Considerably better is an etching by Jan Gerritz Bleecker, also dated 1638. It is a group of cattle with a cowherd piping, conceived in the pastoral vein of Potter’s Shepherd. Here, already, the interest of the artist begins to centre on the animals.
In Pieter de Laer this interest is still more frank. Born before 1613, de Laer found early a home in Italy, where his pictures were widely appreciated. In the same year that we have just mentioned, 1638, he, too, published a set of etchings of animals, in which attitude and action are caught with far more vivacity and truth than hitherto, while the design—though coarsely bitten—is light and free, compared with earlier work. Another set of horses, which probably followed this, is the prototype of studies like those of Potter’s.
De Laer seems to have been one of the first Dutchmen to import Dutch realism and the Dutch method of painting into Italy. The Italians found in such art something fresh and vigorous. De Laer soon gained immense vogue in the south, and had a corresponding influence on his countrymen who came to work there.
Among these, probably, was Claes Pietersz Berchem. It is not known for certain whether this artist visited Italy, but the internal evidence of his pictures points strongly to the supposition that he did. At any rate, Dr. Bredius is convinced of it, and for the present we may safely accept the hypothesis on his authority.
Berchem was born at Haarlem in 1620, but was working at Amsterdam before 1642, in which year his name occurs as member of the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke. We also know that he was painted by Rembrandt in 1647.[12] Was this before or after his journey to Italy, asks Bredius, and leaves the question open. The etchings, however, help us towards an answer. 1644 is the date on a set of cattle, with a milkmaid for title; also on the Return from the Fields (L’Homme Monté sur l’Âne) (B. 5). These are etched with fine, delicate short strokes, in a manner afterwards abandoned by Berchem. His most celebrated print, however, the so-called “Diamond,” or Joueur de Cornemuse (B. 4), and the Fluting Shepherd (B. 6), are in the delicate early manner, and must be assigned to the same date. Now, these are all unmistakably Italian in character. If we may assume from Berchem’s pictures that he had been to Italy, we can assume it with equal safety from these etchings. We may infer, then, that in 1647 he had already returned from Italy. Berchem had many pupils, including Karel du Jardin, of whom we shall speak later. He was evidently one of the popular artists of the day. It is curious to compare the features of the man as they live in
Fig. 23.—Title Piece. By Berchem. B. 35.
Rembrandt’s magnificent portrait,[13] with the characteristics of his art. It is a face in which, for all its obvious strength, there is a want of gentleness, fineness, impressibility; a type of nature that succeeds easier in life than in art: for the qualities which count for strength in the world count often in art for weakness. And weak, in truth, is Berchem the artist.
With his paintings we are not now concerned. Through them he rivalled Both in popularity, and for facility and complacency it is hard to say which bears the palm. Berchem is quite content to paint the gnarled trunk of an oak, the hairy leaf of a burdock, the moss on a stone and the stone itself, grass and leaping water, as of the same polished, one might almost say, “slimy” texture. So long as he has produced an agreeable composition, he is content.
In his etchings, this insensibility to the fine differences in the grain and moulding of things, all that goes to give trees and rocks and plants the charm and interest of character, is less obviously disclosed. At first sight the plates have a pleasant look, they are touched by a cunning hand which has attained no common skill in distributing light and in grouping. But one has not to look at them long before wearying of their emptiness. Berchem etches cows, and sheep, and goats, because they make pretty groups in composition—they add to the effect of a pastoral landscape; but in themselves he shows no real interest whatever. His goats pose; his cows have a look of faded human sentiment; his very sheep are foolishly self-conscious. Though they are drawn with a certain spirit and with a “touch” that mediocre artists and their admirers mistake for an evidence of genius, the main truths in the lines of these animal forms escape him.