Adriaen van de Velde, Wouwermans, Lingelbach, Barent Gael, Schellinkx, and Helt Stockade.
Characteristics of Van Goyen's Works.—Jan van Goyen was fortunate in being the son of an amateur of painting, who encouraged his talent. After studying with various artists of no special reputation, he travelled in France and on his return studied with Esais van de Velde. He is always simple in painting and manner. Ordinarily he selects tranquil river scenes on which merchant ships or fishing-boats are quietly sailing. You often see hamlets on piles, and, very frequently, the steeple of a church, standing out in picturesque contrast to the horizon line. Sometimes a ruined tower forms the chief motive of his composition.
His Marines and Watery Landscapes.—One of the principal characteristics of Van Goyen's marines and landscapes is their peacefulness, calmness, and slight touch of sadness. It is not the sadness inspired by Ruisdael's groves, but a gentle melancholy feeling that touches the imagination and induces dreams. The sun never appears in Van Goyen's pictures. Humid clouds veil his skies, which in their light portions have the silvery tones of Teniers. His beach or shore is generally enveloped in a grayish mist, and in the moving clouds you feel the breath of wind and fancy you hear it sigh. His long flat surface, so dull and solitary, is animated only by a fishing-boat or a shallop. Holland, because of its water-ways, is a silent country and the impression of silence and peace is marvellously reproduced in Van Goyen's pictures. He never allows a brilliant tone to disturb the uniformity and harmony of his watery landscapes; but behind the clouds that float across the sky you divine the far-away sun, like a light behind a curtain. The famous View of the City of Dordrecht, by the latter, signed and dated 1634, is a splendid example of his qualities and style.
His Illustrious Pupils.—After his marriage, Van Goyen established himself in Leyden, his native town, where he opened a school, to which flocked painters who afterward became illustrious. Among them was Jan Steen, who married Van Goyen's daughter Marguerite.
Only one of Esais van de Velde's (1590–1630) pictures—A Dinner in the Open Air, painted in 1614, hangs in this gallery, so that one cannot learn here how much Jan van Goyen owed to his master.
Hermann Saftleven (1606–81), a pupil of Jan van Goyen, painted, as a rule, views of the Rhine and Moselle with small boats and figures. He was a good portrait-painter and was successful with animals. His Landscape with Cattle is a charming example of his work.
To Salomon Ruisdael, who so greatly resembles Jan van Goyen with his pictures of canals, bordered with houses and trees, river banks, etc., we shall return when visiting the Rijks; for the Mauritshuis possesses no picture of this artist. He taught his more famous brother.
The Greatest of the Dutch Landscape-Painters.—"Jacob Ruisdael (1628–82) is beyond all dispute the greatest of the Dutch landscape-painters. In the works of no other do we find that feeling for the poetry of Northern nature and perfection united in the same degree. With admirable drawing he combined a knowledge of chiaroscuro in its most multifarious aspects, a coloring powerful and warm, and a mastery of the brush, which, while never too smooth in surface, ranges from the tenderest and most minute touch to the broadest, freest, and most marrowy execution. The prevailing tone of his coloring is a full, decided green. Unfortunately, however, many of his pictures have, in the course of years, acquired a heavy brown tone, and thus forfeited their highest charm. Many also were originally painted in a grayish but clear tone."
His Favorite Subjects.—"He generally presents us with the flat and homely scenery of his native country under the conditions of repose; while the usually heavy clouded sky, which tells either of a shower just past or one impending, and dark sheets of water overshadowed by trees, impart a melancholy character to his pictures. Especially does he delight in representing a wide expanse of land or water. If the former, the scene is frequently taken from some elevation in the surrounding country, commanding a view of his native city, Haarlem, which is seen breaking the line of the horizon with its spires.
"Taken altogether, his wide expanses of sky, earth, or sea, with their tender gradations of aërial perspective, diversified here and there by alternations of sunshine and shadow, may be said to attract us as much by the deep pathos as well as picturesqueness of their character. On the other hand, we often find the great master taking pleasure in the representation of hilly and even mountainous districts, with foaming waterfalls, in which he has won some of his greatest triumphs; or he gives us a bare pile of rock, with a dark lake at its base; but these latter subjects, which embody the feeling of the most elevated melancholy, occur very rarely. In his drawing of men and animals he was weak, and occasionally obtained the assistance of other masters, especially of A. van de Velde and Berchem."
Difference between his Earlier and Later Works.—"As he seldom dated his pictures, and early attained his full development, we find a difficulty in determining the order in which they were painted. His earlier works, however, may be identified by the extraordinary minuteness with which all objects—trees, plants, and every diversity in the soil—are represented; by a decision of form bordering on hardness, and by less freedom of handling and delicacy of aërial perspective."[4]
Reynolds's Estimate of him as a Landscape-Painter.—Four very fine examples of Jacob van Ruisdael are owned by the Mauritshuis: a Cascade, a Strand, View of Haarlem, and View of the Vijver at The Hague.
After a study of these beautiful works, Sir Joshua Reynolds's estimate of the painter will not seem excessive: "The landscapes of Ruisdael," he says, "have not only great force, but have a freshness which is seen in scarce any other painter."
His Character seen in his Paintings.—Ruisdael is considered by many critics the greatest of the Dutch landscape-painters. His execution is always masterly, and his works always express a poetic sentiment. Ruisdael delights in portraying sombre forests, rushing cascades, trees bent by the wind, gathering storm-clouds, and all the dark mysteries of the woodlands. His misfortunes probably had much to do with increasing his natural melancholy, to the great gain of his artistic development. As a rule, the paintings of his mature period have greatly blackened because he loved to paint sombre backgrounds, and always used a very dark green for his foliage and other verdure. His earlier works have remained brighter in tint; for at the beginning of his career he painted the dunes and meadows, woods and roads near Haarlem, bathed in light from sunny skies half veiled with clouds.
His Picture of Haarlem.—The View of Haarlem, taken from the dunes of Overveen, shows a bird's-eye view of an immense stretch of country. In the foreground is shown a level meadow on which strips of white linen are being bleached; and on the left are the houses of the washerwomen. Beyond, a vast stretch of country almost destitute of trees or dwellings, reaches to the horizon line, where the town of Haarlem, with its bell-tower, is discerned.
"All these miles of country," exclaims Burger, "are represented on a little canvas only one foot eight inches high!"
This picture is regarded as one of the gems of The Hague Gallery.
The Cascade is noted for its warm lighting and careful execution; and the beautiful Beach at Scheveningen for its heavy gathering clouds and dim and broken light upon the water and shipping.
Ruisdael's Sea Pieces.—Ruisdael's sea-pieces are few; and, unlike Willem van de Velde, he never represents the ocean in repose; his sea is always stormy and sometimes raging, and the sky is full of heavy, angry clouds. The waves are always fluid and full of motion.
Some of his Notable Works.—The Mauritshuis has the rare luck to possess three pictures by Ruisdael, which are splendidly preserved, and each of which exemplifies a separate style of the master. A fourth one, bought more recently, is also exceedingly interesting in its way, because it gives a view of the Vijverberg in The Hague; but the rest of this picture is of such dubious art, and the color so sunken, that it cannot hold its own beside the others in the collection. The Strand and the View of Haarlem belong to the artist's middle period (between 1660 and 1670) as well as the Cascade. Bredius says: