Page:Hofstede de Groot catalogue raisonné, Volume 5, 1913.djvu/18

 2 GERARD TER BORCH art of this court-painter, so closely akin to his own, had passed him by without leaving any trace. But if one tries to trace this influence by omZ ng Ter g Borch's works done before his Spanish journey and those doTaf erwards, it is difficult to find definite proofs. One need only refer to the dated pictures in this catalogued Ter Borch was governed by a desire to reproduce his models with fidelity to nature before he came into contact with Velazquez. In his case the models are townsfolk, whereas with Velazquez they are princes and nobles. Velazquez painted his sitters life size, but Ter Borch painted them on a small scale. But before and after hi7 Spanish journey the Dutchman's townsfolk painted in little stand on the same high artistic plane as the proud court society painted life size by the Spaniard. Ter Borch's sense of colour was fully developed before the journey. His dated works of 1651 to, say, 1656, in which the Spanish influence ought to be most clearly perceptible, show no advance in his power of handling colour as compared with the works done between 1640 and 1650, and they show no inclination whatever on his part to adopt Velazquez' distinctive colouring. Ter Borch's work became more delicate and more dignified in tone and more simple in colour between 1660 and 1680, but this was the consequence of his own artistic development and can hardly be set down to the credit of his stay in Spain ten or twelve years before. At the end of 1650 Ter Borch was once more in his own country. From 1654 he can be traced at Deventer. He settled down as a respected citizen and remained there till his death. Ter Borch's art is, with very few exceptions, confined to two branches, genre and portraiture. He painted only one historical work, " The Peace of Miinster," which might indeed count for many others, but after all only contains portraits. The mythological and allegorical scenes, attributed to Ter Borch in old catalogues, have all disappeared and we cannot judge of their merits. There are two pictures in which a horse or a cow is the principal object (Nos. 463, 464). But all his other works are either portraits or genre-pieces. In Ter Borch's genre- painting two stylistic periods may be clearly distinguished. The earlier is related to the art of Codde, Duck, and Duyster. The later runs parallel in some respects to the art of Metsu. After Ter Borch had received his first lessons from his father, and had probably also been influenced by the art of Hendrik Avercamp, he went, as we have seen, at the age of fourteen or fifteen to Amsterdam, where Codde, Duck, and Duyster were then enjoying the greatest prosperity, painting countless pictures and assembling numerous imitators round them. Their favourite theme was scenes from military life in the tavern and in the guardroom the "corps de garde," from which their pictures have received the name of "Kortegaardjes." Ter Borch chooses subjects so similar to theirs that it is very easy to attribute their pictures to him, 2 and mistakes of this kind have often remained undetected for a long time. Yet in technique, that is, in the drawing and colouring, a distinct difference can 1 It may be noted here that the date 1642 on the "Portrait of a Woman" at Munich (No. 395) cannot possibly be right. The woman wears the costume of a much later period, as does the man in the pendant (No. 313). 2 See the notes to Nos> 3?c and 4O-