From Blackwood's Magazine. REMBRANDT AND THE DUTCH SCHOOL.1

the Vatican chapels; as the masterpieces of Raphael and Correggio attracted crowds of worshippers to the shrines they adorned, so the gorgeous pageants which were the pride of Venice in its palmy days suggested subjects for the brushes of the Titians and Tintorettos. Mutatis mutandis, it was much the same in Spain; for the Span-ish monarchs, through their politics and zeal for their religion, were always in close relations with Italy.

THE range of the painter's art is infinite. There is the art which is the expression of the sublime and the conception of the ideal; the art which reflects the charms of nature; the art which is the handmaid of history and biography; and the art which is the more or less realistic interpretation of contemporary life and manners. There are the paintings which should be left to their appropriate resting-places over The Dutch School, on the other the high altars of stately cathedrals hand, may be said to have created. and churches, in the refectories of con- itself. No doubt it reflected the influvents or in the reception-halls of pal-ences of the Renaissance, as the arctic: aces; and there are the paintings which icebergs reflect the cold rays of the seem destined for quiet domestic inte- same sun which is diffusing its warne riors, and which grow upon us as the lustre on the slopes of the Riviera. friendly familiars of our solitude. But the real Dutch Renaissance was For, after all, the collections in the when the struggling and persecuted great public and private galleries, al- people shook off the foreign yoke, and though their value is inappreciable and found themselves at the close of the their interest inexhaustible, are essen- war of liberation in a position to make tially heterogeneous and incongruous. money and enjoy life. It is undeniable The gems are there and the sparkle that the Dutchman has a genius for may be undimmed; but they are so art as for commerce. But even when many jewels torn from their settings. the Dutch traffickers began to be merIn the rough and inadequate classifica- chant princes, the conditions tion we have indicated by way of illus- greatly against the Dutch painter. tration, there is no difficulty in defining When all around him were making forthe place of the Dutch School. There tunes or living comfortably by trade, are ambitious exceptions which serve the commodities he produced ruled low to prove the rule, but it is essentially in the market. He had neither the local, dramatic, and realistic; were we to express its characteristics and conditions in a word, we should say it was self-contained. The great artists of the Italian Renaissance, for example, revived and regenerated the traditions they had inherited from Greece and had a quaint picturesqueness of their Rome-from æsthetic paganism and own. the devotion of primitive Christianity; they breathed the atmosphere of culture and refinement; they flourished under the patronage of the Church they glorified, and of princes who rivalled each other in the cultivated splendors of their courts. Nor were the south-mate. eru republics less favorable to the arts. As Michael Angelo's majestically Titanic genius decorated the ceilings of

1 Rembrandt, sa Vie, son Euvre, et son Temps. Par Emile Michel, Membre de l'Institut. Paris: Libraire Hachette et Cie. 1893.

were

habit nor the means of travelling, and thus his genius was thrown back upon itself. Moreover, his temperament was rather prosaic and practical than romantic and imaginative. His surroundings were quiet and tame, though they

He lived among polders and dreary sand dunes, and looked out upon meadows traversed by canals and drenched in the reeking sea-fogs. We naturally associate lively sensibilities with brightness and sunshine, and the Dutch scenery is depressing as the cli

The flat monotony of the rural landscape was only broken by the sails of the windmills, or by the tall spires. of the village churches, which often scarcely touched the sea-level. The consequence was that these isolated and independent Dutchmen founded a

