The four officers of the Brotherhood of St. Sebastian at Amsterdam are seated at a table in the foreground, with the insignia of the Brotherhood displayed before them. By the side of the officer who, seated to the right, is addressing his companions, is a slate on which are inscribed their names. In the background to the right are three young men with bows and arrows. From the left enters a maid-servant with a drinking-horn.
Signed on the slate:—“bartholomeus van der helst fecit, 1653.”
Painted in oil on canvas affixed to panel.
1 ft. 7¾ in. × 2 ft. 2½ in. (0·50 × 0·67.)
GENRE PAINTERS
This rough sketch must suffice for our study of the History and Portrait Painters of Holland. Although, of course, portraiture played a most important part throughout the whole range of Dutch art, we must now deal with those of their contemporaries and successors who are classed as painters of genre subjects, Interiors, Conversation-pieces, and Rustic Scenes. The compositions of these men at first show high technical excellence, and a refined feeling for light and shade; they depict simple scenes and homely incidents which make a wide appeal in any age. By the end of the seventeenth century their scenes become festive, and eventually boisterous, and so degenerate into unimaginative renderings of far-fetched incidents which are treated with a parade of mere imitative skill. In the last phase of their art the subjects become even more uninviting, the panels are smoothly painted, and all originality disappears.
ADRIAEN VAN OSTADE
Adriaen van Ostade (1610–1685), as a pupil of Frans Hals at Haarlem, occupies an important position in his school. He is seen to very great advantage at the Louvre. From his early Interior of a Cabaret (No. 2506), which is signed on a form
“A. V. OSTADE 1641,”
we see the direction his life’s work was to take; and his Interior of a Cottage (No. 2498) of the following year, strengthens that view. although Reading the Gazette (No. 2505), of 1653, is painted on a very small panel, it heightens our appreciation of this able and careful painter, who, a year later, must have spent a long time in the completion of a Family Group, which traditionally passes as the Family of the Artist (No. 2495). The Toper (No. 2401), of 1668, and the intensely realistic Smoker (No. 2500), are highly characteristic, while the Schoolmaster (No. 2496) shows great observation. The Fish Market (No. 2497), the Business Man in his Study (No. 2499), the Man Drinking (No. 2502), the Man Reading (No. 2503), the Reading (No. 2504), and the Interior of a School (No. 2507), are both in subject and handling good examples of his methods, which were affected by a study of Adriaen Brouwer and Rembrandt.