The Effect of this on their Reputation.—Sometimes a young artist's facility in a certain field was detrimental to high esteem. Paul Potter, for example, had to live down the reproach that he was nothing but a painter of animals,—which he very quickly did. Those who made a specialty of live animals apart from landscape are very few. With the exception of the works of Snyders, hunting scenes are rare. Wouwermans's hunts are confined to the start and the return of the cavalcades.
Blanc's Description of Weenix's Style.—J. B. Weenix must have loved hunting also, for it forms one of the familiar motives in his landscapes in the Italian style. However,
"as he painted above all for the pleasure of painting, his usual custom was to group in the foreground of his composition the products of the chase rather than to represent the hunt itself. It is only in the distance that hounds and huntsmen are seen hunting the hare, while the poor animal is already dead and hanging by its foot to a branch of a tree in the foreground. A brilliant gamecock, one or two partridges, some ribbons and flowers, and a big garden vase will accompany the hare and form a charming picture for the mere delight of the eyes. Truth, finesse of local color, delightful light and shade, exquisite handling, and the whole technique of art are employed to make us admire this still life. We cannot help noticing the masterly manner in which the artist has rendered the fur of his dead hare, crimsoned with blood; and how lovingly he has caressed the plumage of the neck and crop of his partridges, and reproduced the beautiful lustrous black of the cock, whose wings are splashed with white; how he has made us feel the velvet of the skin at the joining of the muscles, and accentuated the feet and claws. But the final luxury of the palette seems to have been reserved for a superb hunting-dog with delicate ears, that watches with an eye full of life over his master's gun and the glorious trophies of the chase; and distends his nostrils as if to snuff the odor of the gunpowder, the aroma of the gin, and the strong scents of the venison."
Painters of Still Life.—Usually the painters of inanimate objects take the trouble to arrange their inert models, just as a historical painter would dispose his living figures. The human figures in Snyders's pictures were painted by Rubens, Jordaens, or Martin de Vos. His pupils were Jan Fyt, Nicasius Bernarts, and Pieter Boel. The Rijks Gallery has two splendid pictures by him: one, a dish garnished with fruits and dead game; and the other, a dead roebuck, a wild boar's head, and vegetables.
Snyders's Dead Game and Vegetables.—Beautiful in composition and color is his Dead Game and Vegetables. On a shelf are placed choice specimens of china, glass, earthenware, fruit stands, etc., and these are balanced on the left by a beautiful glass vase of roses and iris standing in a niche. A large basket of apples, peaches, melons, pears, and grapes, a hung deer, a boar's head, a lobster, a few artichokes, and a bunch of asparagus show the artist's wonderful arrangement of form and color.
FRANS SNYDERS
Dead Game and Vegetables
Savery's Landscapes and other Pictures.—Roelandt Savery (1576-1639) was famous as a landscape-painter. The landscapes are somewhat artificial, and really are used as framework for the animal life he loved to introduce. His execution is sometimes rather heavy but with strong tones. The landscapes usually consist of grassy swards with brownish-green trees and shrubs in the foreground, while the background is bathed in the bluish tints so dear to Brueghel. Animals and birds of all kinds animate Savery's pictures, as well as human figures, all drawn with much talent. The Hague has a famous picture, by this artist, of Orpheus Charming the Animals; and the Rijks owns Elijah Fed by the Ravens (1634) and A Stag Hunt in a Rocky Landscape (1626).
Adriaen van Utrecht and his Still Life.—Adriaen van Utrecht was ten years ahead of Jan Fyt in painting those pictures of live or dead animals, game, fruits, and implements of the chase that we still admire so much. Although his lights are sometimes somewhat heavy and his brush work is not so fine as Fyt's, yet he equals the latter in certainty of touch and especially in his feeling for life and nature. His pictures are very scarce: Amsterdam possesses only one, called Still Life, signed and dated 1644. On a canvas eight by ten feet the painter has grouped pies, hams, a lobster, grapes, peaches, and lemons on a table. On the left, on the floor, are some musical instruments; on a chair some golden vases; above, a parrot; on the right a great sculptured basin and a little white spaniel, and in the centre a monkey playing with some fruit from an overturned basket.
Ten Pictures by M. Hondecoeter.—Melchior d' Hondecoeter can be studied to great advantage in the Rijks, which owns several pictures of the first order: The Floating Feather, The Philosophical Magpie, Animals and Plants, The Country House, The Duck Pond, The Frightened Hen, The Menagerie, Dead Game, and two of birds.