Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/559

BER BERGHEM,, was born at Haarlem—a city of painters—in 1624. His family name was Van Haarlem; but one day his angry father, pursuing him into school, the master called out to the boys—"Berg hem, berg hem. Hide him, hide him;" and by this nickname he was afterwards known. From his father, a mere painter of silver plate and cod-fish, he passed to study art under Grebber, van Goyen, Mojaart, Wils, and especially Weeninx. From the last painter he learned some bad drawing and colour, but much lightness and playful looseness of handling. It is supposed Berchem—as he sometimes called himself—also studied in Italy, He foolishly married the daughter of Jan Wils, his own landscape master. She turned out both "a screw and a nipper," kept him short of money, and took care to manage the sale of all his pictures for him. He seems to have been a quiet, easily-managed, cheerful worker, always singing at his easel, and comforting himself after a scold by turning over his rich collection of prints of the old masters. If he stopped singing for a moment, the dreadful manager used to tap at the wainscot or ceiling, to see if he was idle or asleep; knocking, the terrible woman, till the good man meekly answered her. To his pupils, Begyn, Sibrecht, Vischero, and Carré, the worthy henpecked man is said to have been quite a father, but not in the Squeers' sense. When Berghem had to try to borrow money of his pupils to buy coveted prints, he used to say, that he loved work, and did not value money; and when he wanted money, he could earn it by agreeably amusing himself. Another of his kindly sayings was, "that genius required encouragement, as well as cultivation." A rich amateur, named Vander Hulk, bespoke a picture of Berghem and one of Both, at the same time, for 800 florins each. For the best picture there was also to be a present in addition. Berghem painted a mountainous landscape—Both a glowing sunset. Vander Hulk, unable to decide which was the best, gave each a present. On one occasion, Berghem foolishly let himself out to paint for a Dutch merchant at ten florins a-day. The painter, quick in productions of paint, was outwitted by the business-man, and lost by the bargain. Kind and amiable, Berghem seems to have been, as epitaphs say, "universally beloved." He painted cattle and figures for the landscapes of Ruysdael, Hoffman, Wils, Beauclerc, and Bertram, and ceased to paint in 1683, when he was buried in the West Kirk at Haarlem. Berghem is said to have painted, the greater part of his life, from four in the morning to sunset. He passed part of his life in the castle of Bentheim, the vicinity of which furnished him with pictures. There are forty-eight prints engraved by him, and a hundred and thirty-three after him. His merits were variety and facility. His leafing is neat—free, but false. His clouds are light and unreal. He was renowned for the breadth of his light, his good perspective, and easy, natural figures. He has three styles. His early works, in the Weeninx manner, abound in red and ochres. He painted a few careless and portly portraits, and attempted history and poetry unsuccessfully. His drawings—generally from nature, in chalks, washed with bistre or Indian ink—are deservedly esteemed. His fault was, that, without imagination, he tried to paint whatever was not before him. He turned Dutch peasants into Italians; he invented aqueducts, fountains, cascades, temples, and mountains. A skilful, dexterous, common-place, is his characteristic. Hoffman painted fields and woods, and Ruysdael Norwegian waterfalls; but Berghem painted scenic mountains, pleasant, but unreal. He could fish no beauty from the swamps and fat flats of Haarlem. Yet though tame and mannered, his spirit and finish, his brilliancy and atmospheric effect, will always have a market value, in spite of his thousands of imitators, who glut the picture-shops. His subjects are varied. Sometimes we have a frozen canal—sometimes peasants playing the flageolet, as they drive cattle along a river bank; now cattle feeding beside a ruined temple—now dancing herdsmen, or a scarlet-clothed falconer, bound for the hawking. The ford, the bridge, the seaport, the bird-catcher's hut, the Alpine pass, the ferry-boat, the lobster-fishery, the farrier's stall, the washing-pool, the merry-making barn, and the gispsy's booth, were his studies. Berghem, in fact, was one conventional mass of contradictions—an in-door painter of out-door life—a Dutch painter of Italian views. He invented, when he should have copied; he copied, when he should have invented. After all, he is but a clever painter of dreams. His landscape poetry was such poetry as that of Berghem's age—from Charles I. to the expulsion of James II.