A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools

W. van de Velde (Dutch: 1633-1707). See 149.

"A scene well known to those who have visited the Hague, and frequently represented by Van de Velde. There are the high sand-hills to the left, and above them are seen a few fishermen's huts and the little church of Scheveningen. Along the beach are numerous figures, variously grouped and employed; the most conspicuous are several persons near a post-waggon. The sea is quietly rolling in to the shore, impelled by a light breeze. The figures are painted with exquisite finish and spirit by Adrian van de Velde" (Mrs. Jameson). Sir Robert Peel bought this picture from the Pourtalès Collection for £800. It is a characteristic specimen of the master, showing how his version of the sea was coloured by that "mixture of sand and sea-water" which belongs to his native coasts. "I have come," writes Fromentin, "to Scheveningen. Before me is the calm, gray, fleecy North Sea. Who has not seen it? One thinks of Ruysdael, of Van Goyen, of Van de Velde. One easily finds their point of view. I could tell you the exact place where they sat, as if the trace of them had remained imprinted for two centuries: the sea is on the left; the ridged sand-hills stand out on the right, stretch away, diminish and are lost insensibly in the dim horizon; the grass is poor; the sand-hills are pale; the sea-shore is colourless; the sea is like milk; the sky has silky clouds and is wonderfully aerial."

874. A CALM AT SEA

W. van de Velde (Dutch: 1633-1707). See 149.

A Dutch frigate and a small English cutter becalmed. "There is a repose in the air, a clearness in the still, smooth sea, quite indescribable" (Mrs. Jameson).

875. A LIGHT BREEZE

W. van de Velde (Dutch: 1633-1707). See 149.

Two doggers in the foreground; behind one of them, a Dutch frigate.

876. A GALE

W. van de Velde (Dutch: 1633-1707). See 149.

877. HIS OWN PORTRAIT

Van Dyck (Flemish: 1599-1641). See 49.

That Van Dyck was at a very early age a portrait-painter of rare merit may be seen, from this likeness of himself while still quite young and beardless. In the Wallace Collection there is another early portrait of himself, in the character of Paris. Our picture is the portrait of an artist and a man of refinement. Notice especially the long, tapering fingers – delicate almost to the point of feminineness. They are very characteristic of Van Dyck's work, who, indeed, drew all his hands from one model: the same delicate fingers may be seen in the so-called "portrait of Rubens" (49). In giving this delicacy to all sitters Van Dyck fell no doubt into mannerism; in giving it to great artists such as himself he was entirely right. Palmistry assigns fine, tapering fingers to "artistic temperament," and rightly, for fine fingers are necessary for fine work. "The art of painting, properly so called, consists in laying on the least possible colour that will produce the required result; and this measurement, in all the ultimate – that is to say the principal – operations of colouring, is so delicate that not one human hand in a million has the required lightness" (Two Paths, Appendix iv., where much interesting matter on this subject will be found).

877 A. THE CRUCIFIXION

877 B. RINALDO AND ARMIDA

Van Dyck (Flemish: 1599-1641). See 49.

These drawings were bought with the Peel Collection. The former is the study for an altar-piece of the church of St. Michael at Ghent – "a most superb drawing," says Mrs. Jameson. The latter is a drawing prepared for the engraver, Peter de Jode, from the large picture of the subject in the Louvre. It was the sight of that picture that determined King Charles I. to secure the services of Van Dyck.

878. "THE PRETTY MILKMAID."

Philips Wouwerman (Dutch: 1619-1668).

