of the latter, who was watching his visitor through the keyhole. When he entered, Jordaens said: "I see plainly that you are a great connoisseur, or perhaps an able painter, for the best pictures in my gallery detained you longer than the others."
Maes simply replied, "I am a portrait-painter."
"In that case," replied Jordaens, "I sincerely pity you. So you also are one of those martyrs of painting who so richly deserve our commiseration!"
In fact, Maes's weariness at having to put up with the whims of human vanity probably had much to do with his turning to genre, by which he is now best known and for which he is most highly prized.
Maes's Pictures of Familiar Scenes.—The average art-lover, however, cares little for the portraiture of Maes, but prizes him as a painter of familiar scenes, like Pieter de Hooch. Although less varied and less supple, but not less robust than the latter, Maes was his equal in the power of his effects. The triviality of the subject which he often selects is relieved by the charm of an astonishingly vigorous and spirited execution. Burger says:
"On passing through a kitchen, perhaps, you see an old woman scraping carrots, having various kitchen utensils about her. If you have seen this humble interior in one of Maes's pictures, it will be impossible for you not to halt and spend some time in looking at it. The painting of Nicholas Maes is one of those that become encrusted in the memory. The light gleams in it, the canvas glows, the subject stands out, the eye runs over it, and if the figures were of natural size one would go forward to meet them, so strong is the impression, so solid is the tone, so palpable, and modelled in relief are the forms.
"In his little familiar scenes, Maes is not always insignificant or vulgar in his choice of subject. Most often, indeed, his composition is ingenious, witty, and piquant. In the first place, it is set in the most picturesque corner of the room; the painter likes to take up his position in a place whence he can see at once the house from top to bottom—both the stairs descending to the cellar and those mounting to the first floor. Then the figures he brings into the scene usually have some malicious trick to play, some secret conversation to overhear, some theft to discover, or some infidelity to discover."
Samuel van Hoogstraaten.—It is singular how few pictures are known by Rembrandt's remarkable pupil, Samuel van Hoogstraaten (1625–78), a versatile painter of landscapes, portraits, marines, architecture, fruits, flowers, and, more particularly, interiors, in which he followed Pieter de Hooch. In his Lady in a Vestibule he has demonstrated his knowledge of perspective, of which he was very proud. The chief feature of the picture, however, is the beautiful chiaroscuro, for which he has to thank Rembrandt's teaching. The lady is walking in a portico of very fine architecture, and reading. With one hand she is holding up her straw-colored dress. This figure is only two feet high, while the spaniel that accompanies her is life size!
Effects of Rembrandt's Teaching on his Pupils.—Thirty of Rembrandt's pupils made great names for themselves by copying that great master in one or other of his manners. Some made a system of what with him was merely a mood or caprice. Not being able to follow him in the expression of the human soul, they made a specialty, some of portraiture, some of costume, some of chiaroscuro, some of genre, and some of landscape.
Philip Koninck's Landscapes.—Philip Koninck (1619–88) is almost the only pupil of Rembrandt who painted landscapes almost exclusively, and he listened to the teachings of his master with great docility. His principle was to regard nature from a little distance, so as to grasp the masses, rather than to enter into details. The Mauritshuis possesses a beautiful and characteristic specimen of his genius. In composition and treatment, it reminds us of Rembrandt's Landscape of the Three Trees.[2] Blanc says:
"Among the Dutch landscape painters perhaps there is not one, unless it is Van der Hagen, who would have dared to paint this monotonous plain, all the lines of which are horizontal, all the clumps and rows of trees of the same height, and in which the only objects in the foreground are a cottage half hidden among trees, and, a little farther on, a low sandy hill which does not rise beyond the level of the middle distance. The vast stretch of country is traversed by so many courses of water that it almost looks as if it were threatened with an inundation. The meadows are on a level with the sea; the distant villages look like flotillas at anchor, and the houses seem to be floating on the canals. The painter has placed his point of view so high that neither the sails of the windmills, nor the points of the belfries, nor the tops of the highest trees stand out against the sky. The picture is cut in half by the almost straight line of a horizon which gradually recedes until lost to view, and the towns we perceive in the distance, the rows of trees, the hamlets, and rivers all run parallel with this horizon. That is to say, that Philip Koninck (and this picture resembles all the others of his we know) is conceived entirely at variance with the ideas that are generally held regarding the picturesque."
Gilpin says:
"'The greatest enemies of the picturesque are the symmetry of the forms, the resemblance and parallelism of the lines, the polish of the surfaces, and the uniformity of the colors.'
"Very well! Here is a landscape by Koninck that fulfils all the conditions of the non-picturesque; and which, nevertheless, produces a certain impression of grandeur and sadness, solely by means of the canvas being furrowed into infinite depths, the gradations of the perspective being extremely well observed, and the uniformity of the ground being happily contrasted with a sky full of movement, a fine disorder of clouds which the breeze slowly drives before it as a shepherd does his flock."
Dutch Painters who imitated Italians.—Rembrandt, although he arose at a time when the influence of Italian art was supreme, never went to Rome; nevertheless, he owed a great deal to the studies of those artists who had been there. The Hague Gallery contains several pictures of this period; and these are sufficient to give us a very good idea of the qualities of Dutch art just before Rembrandt, in 1629, set up for himself in Amsterdam at the age of twenty-one.
Hendrik Goltzius.—An influential founder of a large school of painters who modelled themselves on the great Italians was Hendrik Goltzius (1558–1616). He started for Rome in 1590, and indulged to the full his intense admiration for Michelangelo, which led him to surpass that master in the extravagance of his designs. The works by his own hand he most valued were his eccentric imitations of the designs of Michelangelo. His portraits show exquisite finish, and are fine studies of character. The beauty and freedom of his execution make amends for his extravagance. In the Mauritshuis are three pictures painted shortly before he died—Mercury, Hercules, and Minerva.
His Academy at Haarlem.—On his return from Italy Mander, who was a great friend of Goltzius, induced him to open an academy at Haarlem, in combination with Mander and Cornelisz, and with the assistance of his old pupils, Matham, Müller, Sanraedam, and De Gheyn, as professors. As might be expected, Italian taste predominated in this academy, not solely on account of the personal preference of the founders, but because the Italian style had been popularized in the Low Countries by Lambert Lombard, and his pupils, Hubert Golz, Lambert Zutman, Dominic Lampson, William Key, and Frans Floris (1518–70). Of these the most famous was Floris, who also studied in Italy, and himself founded a large school. The Hague possesses in Venus and Adonis a charming example of his style.
The Italian Style followed by Cornelisz.—Cornelis Cornelisz (1562–1638) had never been to Italy, but his education and environment had given him Italian tendencies. We learn that even after he had attained proficiency he never dispensed with the model; nevertheless, he was neither a slavish imitator of nature, nor altogether a painter of style. He has two large pictures in The Hague Gallery that were painted about the time he joined Goltzius in the Haarlem academy. These are the Massacre of the Innocents (1591) and the Marriage of Peleus and Thetis (1593). The dominating idea of the artist in the Massacre of the Innocents, which covers a canvas 8–¾ by 8–¼ feet, is the wish to appear a great master of drawing by curves and modeling that exaggerate the relief of the muscles. There are more than two hundred figures which are almost all entirely nude. The executioners, and the infants in particular, show an attempt at noble form which rises above nothing more than affectation. There is an obvious striving