Old Houses in Holland

by Sydney R. Jones

BREDA, NORTH BRABANT

It was while at the height of their material success that the provinces of Holland came under the dominion of the house of Burgundy. The peculiar independent constitution of the cities promoted rivalry between them, rather than a common national interest which would have been best for the preservation of their just rights. They were heavily taxed and oppressed and were continually at variance with the ruling power, fighting for the redress of their grievances. By the first half of the sixteenth century the kingdom of the Netherlands had passed to the Emperor Charles V., King of Spain, and Philip, his son, inherited his father’s throne. He thereby became monarch of vast territories. Philip determined to utterly subjugate the provinces and carried out a policy of relentless persecution. The people rebelled, brutal punishment followed, and they became victims of the worst excesses of the Inquisition. Deeds of cruelty, tyranny and murder, almost unparalleled in history, were enacted. In those dark days arose that great champion of the people, “William the Silent,” Prince of Orange, the “father of his fatherland.” Intent on defending the liberties of the nation, he gathered around him a company of gallant spirits, and, principally at his own expense, commenced what at first appeared to be a hopeless struggle. But early victories, hardly won, roused a cowed populace to action. The nation embarked upon the memorable Eighty Years’ War, which resulted in the Spanish yoke being overthrown and the founding of the Dutch Republic. William was basely assassinated at Delft in 1584, and Maurice, his second son, succeeded him as Stadtholder. He was ambitious, shrewd, and skilled in the arts of war, and under his rule, and that of his brother Frederick Henry, who succeeded him in 1625, the fortunes of the Dutch gradually rose high. Through times of trial and suffering, hardships endured and conquests won, they emerged valorous and strong, a nation of heroes. Triumphs of arms by land and sea, successes of the merchant fleets and navigators who explored remote parts of the world, the founding of colonies, and ingenuity on the part of the workers in home manufactures, characterised a notable period of great prosperity; the Dutch became supreme in trade, chief rulers of the sea, and accumulated vast wealth. As the seventeenth century advanced commercial welfare continued to increase. Admirals Tromp and De Ruyter swept the seas, gaining brilliant naval victories; in 1667 the safety of London itself was threatened by the appearance of the Dutch fleet in the Thames. But the mastery of the sea eventually passed to England and from that time the fortunes of the Dutch declined. The election of William III.—who had married Princess Mary, daughter of the Duke of York—to the English throne in 1689 marked the close of Holland’s greatest days.

MONNIKENDAM, NORTH HOLLAND

Early Dutch secular architecture is in the spirit of the late Gothic style. The most valuable monuments of that period are the civic buildings which herald a time when public life—as opposed to ecclesiastical—assumed an importance and dignity capable of being symbolized in brick and stone; when power acquired by trade found expression in its own distinctive forms, and the wealthy burghers of the towns erected municipal buildings which stand for all time as the embodiment of their ideals. Such is the Town Hall at Middelburg by Ant. Keldermans the Younger, one of that famous family of architects of Malines. It is a stone erection of fine proportions, enriched with a wealth of detail, sculptured figures, sunk panelling and many turrets; tiers of dormers break up the roof surface and the whole is surmounted by a noble and boldly conceived tower. At Veere, not far distant, is a smaller example (opposite) built in 1474 by another member of the Keldermans family. While owning some similarity to its fellow at Middelburg, the treatment is simpler, but the proportions are exquisite, and the peculiar grace of the belfry is outstanding. The characteristic richness of surface decoration which was then common may also be seen on the sandstone façade of the “Gemeenlandshuis” at Delft, with its elaborate traceries and parapet belonging to the early sixteenth century. The aforementioned are stone buildings and betray the influence of French Gothic, but the especially individual Netherlandish interpretation of Gothic was developed in the brick architecture. Brickwork was much employed and the nature of the material—not so responsive as stone in the hands of the craftsmen—limited the possibilities of ornamental treatment. Detail had to be simplified and adapted to the means available for carrying it out; the example from Nijmegen (p. 11), dated 1544, furnishes an instance of how it was handled. It is in this early brickwork that the germs of the Dutch transitional Renaissance style are to be traced; its root principles were derived not only from the public buildings, but from the churches also—vast piles whose bold masses and ornaments were logically developed out of the material, and whose millions of little bricks, jointed together, stand as impressive memorials of patient labour.

Mediæval domestic work followed in the wake of the civic. Not many examples remain. Of those that have survived most belong to the late fifteenth or the first half of the sixteenth century. The current forms of the period were employed—panelling and projecting surface decoration, more often in brickwork than stone; arched window-heads ornamented with tracery; circular brick turrets surmounted by conical roofs; stepped gables having pinnacles rising from the copings; steep roofs pierced by dormers; and the somewhat florid, rich, but carefully wrought detail.

VEERE, ZEELAND

In contrast to the scarcity of Gothic domestic buildings, those of the Transitional period—from Gothic to Renaissance—are very numerous. Many examples are to be found in the old towns where rows of houses, much out of the perpendicular, rise from the canalsides and paved roadways. They are narrow and very high and are surmounted by gables which are often of fantastic shape and curious outline, picturesque from the draughtsman’s point of view and full of subject for the painter. Strange though it now seems, and quite beyond reasonable explanation, the greatest art movement that Holland has ever known flourished at the close of those troublous times when she was at war with Spain. It was then that the painters, with startling suddenness, came into their full powers, and Hals, Rembrandt, Van der Helst, Gerard Dou, Paul Potter, Jan Steen, Ruysdael and De Hooch, with a host of brilliant companions, followed in quick succession. They created a new art, a school of painting with original conceptive views and unrivalled executive skill. Contemporaneously with this artistic activity developed the peculiarly specific Dutch style of domestic architecture. Existing examples prove how energetically the building craft was then carried on, and show how its characteristics were matured during the closing years of the sixteenth century and onwards through the century following. Many of the Town Halls and Weigh Houses, which set the fashion for the private dwellings, are of this time; Leiden 1598, Haarlem 1602, Nijmegen 1612, Bolsward 1614, Workum 1650, and numerous others.