—W. T.  BERGHES,, a Portuguese navigator, born at Bruges in the fifteenth century. He discovered or rediscovered in 1445 a part of the archipelago of the Azores.  BERGIER,, was born at Rheims in 1557. He studied and taught in the new university which the cardinal de Lorraine had just established in that city. He afterwards became a distinguished advocate and syndic of Rheims. He wrote a work on the "History of the Great Roads;" an account of the coronation of Lewis XIII.; a "Traité du Point du Jour," which he had issued before under the title of "Archemeron," and several others. Having been for some time royal historiographer, he died at the castle of Grignon, September 15, 1623.—T. J.  * BERGMAN, C. J., a Swedish poet, author of "Stud, i Upsala" and "Brölloppet pa Arolsen," 1839.  BERGMANN,, a German historian, born in 1744; died in 1814. Author of a manuscript lexicon of the Levonian tongue, and several works on the history of Livonia.  BERGMANN,, a German physicist, naturalist, and theologian, born at Aschaffenburg in 1736. He entered early into the order of the jesuits, and being devoted to the study of physics and natural history, obtained permission from his superiors to visit Vienna, in order to perfect himself in those sciences. After his visit to Austria, he travelled through the whole of Hungary. On the suppression of the order of the jesuits in 1773, he returned into his native country, and obtained a professorship in the gymnasium of Mayence, which he soon afterwards exchanged for the chair of physics and natural history in the university of that city. He died on the 20th September, 1803, at his native town of Aschaffenburg, to which the university of Mayence had been removed, during the union of that city with France. His writings are not of much value, and consist principally of elementary works. He published at Mayence, "Elements of Natural History," in 3 vols., in the years 1782 and 1783; "Brief Instructions in Natural History for Children," in 1783; "What animals certainly are not, and what they most probably are," in 1784; and "Principles and Applications of Experimental Physics," in 1784. He also translated into German the Institutiones Physicæ of A. Bruchhausen.—W. S. D.  BERGERON,, a French litterateur and poet, born at Paris in 1787. He left his native country, and became professor at the university of Brussels. Author of translations of the Odes of Anacreon, Terence's Comedies, &c.  BERGESTROM,, a Swedish poet and clergyman. Besides many translations from Voltaire, Thomson, and Young, he wrote odes and satires, and two larger poems—"Dygden," a heroic poem in six songs, and "Konsten att Kyssa." These poems are of a dry allegorical character, and deficient in the higher qualities of poetry. He wrote also a volume called "Indianiska Bref," in imitation of Montesquieu's Lettres Persannes. He died in 1782.—M. H. <section end="559H" /> <section begin="559I" />BERGKLINT,, a Swedish poet and pastor of Westerăs. His collected works were published in 1837. As a poet he had more intellect than fancy. He died in 1805.—M. H. <section end="559I" /> <section begin="559J" />BERGMAN,, naturalist and chemist, was born 9th March, 1735, at Katharinburg, in the Swedish province of Westgothland. With much difficulty he prevailed upon his family to allow him to devote himself to the study of the sciences. As the scholar of Linnæus at Upsala, in 1752, he attracted the attention of that great man, and became in after years himself the professor of physics in the same university. In order to convince such as doubted of his fitness to become professor of chemistry and mineralogy, for which he was candidate, he wrote his treatise "On the manufacture of Alum," which work still remains the authority on that subject; and obtained the professorship in 1767. Besides other chemical discoveries, was that of the existence of sulphuretted hydrogen gas in mineral waters; he also prepared the same artificially. He died in 1784 at Medevi, where he had gone for the use of the baths. Among his works may be mentioned "Opuscula Physica, Chemica, et Mineralogica," 6 vols., published 1779-81.—M. H. <section end="559J" /> <section begin="559K" />BERGMULLER,, painter and engraver, was born in Bavaria, and was a pupil of Wolff. He lived at Augsburg. His engravings are well known. Born in 1687; died in 1762.—W. T. <section end="559K" /> <section begin="559L" />BERGMULLER,, a Dutch painter, born at Breda in 1670. Painted after the manner of Rembrandt, but died young in 1699.—W. T. <section end="559L" /> <section begin="559Zcontin" />BERGONZONI,, a native of Bologna, the disciple <section end="559Zcontin" />