But the city of Dierick Bouts, of Albert van Ouwater, of Jan Scorel, was at the time of Ostade’s birth, in a condition even more favourable for the production of fine work than it had been in the fifteenth and following centuries. In 1573 occurred the famous siege by the Spaniards. Those who had borne the burden of those terrible days were now growing old; but the young generation received and handed on their heroic memories, unembittered by thoughts of loss, suffering, or defeat. And when, in 1609, peace came, and the United Provinces, acknowledged by Spain, turned to enjoy their victorious repose, there was added the sense of triumph to that of trials endured. It was the great time for Holland. Her soldiers were famed as the finest in Europe. Her navy was the most powerful, the best-manned. Her cities grew, and wealth poured into them. A universal well-being pervaded the country, and a spirit of joy and of expansion, like the glow of health, diffused itself in the citizens.
It was natural that art, too, should feel this new influence. And in Haarlem, where the siege had destroyed so much of the old town, and modern buildings of warm red brick had sprung round the vast surviving monument of the middle ages, the Groote Kerk of St. Bavon; in Haarlem especially, a new spirit, intensely modern, began to possess the rising painters. From art which lavished its parade of dexterity on the old mythological fables, handled without heart or meaning, from the smooth and pallid conventionalities of Cornelis Corneliszoon, and the extravagant cleverness of Goltzius, these men turned to the life that was around them. Among them were artists like Jan de Bray, Esaias van de Velde, Dirk and Frans Hals. It was in the studio of Frans Hals that the young Ostade learnt to paint. Already in 1616, Hals had painted his superb group of the civic guard, and was now in the fulness of his extraordinary power. The exuberant joy and energy, the confident sincerity, the swift and certain touch, intimate with realities, that marked Hals, were typical of the country and the time. Life—that is the
Fig. 6.—The Barn. By Ostade. B. 23.
absolute necessity for such an artist: for him everything that has life is a possible subject, a possible realm to conquer. A subject that he cannot feel, as well as conceive, his instinct rejects at once. A great pride of life is what characterises Hals’ pictures human life in all its fulness he accepts: unhindered by the shrinkings of more fastidious natures, he enjoys with a robust enjoyment.
It is the same also with Ostade; but the pupil was too individual an artist to repeat his master. Ostade felt, perhaps, that he could never rival those magnificent portrait-groups, and his own preferences, his own gifts, led him to a different choice of subject.
Perhaps some who have seen Ostade’s pictures and found them coarse and ignoble, have imagined the painter of them to be equally coarse and ignoble-looking as his boors. His portrait shows him a man of somewhat severe, keen countenance, in plain attire; a grave man, one would say, with humour lurking in his gravity, as often happens; it is a portrait that might be taken for that of an Englishman of the Commonwealth. Ostade was, in fact, a well-to-do citizen of the middle class. His collection of pictures, sold at his death in 1685, was, as we know from the Haarlem Gazette, extensive; and the fact that it contained two hundred of his own paintings, proves that he was, unlike so many of his compeers, far removed from want.
Of Ostade’s life, apart from his production, we know almost nothing. He was a member of the Oude Schuts, the ancient and honourable Company of Arquebusiers. He was married twice; first, in 1636, to Machtelgen Pietersen, who died in 1642; and again to a second wife, whose name is not known, by whom he had a girl, Johanna Maria. This daughter married a surgeon, Dirk van der Stoel, into whose hands Ostade’s etched plates and proofs passed at his death.
In 1647 and 1661 Ostade is mentioned as a member of the government of the Guild. In 1662, he was dean of the Guild. An incident of his earlier years is of interest, as showing his liberal spirit. In 1642 he joined Salomon Ruysdael, at a meeting of the Guild, in protesting against the policy of protection, which inspired Haarlem Guild, like many others, to oppose the importation of works of art from other towns or their sale in Haarlem.