Dutch Life in Town and Country

by P. M. Hough

Hoytema is known for his illustrations. Animal life is his forte, especially owls and monkeys.

Among other younger painters who, though not yet of European reputation, may still be classed with many of the older generation, are Jan Veth and H. Haverman, both of whom excel in portraits. The lady artists who have best held their own with the stronger sex include, in addition to those named, Mme Bilders van Bosse, who paints woods and leafy groves with striking power; and the late Mme. Vogels-Roozeboom, who found her inspiration in the flora of Nature. In her day (she died in 1894) she was the first of floral painters, and whenever she raised her brush the finest of flowers rose up as at the touch of a magic wand. Second to her, though not so well known by far, came Mlle W. van der Sande Bakhuizen.

The Dutch are not only a nation of painters, but a nation of picture-lovers, though in Holland, as in other countries, one not seldom sees upon walls from which better would be expected tawdry art, about which all that can be said is that it was bought cheap. The country possesses a number of good public galleries, and much is done in this way and by the frequent exhibition of paintings to foster the love of the artistic. The principal exhibitions are those of the Pulchri Studio and the Kunst-kring (Art Circle) at The Hague, and the 'Arti et Amicitia' at Rotterdam. To become a working member of the Pulchri Studio is counted a great honour, for the artists who are on the committee are very particular as to whom they admit into their circle, and they ruthlessly blackball any one who is at all 'amateurish' or who does not come up to their high standard. For this reason it is that so many of the younger artists give exhibitions of their own works as the only way of getting them at all known.

Sculpture is not much practised in Holland. It would seem to be an art belonging almost entirely to Southern climes, although there was a time when the Dutch modelled busts and heads from snow. The monument of Piet Hein was originally made of snow, and so much did it take the fancy of the people of Delftshaven, the place of his birth, that they had a stone monument erected for him on the place where the one of snow had stood. It is only recently, however, that sculpture has been re-introduced into Holland as a fine art, and those artists who have taken it up need hardly fear competition with their brethren of other Continental countries, for their names are already on every tongue. The first amongst those who have shown real power is Pier Pander, the cripple son of a Frisian mat-plaiter, who came over from Rome (where he had gone to complete his studies) at the special invitation of the Queen to model a bust of the Prince Consort, Duke Hendrik of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Other notable sculptors are Van Mattos, Ode, Bart de Hove, and Van Wyck.

There is also another art which is in considerable vogue, and in which much good work has been done--that of wood-carving. In this the painter and illustrator Hoytema has shown considerable skill. Needless to say, Holland is also as famous now as ever for its pottery. Delft ware was ever the fame of the Dutch nation, though the Rosenbach and Gouda pottery is now gaining approval. It may be doubted, however, whether the love for the latter is altogether without affectation. One is inclined to believe that many of its admirers are enthusiastic to order. They admire because the leading authorities assure them it is their duty so to do.

The Netherlands, though very limited in area and small in population, can also boast of having contributed much that is excellent to the literature of the world, and in its roll of famous literary men are to be found names which would redeem any country from the charge of intellectual barrenness. Spinoza, Erasmus, and Hugo de Groot (Grotius), to name no others, form a trio whose influence upon the thought of the world, and upon the movements which make for human progress, has been beyond estimation, and which still belongs to-day to the imperishable inheritance of the race.

As illustrating the world-wide fame of Hugo de Groot it is interesting to note that on the occasion of the Peace Conference held at The Hague in 1899 the American representatives invited all their fellow-delegates to Delft, and there, in the church of his burial, papers were read in which the claim of the great thinker to perpetual honour was brought to the memories of the assembled spokesmen of the civilized world.

It is with the modern literature and literary movements of Holland, however, that these pages must concern themselves, and for practical purposes we may confine ourselves principally to the latter part of the completed century. For the early part of the nineteenth century was by no means prolific in literary achievement, and does not boast of many great names, if one disregards the writers whose lives linked that century with its predecessor, like Betjen Wolff and Agatha Deken. When, in 1814-15, Holland again became a separate kingdom, that important event failed to mark a new era in Dutch literature. Strange to say, though the political changes of the time powerfully influenced the sister arts of music and painting, which show strong traces of the transition of that crisis in the nation's history, upon literature they had no effect whatever. Before 1840 no very brilliant writers came to the front, though the period was not without notable names, such as Willem Bilderdijk, Hendrik C. Tollens, and Isaac da Costa, all of whom possessed a considerable vogue. Bilderdijk's chief claim to fame is the fact that he wrote over 300,000 lines of verse, and regarded himself as the superior of Shakespeare; Tollens had a name for rare patriotism, and wrote many fine historical poems and ballads; while Da Costa, who was a converted Jew, had to the last, in spite of a considerable popularity as a poet, to contend with the oftentimes fatal shafts of ridicule.

A new period opened, however, about 1840, in the Gids movement promoted by E.J. Potgieter and R.C. Bakhuizen van den Brink, who were editors of the Gids and the severest of literary critics. The Gids was the Dutch equivalent of the Edinburgh Review under Jeffrey, and its criticisms were so much dreaded by the nervous Dutch author of the day that the magazine received the name of 'The Blue Executioner,' blue being the colour of its cover. If, however, Potgieter and Bakhuizen were unsparing in the use of the tomahawk, the service which they rendered to Dutch letters by their drastic treatment of crude and immature work was healthy and lasting in influence, for it undoubtedly raised the tone and standard of literary work, both in that day and for a long time to come, and so helped to establish modern Dutch literature on a firm basis. Perhaps the foremost figure in the literary revival which followed was Conrad Busken Huet, unquestionably the greatest Dutch critic of the last century, whose book 'Literary Criticisms and Fancies,' which contains a discriminating review of all writers from Bilderdijk forward, is essential to a thorough study of Dutch literature during the nineteenth century. Huet also emancipated literature from the orthodoxy in thought which had characterized the earlier Dutch writers, especially by his novel 'Lidewyde.'

No novelist has more truly reflected the old fashioned ideas and simple home life of Holland than Nicholas Beets, who still lives and even writes occasionally, though almost a nonagenarian. His 'Camera Obscura,' which has been translated into English, entitles Beets to be recognized as the Dickens of Holland, and his two novels, 'De Familie Stastoc' and 'De Familie Kegge,' are familiar to every Dutchman. The historical novelists, Jacob van Lennep and Mrs. Bosboom Toussaint, should not be overlooked.