Wouwerman – whose pictures may nearly always be told by a white horse, which is almost his sign-manual – is selected by Ruskin as the central instance of the "hybrid school of landscape." To understand this term we must recall his division of all landscape, in its relation to human beings, into the following heads: (1) Heroic, representing an imaginary world inhabited by noble men and spiritual powers – Titian; (2) Classical, representing an imaginary world inhabited by perfectly civilised men and inferior spiritual powers – Poussin; (3) Pastoral, representing peasant life in its daily work – Cuyp; (4) Contemplative, directed to observation of the powers of nature and record of historical associations connected with landscape, contrasted with existing states of human life – Turner. The hybrid school of which Berchem and Wouwerman are the chief representatives is that which endeavours to unite the irreconcilable sentiment of two or more of the above-mentioned classes. Thus here we have Wouwerman's conception of the heroic in the officers and in the rocky landscape; of the pastoral in the pretty milkmaid, to whom an officer is speaking, and who gives her name to the picture. So again the painter's desire to assemble all kinds of pleasurable elements may be seen in the crowded composition of an adjoining picture (879). Wouwerman is further selected by Ruskin as the chief type of vulgarity in art – meaning by vulgarity, insensibility. He introduces into his pictures – see, for instance, 879 – every element that he thinks pleasurable, yet has not imagination enough to enter heartily into any of them. His pleasure is "without a gleam of higher things," and in his war-pieces there is "no heroism, awe or mercy, hope or faith." With regard, finally, to the execution, it is "careful and conscientious," the tone of his pictures generally dark and gray, the figures being thrown out in spots of light (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. viii.). "There is no good painting," Ruskin says of a Wouwerman at Turin, "properly so called, anywhere, but of clever, dotty, sparkling, telling execution, as much as the canvas will hold" (ibid. § 8). Wouwerman was born at Haarlem; his father was a painter. From him Philips learnt the practice of art, afterwards studying landscape under Wynants. He worked for some time at Hamburg, in the studio of Everard Decker. In 1640 he returned to Haarlem, where he remained for the rest of his life. He had two brothers who were also painters. His productivity was enormous. He lived forty-nine years, and it has been calculated that even if we deny his authorship of one half the pictures ascribed to him, we leave him with at least 500, or about one for every three weeks during his productive years (Bryan's Dictionary of Painters). Few galleries are without several pictures by Wouwerman. In the Wallace Collection he is represented by six, in the Dulwich Gallery by ten.

The picture is known after the milkmaid whom the officer is chucking under the chin, whilst the trumpeter takes a sarcastic pleasure, we may suppose, in sounding all the louder the call "to arms."

879. THE INTERIOR OF A STABLE

Wouwerman (Dutch: 1619-1668). See 878.

The profusion of pleasurable incident in this picture has already been noticed (see under 878) in connection with Wouwerman's bent of mind; but notice also how the crowded composition spoils the effect of a picture as a picture. Clearly also will it spoil the stable-keeper's business. He eyes the coin which one of his customers is giving him with all the discontent of a London cabman, and has no eye to spare for the smart lady with her cavalier, who are just entering the stable. This is a good instance of what has been called "Wouwerman's nonsense-pictures, a mere assemblage of things to be imitated, items without a meaning" (W. B. Scott: Half-hour Lectures on Art, p. 299).

880. ON THE SEA SHORE

Wouwerman (Dutch: 1619-1668). See 878.

This picture was formerly in the collection of Queen Elizabeth of Spain, whose arms are stamped on the back. Sir Robert Peel bought it in 1823 for 450 guineas.

881. GATHERING FAGGOTS

882. A LANDSCAPE

Wouwerman (Dutch: 1619-1668). See 878.

883. A BEGGAR BY THE ROADSIDE

Jan Wynants (Dutch: about 1615-1679).

Wynants – spelt also Wijnants – the painter of the sandy wayside, was one of the founders of the Dutch school of landscape, and was an artist of much originality. Out of a few docks and thistles, it has been said, a tree, and a sandbank, he could make a picture. "In the choice of his subjects Wijnants shows a preference," says Sir F. Burton, "for open scenery, where, under a sky of summer blue broken by illuminated cloud-masses, the undulating soil reveals its nature through beaten tracks and rugged roads with their shelving sides of gold-coloured sand, while trees are scattered thinly on the slopes. Or he loves the borders of the forest, where mighty tree-trunks, smitten by past storms, still extend some gnarled branches across the sky, or a fallen stem lies half imbedded amongst tall grasses and large-leaved plants. In such scenes Wynants is particularly attractive. They give us the poetry of form and light, as Ruisdael's deep pine-forests give us that of gloom and solitude." Of his life little is known. He was probably born about the year 1615, as his earliest pictures bear the dates 1641 and 1642. He was still living in 1679, as one of his paintings in the Hermitage of St. Petersburg bears that date. In October 1642 the registers of St. Luke's Guild at Haarlem mention a Jan Wijnants as dealer in works of art; this probably refers to the painter. He resided at Haarlem, and afterwards at Amsterdam. Wouwerman and A. van de Velde were among his scholars, the latter artist and others inserted figures in his pictures, for Wynants painted only landscape. The visitor will find good examples of him at Dulwich and Hertford House.

