William Van de Velde the younger, the elder brother of Adrian Van de Velde, the cattle painter, was born at Amsterdam in 1633, and died at Greenwich in 1707. His early life was spent in Holland. He followed his father, William Van de Velde, a painter also, to England, where, under the patronage of Charles II, and James II., William the younger painted the naval victories of the English over the Dutch, just as in Holland he had already painted the naval victories of the Dutch over the English. He was a greater and more consistent artist than he was a patriot. Without question he is the first marine painter of the Dutch School. He was untiring in his study of nature, so that his perfect knowledge of perspective and the incomparable mastery of technical qualities which he inherited from his school, enabled him to render sea and sky under every aspect. His vessels 'were drawn with a knowledge which extended to every rope.' He has been an exceedingly popular painter both with the Dutch and the English. Of upwards of three hundred pictures left by him many are in Holland and still more in England, where in his lifetime he was largely employed by the English nobility and gentry. William Van de Velde has a great picture in the Amsterdam Museum, where the English flag-ship, the Princess Royal, is represented as striking her colours to the Dutch fleet in 1666. In the companion picture, also by Van de Velde, 'Four English men-of-war brought in as prizes,' the painter introduces himself in the small boat from which he witnessed the fight. William Van de Velde's triumphs in calm seas are seen especially in his pictures at the Hague and in Munich. Some of Van de Velde's best works are in the National Gallery.
Backhuysen born in 1631, died at Amsterdam in 1708, was another admirable marine painter. He did not study painting till he had followed a trade up to the age of eighteen years; he then gave himself with ardour to art, making many studies of skies, coasts, and vessels. He was inferior to William Van de Velde in his colouring, which was heavy, with a cold effect. But he had in full a Dutch painter's truthfulness, while his 'stormy waves and rent clouds' are given with poetic feeling. He was an industrious and successful man, painting nearly two hundred pictures, and receiving many commissions from the King of Prussia, Grand Duke of Tuscany, &c. One of his finest works, 'A View of the River from the Landing-place called the Mosselsteiger,' is in Amsterdam Museum. In the Louvre is 'A view of the Mouth of the Texel, with ten Men-of-war Sailing before a Fresh Wind.' 'Dutch Shipping' is in the National Gallery.
Van de Capella is another capital marine painter, though little is known of him. He was a native of Amsterdam about 1653. His favourite subject is a quiet sea in sunny weather. His work bears some resemblance to that of Cuyp. His best pictures are in England. 'A Calm at Low Water' is in the National Gallery.
Melchior de Hondecoeter, born in 1636, died in 1695, chose the feathered tribe for his subjects. He has been called 'the Raphael of bird painters.' He painted especially poultry, peacocks, turkeys, and pigeons, which he usually represented alive, and treated with great truthfulness and picturesque feeling. Among his best pictures are 'The Floating Feather,' a feather given with singular lightness drifting in a pool, with different birds on the water and the shore—a pelican prominent—in Amsterdam Museum, and 'A Hen defending her Chickens against the attacks of a Pea-hen, with a Peacock, a Pigeon, a Cassowary, and a Crane,' also in Amsterdam.
Jan Weenix, born in 1644, died in 1719. He was a painter of 'still life,' and was especially famous for his dead hares, 'which in form and colour, down to the rendering of every hair, are marvels of execution.' He painted sometimes, though rarely, a living dog in his pieces. A fine example of his work, 'Dead Game with a Dog,' is in the National Gallery. Weenix sometimes painted flower pieces. [58]
Pater Segers, so called because he was a Father in a Jesuit convent, which he entered at twenty-four years of age. He was born in 1590, and died in the Jesuit convent, Antwerp, 1661. He was a famous flower painter, but did not paint flowers by themselves; he painted them in conjunction with the historical and sacred subjects of other painters. He added many a wreath to the Virgin and Child. He worked in this fashion with Rubens, but painted more frequently along with painters of a lower rank in art. Pater Segers' flowers are finely drawn and tastefully arranged. The red of his roses has remained unchanged by years, while the roses of other painters have become violet or faded altogether. He had endless royal commissions. There are six of his pictures of much merit in the Dresden Gallery.
Besides the elder and younger De Heem and Maria Von Oesterwyck mentioned at page 258, Jan Van Huysum, 1682—1749, was great in flower painting, choosing flowers rather than fruit for his brush. If De Heem has been called the Titian, Van Huysum has been defined as the Correggio, of flowers and fruit. He reversed the ordinary course of artists by beginning in a broad style, and progressing into an execution of the finest details. In masterly drawing and truthfulness he was not inferior to De Heem, though hardly reckoned his equal in other respects. Even in Van Huysum's lifetime there was an eager demand for his pictures, of which he left more than a hundred. There is an excellent fruit and flower piece by him in Dulwich Gallery, and a masterpiece, 'A Vase with Flowers,' is in the National Gallery.
Andrian Van der Werff was born in 1659, and died in 1722. He is honourably distinguished for his pursuit of the ideal, in which he stood alone among the Dutch artists of his day. He showed much sense of beauty and elegance of form with great finish, but he had more than counterbalancing faults. His grouping was artificial, his heads monotonous, his colouring 'cold and heavy,' with 'a frosty feeling' in his pictures. His flesh tints resembled ivory, yet his elegance was so highly prized that he had many royal and noble patrons, for whom he executed sculptural and mythological pieces. Many of his pictures are in the Munich Gallery.
Anton Raphael Mengs was born in Bohemia 1728, and died in Rome 1774. His father was a distinguished miniature painter, and gave his son a careful education, training him to copy the masterpieces of Michael Angelo and Raphael from his twelfth year. Unfortunately he remained a copyist and an eclectic. He drew well, learnt chiaroscuro from studying Correggio, and colouring from analysing Titian. He was acquainted with the best technical processes in oil and fresco. All that teaching could do for a man was done, and to a great extent in vain. For though he worked with great conscientiousness, fancy and feeling were either originally lacking, or they were overlaid and stifled by his excess of culture and severe education. The most successful of his works are portraits, in which masterly treatment makes up to some extent for the absence of originality and subtle sympathy. But in his day, and with some reason, Raphael Mengs was greatly prized, since he figured among a host of ignorant, careless, and conceited painters. At the age of seventeen he was appointed court painter to King Augustus of Saxony. He was summoned to Spain by Charles III., who gave him a high salary. Among his good works is an 'Assumption' on the high altar of the Catholic Church, Dresden. An allegorical subject in fresco on the ceiling of the Camera de Papini in the Vatican has 'beauty of form, delicate observation, and masterly modelling.' Mengs wrote well on art, though in his writing also his eclecticism comes out.
NOTE TO PAGE 96.