The Simplicity of W. van de Velde's Pictures.—With very simple details, Willem van de Velde produces marvellous effects. He paints the ocean from the shore to the distant horizon; and this straight line is in beautiful contrast to the rounded clouds, while the severity of the tall masts is relieved by the curves of the puffing sails. Sometimes a group of fishermen on the beach or the end of a wharf of piles is seen in the foreground; but he more frequently begins his picture in the middle distance and gives the foreground up to waves slightly agitated or with a buoy tossing in the rising tide, in such a way as to suggest that the picture was painted not from the shore but from a vessel at anchor.
W. van de Velde compared with other Painters.—Sir Joshua Reynolds said: "Another Raphael might be born; but there could never be a second Willem van de Velde"; and Havard calls him "not only the greatest marine painter of the Dutch school, but also one of the greatest in the whole world." Blanc draws the following distinction between Van de Velde and Backhuysen: "Backhuysen makes us fear the sea, whilst Van de Velde makes us love it."
Backhuysen, a Painter of Ships and Shipping.—Backhuysen (1631-1708) probably owed his darker moods to his master Allart van Everdingen, who was a pupil of Pieter Molijn (1600-54), whose works are now so rare, and who was also one of the founders of Dutch landscape-painting. Backhuysen was a painter of ships and shipping, as well as of the sea, and had a practical knowledge of nautical matters.
Examples showing his Style.—Three pictures in The Hague Gallery afford good examples for study of his style. One, Entrance to a Dutch Port, dated 1693, shows an agitated sea, very remarkable for the happy distribution of sunlight and shadows of clouds upon the water, and broad yet delicate treatment; another is a View of the Wharf Belonging to the Dutch East India Company, and is dated 1696; and the third has for its subject The Landing of William III. of England in the Oranje Polder in 1692.
Imitators of Backhuysen.—Pictures by Jan van de Capelle and Jan Dubbels often pass for Backhuysen's; and another imitator is Abraham Storck, who is greatly inferior in elegance of touch. Good examples of Storck's style—a Marine and a Shore—hang in The Hague Gallery. Storck was much influenced by Lingelbach. The latter was also quite successful with his harbors and quays, with their shipping and human figures.
Simon de Vlieger as a Painter of the Ocean.—A greater painter, however, is Simon de Vlieger (1601-59), who is supposed to have studied under Jan van Goyen, and painted landscapes in the style of that master; he is famous for his marines. He frequently painted sea pieces which included the coast. He was the first to represent the ocean in its varying moods. His execution is free and soft, and his aërial perspective very fine. Like the majority of the Dutch painters he loved to paint Scheveningen. His Beach at Scheveningen, signed and dated 1643, is a fine example of his work.
The Diversity of his Subjects.—"De Vlieger often paints birds of the farmyard, which, both in truth and delicacy, are equal to anything produced either by Hondecoeter or Flamen. His horses, hares, and sheep may certainly pair with those of Van der Hecke, Jouckeer, or Jean Leducq; his pigs are observed differently from those of Karel Dujardin, but perhaps they are more true to nature because he has not put any malice or irony into his representation of them. The diversity of his subjects, the talent he displays in grouping figures and animals in an extensive landscape, or in a boat passing along a canal, or on the beach of Scheveningen where, in The Hague picture, we see them huddling together as if the ocean had just cast them ashore with its shells and fishes; the art of lighting them so as to delight the eyes without too greatly distracting the mind from the spectacle of vast nature and the infinite ocean—all that makes Simon de Vlieger one of the most remarkable Dutch masters."[9]
De Vlieger was as eminent in interiors, ruins, and processions as in marines and landscapes. He loved to frame familiar and rustic scenes in beautiful landscapes; and he had no need to call upon others, such as Barent Gael, Schellinkx or Van de Velde, for his figures, as so many of his contemporaries did.
Painters of Architectural Pictures: De Vries.—Pictures in which architecture forms the chief interest had their beginning with Jan Vriedeman de Vries, who devoted himself to the study of Vitruvius and Serlio. His works were very successful, though in the mannered taste of his time.
Hendrik van Steenwyck and his Son.—A scholar of his, Hendrik van Steenwyck (1550-1604), who became a master in Antwerp in 1577, painted chiefly interiors of Gothic churches of fine perspective, both lineal and aërial, and was the first to represent the light of torches and tapers on architectural forms. One of the very numerous Francken family usually added the human figures. His son Hendrik van Steenwyck was his pupil and follower, though he painted in a cooler tone and was inferior in all respects.