The picture is signed (on the trunk of the felled tree) and dated 1659. The figures in this and the next picture are ascribed to A. van de Velde.

884. SAND DUNES

Jan Wynants (Dutch: about 1615-1679). See 883.

It is not uninteresting to notice – as strangely in keeping with the poor and hard country here depicted – that in nearly every picture by Wynants (see 883, 971, 972) there is a dead tree. That Dutch painters were alive to the beauties of vegetation, the oaks of Ruysdael are enough to show; but to Wynants at least nature seems to have been visible only as a destroying power, as a rugged and conflicting force, against which the sturdy Hollander had to battle for existence as best he might.

895. PORTRAIT OF A WARRIOR

Piero di Cosimo (Florentine: 1462-1521). See 698.

Francesco Ferruccio, of whom this is said to be a portrait, was the Florentine general whose skill and patriotism shed a lustre on the final struggle of Florence against the combined forces of the Pope and the Emperor. He was then in command of the outlying possessions of Florence, and had there been a second Ferruccio within the city itself the fortune of war might have been different. Francesco was killed in a battle near Pistoia on August 3, 1530. In the background of this portrait there is a view of the Piazza della Signoria at Florence; and at the entrance door Michael Angelo's statue of David, which was placed there in 1504. The picture was formerly ascribed to Lorenzo Costa; the recognition of its true authorship is due to Dr. Richter and Dr. G. Frizzoni. The identification of the warrior with the celebrated general is considered doubtful by them (see Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 36; and Frizzoni's Arte Italiana del Rinascimento, p. 252).

896. THE PEACE OF MÜNSTER

Terburg (Dutch: 1617-1681). See 864.

One of the "gems" of the National Collection – "priceless" because not only of its great artistic merit, but of its unique historical interest. It is an exact representation by a contemporary Dutch painter of one of the turning-points in Dutch history – the ratification, namely, by the delegates of the Dutch United Provinces, on 15th May 1684, of the Treaty of Münster, with which the eighty years' war between Spain and the United Provinces was concluded, altogether to the advantage of the latter. The clerk (in a scarlet cloak) is reading the document. The plenipotentiaries are standing nearest to the table. Six of them, holding up the right hand, are the delegates of the United Provinces; two, with their right hands resting on an open copy of the Gospels, are the representatives of Spain. One of the Dutch delegates and one of the Spanish hold copies of the document, which they follow as it is being read by the clerk. The brass chandelier, it is interesting to note, still hangs in the hall at Münster. The painter has introduced his own portrait among the figures on the left, in three-quarter face, behind the officer who stands with one arm resting on the chair of the third Dutch delegate (counting from the left).

During his lifetime Terburg did not part with the picture. It passed at one time into the possession of Prince Talleyrand, and by a curious coincidence was hanging in the room of his hotel, under the view of the Allied Sovereigns, at the signing of the treaty of 1814. After several more changes of hands it was bought in 1868 by the late Marquis of Hertford for £8800 – equivalent, the curious in such things may like to know, to nearly £24 per square inch of canvas; at his death it came into the possession of Sir Richard Wallace, who presented it to the nation in 1871. A curious story is told in this connection. At the De Morny sale in 1865 the picture had been sold for £1805. At the San Donato (or Demidoff) sale, three years later, Sir William Boxall, Director of the National Gallery, bid up to £6000 for it; but his mandate went no further, and his mortification was great when he found himself far outbid by the Marquis of Hertford. Three years later, an unknown gentleman, not too smartly dressed, was announced at the National Gallery, and began to open a small picture-case. Sir William was busy, and "could not go into the matter now." "But you had better just have a glance – I ask no more," said the stranger. Sir William refused. The stranger insisted. Boxall, struck dumb at the sight of the picture it had been his dream to add to the National Collection, raised his eyes to those of the visitor. "My name is Wallace," said the stranger quietly, "Sir Richard Wallace; and I came to offer this picture to the National Gallery." "I nearly fainted," said Boxall in recounting the story; "I had nearly refused 'The Peace of Münster,' one of the wonders of the world" (M. H. Spielmann: The Wallace Collection, p. 107).

