DUTCH ART 



2740 



DUTCH ART 



Dutch Art. The Laughing Cavalier, one cf the 

 Hals (1580-1666) 



Wallace Collection 



known works of Frans 



are the despair of many modern 

 artists. Paul Potter (1625-54) is 

 famous for one of his lesser impor- 

 tant pictures, The Bull. Jacob 

 Ruisdael shows such a magisterial 

 feeling in his work that one can 

 look at almost any one of his land- 

 scapes and say "a masterpiece." 

 The same can be said of Vermeer 

 of Delft. Two of his pictures may 

 be mentioned the portrait of an 

 Artist at Work, supposed to be 

 himself, in the Czernin collection at 

 Vienna, and his View of Delft in the 

 Hague Museum. With Hobbema 

 (1638-1709) we reach the end of 

 the 17th century galaxy of stars in 

 the Dutch firmament. 



In the 18th century Dutch art 

 merely glimmers. We are grateful 

 for the flowers and fruits of Van 

 Huysman and Van Os. The epi- 

 taph of Paul La Fargue, and of 

 18th century Holland, is written 

 in a sentence : " Paul La Fargue 

 copied the older Dutchmen." 



In the 19th century a new life 

 sprang from the soil with Bos boom 

 (1817-91), and with Jongkind, 

 who has been aptly described as 



the link between Romanticism and 

 Impressionism. J. H. Weisen- 

 bruch, true to the traditions of 

 Landscape Land, painted the 

 moist air and the veiled sunlight 

 with the lightest of hands. The 



sad and weary art of Israels (1824- 

 1911) is sometimes significant ; but 

 he fumbled overmuch. Mesdag 

 (1831-1915) was greater as a con- 

 noisseur and influence than as a 

 painter. Mauve had a frank, fresh, 

 and delicate talent ; but the three 

 chief figures in modern Dutch art 

 are the brothers Maris Jacob 

 (1837-99), Matthew (1839-1917), 

 and William (1843-1910). For 

 pearly light, and fresh colour, the 

 landscapes of Jacob Maris have 

 never been excelled, and Matthew 

 Maris is one of the very few mod- 

 ern artists who deserve the title 

 of mystical painter. Bloomers, 

 Breitner, and Bauer have all won 

 European reputation ; but their 

 reputation pales beside that of 

 Vincent van Gogh, who died in 

 1906. During the last decade Van 

 Gogh has been more discussed, 

 with approbation and disapproba- 

 tion, than any other painter. He 

 and the Frenchmen, Cezanne and 

 Gauguin, have been docketed as 

 leaders of the Post-Impressionist 

 movement, and certainly the work 

 of Van Gogh has been a great in- 

 fluence among the young painters 

 of the 20th century. Lastly, men- 

 tion must be made of Louis Rae- 

 maekers (b. 1869), whose war car- 

 toons, in fertility of invention and 

 in range of satire, have been the 

 chief pictorial commentary on the 

 Great War. There must be great 

 vitality and an astonishing power 

 to meet new conditions in a coun- 

 try which, in the 17th century, can 

 produce a Vermeer of Delft and a 

 Pieter de Hoogh, and in the 20th 

 a Vincent van Gogh and a Louis 

 Raemaekers. 



Bibliography. Frans Hals, G. S- 

 Davies, 1904 ; The National Gallery, 

 G. Geffroy, 1904; The Complete 

 Work of Rembrandt, W. von Bode 

 and C. H. de Groot, Eng. trans. F. 



Dutch Art. One of Rembrandt's masterpieces, The Syndics of the Guild of 

 Clothmakers, painted 1662 



Ryki Museum, Amsterdam 



