It is only at Haarlem that the full power of Hals can be seen; but this picture shows something of his dash and facility. There is, indeed, upon it a stamp of power and individuality, alike in conception and treatment, which makes it one of the most interesting portraits in the Gallery. It is signed with the painter's monogram, and dated 1633. Possibly it is a portrait of the painter himself; and certainly it shows the type of a man to which Hals belonged—Hals, the dashing volunteer who fought in the military guilds, the good-for-nothing, daredevil fellow who loved his glass and was none too faithful in his domestic relations, whose excesses brought him finally to penury, but whose high spirit and unfailing dash enabled him to remain true, through it all, to the calling of his art.
1252. A FRUIT-PIECE.
Frans Snyders (Flemish: 1579-1657).
Snyders was one of the principal Flemish painters of animals and still life, and his talents were so much admired by Rubens that the latter often employed him to paint fruit, game, and other accessories in his pictures. Rubens in exchange sometimes drew the figures in pictures by Snyders, whom, as a last proof of affection, he appointed by will to manage the sale of his works of art. Snyders received many commissions, too, from the Archduke Albert and from Philip III. of Spain. His earlier pictures were confined to representations—such as this one of fruit and vegetables, or of dead game and fish. In the establishment of his parents, who were proprietors of a large eating-house, he had ample opportunity of studying such models. "Snyders is not to be surpassed," says Sir F. Burton, "in the painting of fruit. With his fine appreciation of colour, and his large method of handling, he reproduced with few but masterly touches the characteristic surface of each luscious product of the garden, with greater truth to nature than was generally attained by those painters who sought it by means of minute and laborious imitation." Afterwards Snyders enlarged his scope, and produced those scenes of the chase for which he became celebrated. The vigour which Snyders threw into these productions is extraordinary, but pictures of animals in savage chase or butchered agony do not appeal to all tastes. "I know no pictures," says Ruskin, "more shameful to humanity than the boar and lion hunts of Rubens and Snyders, signs of disgrace all the deeper because the powers desecrated are so great. The painter of the village ale-house sign may, not dishonourably, paint the fox-hunt for the village squire; but the occupation of magnificent art power in giving semblance of perpetuity to those bodily pangs which Nature has mercifully ordained to be transient, and in forcing us, by the fascination of its stormy skill, to dwell on that from which eyes of merciful men should instinctively turn away, and eyes of high-minded men scornfully, is dishonourable alike in the power which it degrades, and the joy to which it betrays" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. § 19).
1255. A STUDY OF STILL LIFE.
Jan Jans van de Velde (Dutch: born 1622).
This rare painter, perhaps the son of Jan van de Velde, the engraver, was settled at Amsterdam in 1642. Besides being a painter he was in business as a broker, and was described in the marriage register as a silver-wire drawer. This picture is dated 1656.
1256. A STUDY OF STILL LIFE.
Herman Steenwyck (Dutch: 17th Century).
This Steenwyck is not to be confused with the painter of architectural interiors (see 1132). Herman, and a brother, Pieter, were painters of still-life subjects at Leyden.