901. A LANDSCAPE

Jan Looten (Dutch: about 1618-1681).

Looten is said to have visited England in the reign of Charles II., in order (as a countryman of his explains) "to initiate the English into the beauties of Dutch landscape." The process was successful, for many large pictures by Looten are (or were) in English country-seats. The figures in his landscapes were sometimes painted by Berchem.

902. "THE TRIUMPH OF SCIPIO."

Andrea Mantegna (Paduan: 1431-1506). See 274.

One of the grisailles, or pictures in gray and brown, of which Mantegna in his later years painted very many, and to multiply which he took to engraving. In its subject the picture is a piece of ancient Rome. No other works of the time, it has been said, are so full of antique feeling as Mantegna's. Botticelli played with the art of the ancients and modernised it; Mantegna actually lived and moved in it (Woltmann and Woermann: History of Painting, translated by Clara Bell, ii. 378). Mantegna's classical scholarship, too, is abundantly shown in the details of this picture, which is full of allusions to Latin authors and history. The Triumph of Scipio, it may be briefly explained, consisted in his being selected by the Senate as "the worthiest man in Rome," by whom alone – so the oracle decreed – must Cybele, the Phrygian mother of the gods, be received. It was "an honour," says Livy, with the fine patriotism of Rome, "more to be coveted than any other which the Senate or people could bestow." On the left, the image of the goddess is being borne on a litter, and with it the sacred stone alleged to have fallen from heaven. It was an unusual fall of meteoric stones that had caused the Romans to consult the oracle in B.C. 204, during Hannibal's occupation of Italy, and the oracle had answered that the Phrygian mother must be brought to Rome. This goddess, worshipped under different forms in many parts of the world, was a personification of the passive generative power in nature, and from this time forward she was included among the recognised divinities of the Roman State. In the centre of the picture Scipio and his retinue are receiving her; whilst Claudia, a Roman lady, has thrown herself before the image. Some slur had attached to her reputation, but she had proved her innocence by invoking the goddess and then drawing off from a shoal in the harbour of Ostia, with the aid of only a slight rope, the vessel which bore the sacred image.

"The picture," says Sir F. Burton, "has a history of its own. It was undertaken towards the close of Mantegna's long and laborious career; and when that career terminated in the sadness and gloom which have too often awaited those whose imaginative powers had placed them above their fellow-men, it remained in his studio, probably not fully finished. It may have been the last, it was certainly one of the last, pictures which his pencil touched." An advance payment of 25 ducats had been made to Mantegna in 1504. His son Francesco made an unsuccessful claim to it as an inheritance from his father, offering to repay the amount received in advance. The picture, representing an event glorious in the history of the Scipios, was commissioned by a Venetian nobleman, Francesco Cornaro, in order to throw lustre upon the genealogy of his family, which claimed to belong to the Roman gens Cornelia.

903. CARDINAL FLEURY

Hyacinthe Rigaud (French: 1659-1743).

Rigaud was a native of Perpignan, and the son and grandson of a painter. In 1681 he went up to Paris, and following the advice of Le Brun devoted himself to portraiture. He studied diligently the works of Van Dyck, whose disciple he always professed to be. He rapidly obtained fame as a portrait-painter, but it was not till 1700 – on the completion of his "St. Andrew" now in the Louvre – that he was admitted as an historical painter into the Academy. He held various offices in that body, and painted all the great men of his day. His own portrait by himself is in the Uffizi.

