large figures, half nude, representing the gods of Olympus celebrating the marriage of Thetis. Seated at table and distinguished by their divine attributes, the gods appear to be troubled at the sight of Discord, who descends from above, borne on a cloud, and throws down among them the golden apple destined for the most beautiful. In the foreground, with her back turned to the spectator, is shown the figure of Venus, who displays unveiled her divine shoulders, her voluptuous neck, and her incomparably beautiful body, which will carry off the prize, and which has no need of the girdle of beauty to render the goddess beloved. Elsewhere than in The Hague Gallery this mythological painting would perhaps not excite more remark than any other picture, but there, in the midst of a family, bourgeoise, and Protestant school, which avoids the nude and ignores academic conventions and style, a picture of this kind cannot fail strongly to attract attention. Abraham Bloemaert, like the famous Cornelis of Haarlem, has the air of an Italian who has gone astray in these northern regions. These noble contours and learned lines, this modelling of the flesh pursued with a certain pedanticism by the former, and with grace and facility by the latter, and finally these more or less violent foreshortenings,—those, for instance, offered by this picture in the figures of Discord and the Loves who scatter flowers or suspend from trees the curtain that decorates the place of banqueting,—all this is at variance with the jollity and naturalism of the Dutch; all this betrays the influence of a foreign style, an influence that reigned in Holland in the sixteenth century, disappeared at the arrival of Rembrandt, and did not return till the appearance of Gérard de Lairesse, more than a century later."[3]
Others who painted in the Italian Style.—Nicholas (or Claes) Berchem (1620-83), Karel Dujardin (1622-78), and Jan (or Johannes) Both (1610-52), painted in the Italian style. Berchem was a pupil of his father, Pieter Claes, and of J. B. Weenix, Moeyaert, Pieter de Grebber, and probably Jan van Goyen. Karel Dujardin was a pupil of Berchem. All three travelled in Italy; and all three are represented in The Hague Gallery. Berchem has an Italian Landscape and Figures; an Italian Landscape or Pastoral (dated 1648), with life-sized figures.
Berchem's Picture of a Boar-Hunt.—A Wild Boar Hunt, of the year 1659, shows that he could successfully treat an animated scene. Crowe says:
"It is a model of precision combined with elegance of execution; though at the same time that blue dark tone which, to the eye of a connoisseur, so much detracts from the value of his later works, already partially appears. This is more seen in a landscape dated 1661 in the same museum, though otherwise belonging to his more attractive works. But here also the conventional and monotonous treatment of his cattle begins to be visible.... But the most striking example of the master's deterioration is afforded us by one of his latest works, the Cavalry Engagement, in The Hague Museum, which is a very type of crude and discordant effect and hardness of detail."
His fourth picture is An Italian Quay, dated 1661.
Pictures by Dujardin, Jan Both, and Others.—Karel Dujardin, famous for his animals, portraits, and landscapes, can be well studied in a fine Italian landscape, called A Cascade in Italy, rich and warm in tone and dated 1673.
Johannes Both has two Italian landscapes, one of which glows with sunshine and is remarkable for breadth and delicacy.
Other pictures showing this Italian influence are The Ambuscade and an Italian landscape by Moucheron, with figures by J. Lingelbach; the Terrestrial Paradise by Jan Brueghel the Elder; and The Torrent, by Adam Pynacker.
Adam Pynacker and Jan Both compared.—Pynacker, though inferior to Jan Both in his Italian landscapes, surpasses him in variety. His tone is cooler than Both's, and he excels in painting early morning scenes. In addition to pastoral scenes, he loves rocky heights, mountain ranges, Italian harbors, bold bridges, and waterfalls.
Pynacker enlivened his landscapes with human figures and cattle, both of which he was able to draw and paint extremely well.