132 THE FINE ARTS. 
delicate than that of Rubens. His contemporaries were Jakob Jordaens, 
Kasper de Crayer, Franz Snyders, &c. 
In later times the Flemish school has been illustrated chiefly by de 
Kayser, Wappers, Biéfve, and Gallait, who form the eminent Belgian 
school of our day, whose great historical paintings are distinguished for their 
magnificent coloring. Their subjects are drawn chiefly from the history of 
their country; and their pictures exhibit elegant drawing as well as the 
noblest harmony of composition. 
Nearly related to the Flemish is the Dutch school: at first it assumed 
precisely the same direction; it then developed itself in a peculiar, often 
fantastic, and even tasteless manner, and, leaving wholly historical events, 
it confined itself to the delineation of common life and of natural pheno- 
mena, thus passing even entirely into the department of genre, low life, and 
landscape painting. There is no lack in the Dutch school of distinguished 
masters in these branches. Eminent among the portrait painters are 
Miereveld, Francis Hals, Van der Holst, and Keyser ; and in a wider sense 
Paul Rembrandt, Govaert Flink, Ferdinand Bol, &c. The number of 
masters in genre painting is very considerable; among them are Breughel, 
Vinkenbooms, Ostade, Teniers, Brower, and others. A somewhat higher 
flight in genre painting was taken by Terburg, Gerhard Dow, Metzu, 
Wouverman, and others, who selected their subjects chiefly from the 
middle and higher classes of society. Francis Van Mieris (1635-81); a native 
of Delft, pursued the same course. After having been kept for some time 
to his father’s trade, that of a goldsmith, he left it and became a pupil of 
Gerhard Dow; but he soon left his master and pursued his studies wholly 
after nature. His genre pictures and portraits of a very small size soon 
obtained great applause and were sold at high prices (as high as 3,000 
florins). He led a pretty loose course of life; and hence some of his pic- 
tures have a lascivious character, or at least border closely upon it, as the 
exceedingly beautiful picture in the Florence Museum of the Youth with 
the Drinking-cup, of which we have given a sketch in pl. 18, fig.10. Mieris 
designed more correctly than his master; his figures have a more noble 
expression, are full of spirit and freshness, and are more highly finished. 
There is in Dresden a picture of a man by him, the meshes of whose stock- 
ings are so fine that they can be seen only with a magnifying glass. His 
best works are in Paris, Vienna, and Dresden. His sons, John and Wil- 
liam, were likewise good painters. One of Mieris’s contemporaries and 
fellow-pupils was Kaspar Netscher (1639-84), a native of Heidelberg, but 
who, although a German by birth, belonged to the Dutch school. He 
wished, after studying also with Terburg, to visit Italy, but got only as far as 
Bordeaux, where he took a wife; he settled with her in the Hague and 
painted cabinet pieces and portraits with universal applause. From him 
we have mostly half figures and conversation pieces, and in almost all of 
these, as in the picture of the Gwitar-player (pl. 18, jig. 11), in the Florence 
Museum, there is a lady dressed in white velvet, which, as well as stuffs in 
general, he painted to perfection. Three of his sons devoted themselves to 
painting. 
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