TIDEMAND.ADORNING THE BRIDE.

And this was likewise the province to which Waldmüller devoted himself. Chubby peasant children are the heroes of almost all his pictures. A baby is sprawling with joy on its mother’s lap, while it is contemplated with proud satisfaction by its father, or it is sleeping under the guardianship of a little sister; a boy is despatched upon the rough path which leads to school, and brings the reward of his conduct home with rapturous or dejected mien, or he stammers “Many happy returns of the day” to grandpapa. Waldmüller paints “The First Step,” the joys of “Christmas Presents,” and “The Distribution of Prizes to Poor School Children”; he follows eager juveniles to the peep-show; he is to be met at “The Departure of the Bride” and at “The Wedding”; he is our guide to the simple “Peasant’s Room,” and shows the benefit of “Almsgiving.” Though his pictures may seem old-fashioned in subject nowadays, their artistic qualities convey an entirely modern impression. Born in 1793, he anticipated the best artists of later days in his choice of material. Both in his portraits and in his country scenes there is a freshness and transparency of tone which was something rare among the painters of that time.

PETER KRAFFT.THE SOLDIER’S RETURN.

Friedrich Gauermann wandered in the Austrian Alps, in Steiermark, and Salzkammergut, making studies of nature, the inhabitants, and the animal world. In contradistinction from Waldmüller, painter of idylls, and the humorist Danhauser, he aimed above all at ethnographical exactness. With sincere and unadorned observation Gauermann represents the local peculiarities of the peasantry, differentiated according to their peculiar valleys; life on the pasture and at the market, when some ceremonial occasion—a shooting match, a Sunday observance, or a church consecration—has gathered together the scattered inhabitants.

Genre painting in other countries worked with the same types. The costume was different, but the substance of the pictures was the same.

In Belgium Leys had already worked in the direction of painting everyday life; for although he had painted figures from the sixteenth century, they were not idealised, but as rough and homely as in reality. When the passion for truthfulness increased, as it did in the following years, there came a moment when the old German tradition, under the shelter of which Leys yet took refuge, was shaken off, and artists went directly to nature without seeking the mediation of antiquated style. At that time Belgium was one of the most rising and thriving countries in Europe. It had private collections by the hundred. Wealthy merchants rivalled one another in the pride of owning works by their celebrated painters. This necessarily exerted an influence on production. Pretty genre pictures of peasant life soon became the most popular wares; as for their artistic sanction, it was possible to point to Brouwer and Teniers, the great national exemplars.

At first, then, the painters worked with the same elements as Teniers. The common themes of their pictures were the ale-house with its thatched roof, the old musician with his violin, the mountebank standing in the midst of a circle of people, lovers, or drinkers brawling. Only the costume was changed, and everything coarse, indecorous, or unrestrained was scrupulously excluded ad usum Delphini. That the deep colouring of the old masters became meagre and motley was in Belgium also an inevitable result of the helplessness in regard to colour which had been brought on by Classicism. The pictorial furia of Adriaen Brouwer gave way to a polished porcelain painting which hardly bore a trace of the work of the hand. Harsh and gaudy reds and greens were especially popular.

WALDMÜLLER.   THE FIRST STEP.

The first who began a modest career on these lines was Ignatius van Regemorter. As one recognises the pictures of Wouwerman by the dappled-grey horse, Regemorter’s may be recognised by the violin. Every year he turned out one picture at least in which music was being played, and people were dancing with a rather forced gaiety. Then came Ferdinand de Braekeleer, who painted the jubilees of old people, or children and old women amusing themselves at public festivities. Teniers was his principal model, but his large joviality was transformed into a chastened merriment, and his broad laughter into a discreet smile. Braekeleer’s peasantry and proletariat are of an idyllic mildness; honest, pious souls who, with all their poverty, are as moral as they are happy. Henri Coene elaborated such themes as “Oh, what beautiful Grapes!” or “A Pinch of Snuff for the Parson!”