At first Dutch art was influenced, even confounded, with that of Flanders. The Van Eycks led the way, and painters like Bouts and others, though Dutch by birth, became Flemish by adoption in their art at least. When the Flemish painters fell to copying Italy some of the Dutch followed them, but with no great enthusiasm. Suddenly, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, when Holland had gained political independence, Dutch art struck off by itself, became original, became famous. It pictured native life with verve, skill, keenness of insight, and fine pictorial view. Limited it was; it never soared like Italian art, never became universal or world-embracing. It was distinct, individual, national, something that spoke for Holland, but little beyond it.
In subject there were few historical canvases such as the Italians and French produced. The nearest approach to them were the paintings of shooting companies, or groups of burghers and syndics, and these were merely elaborations and enlargements of the portrait which the Dutch loved best of all. As a whole their subjects were single figures or small groups in interiors, quiet scenes, family conferences, smokers, card-players, drinkers, landscapes, still-life, architectural pieces. When they undertook the large canvas with many figures, they were often unsatisfactory. Even Rembrandt was so. The chief medium was oil, used upon panel or canvas. Fresco was probably used in the early days, but the climate was too damp for it and it was abandoned. It was perhaps the dampness of the northern climate that led to the adaptation of the oil medium, something the Van Eycks are credited with inaugurating.
FIG. 81.—HALS. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.
THE EARLY PAINTING: The early work has, for the great part, perished through time and the fierceness with which the Iconoclastic warfare was waged. That which remains to-day is closely allied in method and style to Flemish painting under the Van Eycks. Ouwater is one of the earliest names that appears, and perhaps for that reason he has been called the founder of the school. He was remarked in his time for the excellent painting of background landscapes; but there is little authentic by him left to us from which we may form an opinion.[17] Geertjen van St. Jan (about 1475) was evidently a pupil of his, and from him there are two wings of an altar in the Vienna Gallery, supposed to be genuine. Bouts and Mostert have been spoken of under the Flemish school. Bosch (1460?-1516) was a man of some individuality who produced fantastic purgatories that were popular in their time and are known to-day through engravings. Engelbrechsten (1468-1533) was Dutch by birth and in his art, and yet probably got his inspiration from the Van Eyck school. The works attributed to him are doubtful, though two in the Leyden Gallery seem to be authentic. He was the master of Lucas van Leyden (1494-1533), the leading artist of the early period. Lucas van Leyden was a personal friend of Albrecht Dürer, the German painter, and in his art he was not unlike him. A man with a singularly lean type, a little awkward in composition, brilliant in color, and warm in tone, he was, despite his archaic-looking work, an artist of much ability and originality. At first he was inclined toward Flemish methods, with an exaggerated realism in facial expression. In his middle period he was distinctly Dutch, but in his later days he came under Italian influence, and with a weakening effect upon his art. Taking his work as a whole, it was the strongest of all the early Dutch painters.
[17] A Raising of Lazarus is in the Berlin Gallery.
SIXTEENTH CENTURY: This century was a period of Italian imitation, probably superinduced by the action of the Flemings at Antwerp. The movement was somewhat like the Flemish one, but not so extensive or so productive. There was hardly a painter of rank in Holland during the whole century. Scorel (1495-1562) was the leader, and he probably got his first liking for Italian art through Mabuse at Antwerp. He afterward went to Italy, studied Raphael and Michael Angelo, and returned to Utrecht to open a school and introduce Italian art into Holland. A large number of pupils followed him, but their work was lacking in true originality. Heemskerck (1498-1574) and Cornelis van Haarlem (1562-1638), with Steenwyck (1550?-1604), were some of the more important men of the century, but none of them was above a common average.
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY: Beginning with the first quarter of this century came the great art of the Dutch people, founded on themselves and rooted in their native character. Italian methods were abandoned, and the Dutch told the story of their own lives in their own manner, with truth, vigor, and skill. There were so many painters in Holland during this period that it will be necessary to divide them into groups and mention only the prominent names.
PORTRAIT AND FIGURE PAINTERS: The real inaugurators of Dutch portraiture were Mierevelt, Hals, Ravesteyn, and De Keyser. Mierevelt (1567-1641) was one of the earliest, a prolific painter, fond of the aristocratic sitter, and indulging in a great deal of elegance in his accessories of dress and the like. He had a slight, smooth brush, much detail, and a profusion of color. Quite the reverse of him was Franz Hals (1584?-1666), one of the most remarkable painters of portraits with which history acquaints us. In giving the sense of life and personal physical presence, he was unexcelled by any one. What he saw he could portray with the most telling reality. In drawing and modelling he was usually good; in coloring he was excellent, though in his late work sombre; in brush-handling he was one of the great masters. Strong, virile, yet easy and facile, he seemed to produce without effort. His brush was very broad in its sweep, very sure, very true. Occasionally in his late painting facility ran to the ineffectual, but usually he was certainty itself. His best work was in portraiture, and the most important of this is to be seen at Haarlem, where he died after a rather careless life. As a painter, pure and simple, he is almost to be ranked beside Velasquez; as a poet, a thinker, a man of lofty imagination, his work gives us little enlightenment except in so far as it shows a fine feeling for masses of color and problems of light. Though excellent portrait-painters, Ravesteyn (1572?-1657) and De Keyser (1596?-1679) do not provoke enthusiasm. They were quiet, conservative, dignified, painting civic guards and societies with a knowing brush and lively color, giving the truth of physiognomy, but not with that verve of the artist so conspicuous in Hals, nor with that unity of the group so essential in the making of a picture.