Dying in 1656, Molyn survived by a few years one who, though not a pupil, came certainly under his influence; Van Goyen. Till lately Van Goyen, perhaps because his works are better known, was supposed to have been Molyn’s teacher, or at least to have given a stimulus to his art. Van Goyen shows more power in his drawings than in his paintings, which are sometimes but little removed from sepia monochromes; and it is a surprise to come, here and there, upon a picture of his which is bright and fresh. The few etchings which he published are undated, but belong, according to Dr. Lippman, to his middle life, 1625-30. They
Fig. 15.—Landscape in Norway. By Everdingen. B. 75.
have not the character of Molyn’s plates, and are far less good as etchings.
Simon de Vlieger, who ranks in date as a younger contemporary of the Van de Veldes and of Molyn, is more successful as an etcher in the few plates which he produced, than any of the early landscape artists. Unhampered by the traditions of the line-engraver, he aims at an effect at once delicate and free. As a painter, he is known almost entirely by sea-pieces, silvery in tone, from which Jan van de Cappelle drew something of his mastery over still effects at sea, mornings of sleepy mist through which the sun breaks palely on the sails of anchored vessels. Like most of the Dutch painters, de Vlieger changed his home several times. Born at Rotterdam in 1600, he was at Delft from 1634 to 1640, and from then till his death, nineteen years later, at Amsterdam. It seems probable that here he gave lessons to the young Willem van de Velde, who was afterwards to be famous as the greatest of Dutch sea-painters, and who died at Greenwich, a Court painter to Charles II.
In his etchings, which are undated, de Vlieger does not attempt the sea; though one (B. 10), a fine piece in its way, is a scene on the sea-beach, with fishermen and their haul. The best of the plates are two Sylvan pieces, The Wood by the Canal (B. 6), and the Grassy Hill (B. 7). The foliage is more sensitively treated than it commonly is by Dutch etchers, and with more approach to delicate truth. There is also a set of animals and poultry; possibly one of the earliest sets of subjects of this kind, which the middle of the century found so popular.
IV
With Allardt van Everdingen (1621-1675) we reach a new element in Dutch landscape. Working under Pieter Molyn at Haarlem, he began by painting marine subjects; and with a view to increasing his knowledge of the sea, took ship on the Baltic. But a storm drove him to Norway; and there for some time, taking advantage of misfortune, he lingered travelling and sketching.
Before 1645, however—that is before he was twenty-five, Everdingen was back in Haarlem. He now began to paint pictures from his Norwegian sketches: and to the Dutch public this northern scenery disclosed a novel charm. Used to wide pastures and ample skies, they found a romantic strangeness in tumbling streams among rocks and pine-forests, where the sky was shut off by mountain slopes.
In 1652 Everdingen removed to Amsterdam, where he remained till his death. Probably his fame had preceded him: at any rate his popularity soon grew great there also, and his canvases were much sought after.