Page:Hofstede de Groot catalogue raisonné, Volume 2, 1909.djvu/268

 252 PHILIPS WOUWERMAN SECT. subject a variety that is illustrated not merely in the principal feature but also in the accessories. One sees at a glance what every figure, however small, is doing ; one sees too that every detail is studied from life. Houbraken gives special praise to his battle-pieces and robber-scenes for the different emotions that they suggest bravery or cowardice, pain and the fear of death. In his colouring Wouwerman was careful to make his light and shade contrast with each other, and in large masses, instead of in scattered patches which would have produced a restless effect. He blended his colours well, and laid on his paint in a flowing and vivid style. His pictures seem to have come on to the panel without the slightest difficulty, and the perspectives are taken from nature. In modern times Dr. Bode has been especially judicious in pointing out the artistic merits of Wouwerman, in his work on the Schwerin Gallery (pp. 122, seq.} and in his Rembrandt and his Contemporaries (pp. 195, seq.}. Dr. Bode while admitting his weakness rightly calls him one of the ablest and most original painters of the whole Dutch School. The really amazing popularity which the pictures of Philips Wouwerman enjoyed in the eighteenth century, is attested by the fact, among others, that J. Moyreau published a series of eighty -nine engravings after Wouwerman, in a large folio. Later, a new edition of the work appeared, with roo engravings. Both the brothers of Philips, namely, Pieter and Jan Wouwerman, were also painters. Pieter was the more prolific, but was dependent on his more highly gifted brother. Jan, who died young, was more of a landscape painter in the style of the other great Haarlem landscape artists. There must also have been another Pieter, son of Paulus Joosten Wouwerman probably the child of one of his first two marriages ; he died in 1643 at Paris. Wouwerman collaborated in other men's pictures. He introduced attractive figures into landscapes by Ruisdael and Cornelis Decker, and especially by Jan Wijnants.