school of their own. In so far as they | in case of there being any mischance merely painted what they saw, their in the matter, he generally took care, realism was marvellous; and within like Rembrandt, to multiply presentcertain definite limits, with almost ments of himself. invisible shortcomings, they even ex- But, after all, the demand for porcelled in the sublime. As for the rise traits was necessarily restricted; and, and rapid growth of the school, it is moreover, the veritable artistic genius unparalleled in art-history. Almost refused to work always for lucre in entirely home-educated, but eminently the same regular grooves. Then the conscientious and laborious, they soon painter turned his attention to domestic became masters of coloring and tech-decoration. The Dutch of all classes, nique. In little more than a single from the patricians of Amsterdam and generation the school had attained its the Hague to the cattle-breeders of highest level. Circumstances, as well Friesland and the fishermen of the as their naturally artistic temperament, Zuyder Zee, still delight to adorn the indicated or enforced the choice of the walls of their living-rooms with china subjects. The man who lived by the that is often invaluable, and engravbrush or the graving-tools was bound to ings that are generally indifferent. sell his pictures or etchings. The Hol- The well-to-do townsfolk in the Dutch landers, who were simple in their Renaissance had taken to purchasing tastes and homely in their habits, had pictures. What they most appreciated adopted the Reformed religion. There were the faithful reproductions of the was little demand, as in the superb familiar scenes they loved. So we have edifices of Catholic Flanders, for Cru- the delightful reflections of that peacecifixions, Transfigurations, or Descents ful and industrious life which has from the Cross. The patrons of the scarcely altered appreciably at the prespainters were the wealthy guilds and ent day. There was a quai-corner or a municipal corporations, or private indi- canal bridge, with the bright brass viduals in comfortable circumstances. knockers on the house doors, the little It is to the patronage of the guilds that mirrors at each side of the parlor winmodern connoisseurs are indebted for dows, and the hay-barge lying at its such masterpieces as the miscalled moorings, with the bargeman smoking "Night-watch" of Rembrandt, or Van on the caboose. There were the bustle der Helst's "Congress of Munster." in the open-air bourse and the bargainThe scientific societies and the univer- ing in the open-air fish-market. Then sities suggested such technical subjects the literally realistic turned to the realas the famous "Lesson of Anatomy." istically humorous. The Dutchmen of And as the prominent personages in the seventeenth century were far from these great paintings were painted being generally licentious, but they from the life, so the fashion had arisen were gross; the matrons were not among the private burghers of be- given to blushing, and the men would queathing their portraits to their fami- shake their sides at coarse buffoonery. lies. In England we are apt to talk So we have the village Kirmess and contemptuously of the gifted artist who the suburban fairs; the boors smoking takes to portrait-painting as "going in and drinking in the wayside alehouses; for pot-boilers." In Holland the por- and the troopers halting for refreshtrait-painting at first, and for long, was ment, and flirting with the rustic belles. the highest, as it was the most profit- Even Rembrandt, in his younger days, able, branch of the profession. It ap- must be condemned as a flagrant ofpealed strongly to the ambition of the fender against our notions of decency. aspirant, for it was by the portraits of There are side-scenes and byplay in statesmen and merchants, which would some of the best of his works which be carefully preserved as heirlooms, would be pronounced most offensive that he might best hope to immortalize now, were they not sanctified by his himself. And, with Dutch forethought memory. We doubt not that Teniers

ever

and Ostade and their confrères drew the country is laid down in grass; and
shrieks of laughter by their grotesque if they have a passionate attachment to
studies of unsophisticated surgery; the anything besides finance and com-
boor having his tooth drawn by the merce, it is for ornamental gardening.
blacksmith's forceps, and the patient The dream of the Dutchman is mala-
being cut for the stone by the razor of rious retirement to a summer-house
the village barber. More soberly droll overhanging a stagnant canal, where
were the quaint domestic romances of he inhales the odors of his jonquils and
Gerard Dou, the savant in spectacles admires the blaze of his tulip-beds be-
musing over a case with a skinny finger tween the puffs of his pipe and the sips
on the pulse, or the wrinkled beldame of his schiedam. Scott credits even the
bending over her spindle, while the truculent Dirk Hatteraick with the
granddaughter, seated demurely in the dream of retiring to a blooming garten
background, lends an ear to the lover's like a burgomaster. Thus there could
whispers. Those artists who multiplied | be no more suitable embellishment of a
their pet subjects, addressed themselves rural lust-haus than paintings of flower-
habitually to the popular taste. Assur-beds and flowers, and that gave an im-
edly they aimed low, but they had well pulse to the fashion of flower-painting.
measured their powers, and they inva- Not even Sneiders and Honde-Koeter,
riably hit the mark. Now and then in their studies of dead game and lively
there was an exception like Terburg, poultry, are more true to the tints and
who, without attempting original con- the forms than the most famous of the
ception, struck into a line of his own. flower-painters. We do not know that
Terburg's pictures seem to have been the farmers and graziers were
meant for the boudoir and the fashion-
able beauty; and there were very few
boudoirs or ladies of fashion in the
Holland of his day. He left compara-stock they raised for the dairy or the
tively few of his works, and when any
one of them comes into the market, it
fetches a fancy price. In one respect
they are worth any money that may be
given for them.
No Dutchman has a
more exquisite command of delicate
technique; and not even Vandyke,
when draping his corpses in their
shrouds, shows so marvellous a gift for
handling whites in contrast with all
shades of complexion. The gloss of
Terburg's white satins and the shim-
mer of his brocades are inimitable.
Yet at the best it seems to us the pros-
titution of fine art to the glorification of
the haberdasher and milliuer. When
Worth was at the height of his fame
in imperial Paris, he might have ap-
propriately hung a Terburg over his
chimneypiece, with the certainty, be-
sides, of having made an excellent in-
vestment.