A portrait of the famous tutor, and afterwards prime minister, of Louis XV. It is eminently the "pacific Fleury," who strove to keep France out of war and starved her army and navy when she was forced into it, that we see in this amiable old gentleman – the scholar and member of the Academy, who completed what is now the National Library of France – rather than the statesman. A similar picture is in the Wallace Collection (No. 130).

904. MADONNA AND CHILD

Gregorio Schiavone (Paduan: painted about 1470). See 630.

905. THE MADONNA IN PRAYER

Cosimo Tura (Ferrarese: 1420-1495). See 772.

Tura's type of the Madonna is perhaps the least pleasing in the whole range of Italian art.

906. THE MADONNA IN ECSTASY

Carlo Crivelli (Venetian: painted 1468-1493). See 602.

The latest of Crivelli's dated pictures in the Gallery (1492), and remarkable for the deep colours which mark the artist's highest powers. Notice the usual hanging fruit and the pot of roses and carnations. The Virgin looks up to the Almighty and the dove, while two angels, with a scroll, support a crown over her head. On the scroll are inscribed (in Latin) the words, "As I was conceived in the mind of God from the beginning, so was I also made."

The masterpiece known as "The Virgin in Ecstasy," rather presents (as the text shows) the idea which is the foundation of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, combined with the "Coronation" of the glorified mother. It is intended, in fact, to bring before us not the historical mother of Christ so much as that mediæval conception of the mystical being of Ecclesiasticus and the Book of Wisdom, existing from all time in the mind of God as the instrument of the Incarnation, and returning to share the glory of her divine Son. Crivelli has expressed with rare distinction that combination of humility and awe with a sense of personal dignity which befits this ideal of the Virgin. In herself she is an imposing figure, but she is absorbed in the divine influences which mould her destiny. Never did Crivelli come nearer to the grand style than in this magnificent conception (Rushforth's Crivelli, p. 75).

907. ST. CATHERINE AND ST. MARY MAGDALENE

Carlo Crivelli (Venetian: painted 1468-1493). See 602.

The figure of St. Mary Magdalene, with the vase of precious ointment, is characteristic of the painter's more affected style; notice especially the fingers elongated to the point of grotesqueness.

908. THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST.193

Piero della Francesca (Umbrian: 1416-1492). See 665.

"This painting is said to be unfinished. But even minute details, such as the pearls on the robes of the angels and on the head-dress of the Virgin, have been worked out with an accuracy which excites astonishment. One of the two shepherds, standing on the right side and seen in front, appears to have no pupils to his eyes, and this strange fact might account for the theory of the unfinished state of the picture. On the other hand it seems to me to have suffered very much from repainting in all the flesh parts… The restorer has, I believe, forgotten to paint in the pupils of the shepherd's eyes after having destroyed them by the cleaning of the original painting" (Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, pp. 16, 17). The beauty of the picture is in the choir of angels with their mouths in different attitudes of singing, making such music sweet

As never was by mortal finger strook —Divinely-warbled voiceAnswering the stringèd noise,As all their souls in blissful rapture took.Milton: Hymn on Christ's Nativity.

"The picture is a masterpiece" says Mr. Hipkins, "in musical delineation. It is the perfectly expressed singing of these characteristic angels that arrests attention first; but the archæologist in musical instruments values the two large lutes held by the outside angels of the group, who are accompanying the singers. The splendid lines and fine dimensions of these instruments suggest their sonorous tone. When this picture came from the Barker Collection, each lute had eleven strings, and the number of pegs in one of them seems to have this number; but in cleaning the picture the strings have disappeared. As the picture was not finished by the painter, it is supposed that the strings were a later addition. However, the number was right, according to the practice with large lutes at that time, to give six open notes; the highest, or melody, string being open"194 (The Hobby Horse, No. 1, 1893). "The figures of the Virgin and Child are of the gentlest and fairest type, and show undoubted signs of the Flemish influence, which made itself felt in Florence and throughout Central Italy after Hugo van der Goes set up his great altar-piece in the Ospedale of Santa Maria Novella" (W. G. Waters: Piero della Francesca p. 64).