great patrons of art. But the wealthy merchants of Amsterdam and Rotterdam had their country estates, and the

butcher was bound to be represented on the walls of the city mansions. No animal painter has ever surpassed Paul Potter. He lived fast and died young, but happily he made the most of his brief spau, and worked with the brilliant indefatigability of the Dutchman. He is best known by his Young Bull" at the Hague, which was rescued for Holland at the Congress of Vienna, after it had been stolen by that intelligent connoisseur Napoleon. We should never have known how rich even England was in Potters had it not been for the exhibitions of the old masters at Burlington House. And, by the way, there is a little Potter at Bearwood, which would be worth any money in reason to any millionaire if it ever were sent to the hammer. Yet in those pictures the characteristic Dutch realism is almost exaggerated. From the scents of the boudoir and Our English cattle - painters always the full-flavored atmosphere of the fish-seem to us, as a rule, to assume that market, it is pleasant to turn to the landscape and marine pictures. The Dutch are born seamen; great part of

their beasts have had every attention. They might have been fattened at the Home Farm at Windsor, or if High

landers or Aberdeenshire at the Mains | hind banks of lowering cloud, it was of Abergeldie. In the coat of the easy to present the scenes of a shipyoung bull at the Hague we read the wreck, when the cumbrous Indiaman signs of the changing temperature and the brine-salted pasturage of the polders, although his shapely frame is not unclothed with flesh. Were he shown this season at the Royal Academy, we could tell at a glance that he knew as little of oilcake as a Kanaka of caviare. Yet in his degree the game-looking beast displays as much character as any English courtier by Vandyke or any Spanish grandee by Velasquez.

storm.

was drifting dismasted at the mercy of winds and waves. A still more favorite subject for these marine realists, because it came within the range of their every-day experiences, was a scattered fishing fleet from Scheven-' ingen or the Texel scudding for shelter like so many frightened sea-fowl, though no mere realist could have done such magnificent justice to the mingling of sea and spray and spindrift; We said that within certain definite and in many of these marine pieces it limits the realistic Dutchmen gave the would almost seem that we can see the rein to their imaginations. That is very set of the wind and measure its shown by their marine painters in their strength. Next came the triumphs of magnificent sea-pieces. Turner him- the marine-battle painters. After the self in his prime, and before he went United Provinces had asserted their mad, never brought such marvels of independence, the Dutch army, being meaning out of dim obscurity, or played chiefly a volunteer force, did little landmore effectively with fog and cloud and fighting. They were all the more Before the enterprise of Am- | proud of the glories of their great seasterdam made the North Holland Canal, captains. As their naval explorers the Dutch pilots had to bring the heavyladen Indiamen with their costly cargoes to the shelter of the Texel, through a labyrinth of shifting shoals and outlying islands. Frequently, and for days together, the low-lying shores were enveloped in curtains of impenetrable fog. These dangers and the possible catastrophes came feelingly home to the anxious hearts of speculative merchants and underwriters. Nothing could be pleasanter, when the good ship from Batavia was quietly discharging her freight before the win-der the familiar emblem of the bustling dows, than to gaze placidly through a haze of wine-fumes and tobacco-smoke at a picture of the perils she had escaped, and which had encompassed her even to that threshold. And so, as a taste for the sublime and terrible was developed, the painters turned their attention to subjects which, doubtless, demanded vigorous and even original treatment, but which drew little on the imagination. To one who had been familiar from boyhood with the turmoil of the elements in a country only defended against the fury of the ocean by its formidable dykes; who had watched the gathering of the storm be

were to be found in every sea-and perhaps we seldom remember that the terrible Cape Horn took its name from the grass-grown old town on the Zuyder Zee-so their fleets disputed the supremacy of the ocean with England and France in the days when the Dutch bombarded Chatham and Vau Tromp swept the Channel with the broom fastened to his mast-head. It was a characteristic and appropriate touch of grim satire for that homely but heroic people to go into battle un

Dutch housewife. Many of the rising artists had either served on board the ships, or shipped for the sake of finding subjects, like the contributors to our Own illustrated journals. The greatest masters of landscape, like Ruysdael, were amphibious, and equally at home on sea and land. So we have the brilliant battle-scenes in the galleries, where three-deckers or frigates, with yards interlocked, are belching forth fire and smoke in the lurid atmosphere, which is fitfully illuminated by the flashes of the guns or the gleam of the red jerseys of the combatants.

As for the landscape-painters, they