Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XII.djvu/815

 PAINTING 801 previous to the middle of the 16th century pro- duced at least two first rate artists, Quentin Matsys or Messy s and Lucas van Ley den; to these succeeded a crowd of imitators of the Italians, whose efforts in design were worth- less, and who fell far short of the solemn, reli- gious feeling of their Flemish predecessors. With the IVth century commenced the most brilliant epoch of the Flemish school, during which the genius of Peter Paul Rubens, whom Haydon characterizes as " a giant of execution and brute violence of brush, and brilliant color and daring composition," revived the old glo- ries of Florence and Venice. Physical energy and life were his characteristics, and these were reflected with somewhat exaggerated coarse- ness in the works of Jordaens, Gaspar de Cra- yer, and others of his followers, who form what is known as the school of Brabant. Anthony Vandyke, his most illustrious pupil, however, painted with more elegance than his master, and brought portraiture to the highest excel- lence. Painting languished in Flanders and Brabant after the latter part of the 17th centu- ry, but, as in other parts of Europe, has within the present century experienced a revival, which will be productive of good results. The art has been pursued with success by Baron Leys, Wappers, De Kaiser, Gallait, Verboeckhoven, Alfred and Joseph Stevens, Willenis, Alma Ta- d6ma, and other Belgian artists. Gallait espe- cially ranks among the first of living histori- cal painters, and Alma Tadema, for several years a resident of London, excels in dramatic representations of ancient history and manners. The Dutch school seems to have been iden- tical with the Flemish until the early part of the 17th century, when a peculiar reaction from the mannered style of the masters of the preceding century manifested itself in Holland. This movement was headed by Paul Rembrandt van Ryn, a man of singular genius, who took up a hostile position against the study of the ideal, and deliberately attempted the imitation of vulgar nature. The ugliness of his models, selected apparently to show what obstacles he could overcome, is more than redeemed by sur- passing effects of light and shade, and his mean and coarse design but thinly veils the indi- viduality of a gloomy and original mind. His style, called by Kugler the "phantasmagoric," was the very opposite of that of Rubens, and in landscape and history completely severed the Dutch school from that of Brabant. Among his eminent pupils were N. van Bergen, Eeck- hout, P. de Koninck, F. Bol, and Nicholas Maas. Contemporary with Rembrandt was a class of painters of remarkable merit as color - ists, and well versed in the technics of their art, who cultivated genre (a term applied to all kinds of real or imaginary scenes from com- mon life). Their pictures are generally small and exact representations of familiar and often vulgar subjects. Among the most eminent of these were Peter Breughel and his sons Hell Breughel, so called from the diabolical char- acter of his subjects, and Velvet Breughel, fa- mous for his soft handling; David Teniers, the elder and the younger, the latter a distin- guished painter of low life ; Adrian van Ostade, Adrian Brauwer, Frans Hals, and Jan Steen, equally celebrated in the same department; Gerard Terburg, Gerard Douw, Gabriel Metzu, and Franciscus Mieris, eminent painters of gen- teel life. Several of these, as for example Te- niers, father and son, belong properly to the Flemish school ; but as they followed the Dutch style, they have been classed among the Dutch painters. About the same time landscape painting became developed among the Dutch with wonderful rapidity, and generally with a purer taste than genre. Paul Bril caught the Italian spirit from painting in Italy, and Jan and Andreas Both, Pynacker, Albert Cuyp, Nicholas Berghem, Jan Miel, Karel Dujardin, and Adrian van der Velde cultivated an ideal or pastoral style with eminent success. Jacob Ruysdael, Minderhout, Hobbema, and Antony Waterloo excelled in vivid and natural imita- tions of native scenery, without aiming at ideal beauty; Willem van der Velde the younger and L. Backhuysen in marine views; Philip Wouverman in hunting parties; and Paul Potter in landscapes with cattle and figures. Snyders, the friend of Rubens, and a famous animal painter, may be mentioned here; also Hondekoeter, a painter of poultry; and De Heem, Rachel Ruysch, and Van Huysum, cele- brated for their fruit and flower pieces. A few of these lived into the 18th century, but before that time the art had lost most of its vitality. Of late years it has been practised with success by Israels, Van Schendel, and the Koekkoek family, the last named eminent in landscape. The Spanish school stands almost alone in the history of European art in the severely religious and ascetic character of its productions. A rigid code of rules, established by ecclesiastical authority, prescribed the meth- od of treatment when sacred subjects were selected, and the strong devotional feeling of the artists led them to give an almost exclusive attention to this class of subjects. Painting can scarcely be said to have had an existence in the Spanish peninsula previous to the middle of the 15th century, and it was not until the 17th that the school had any other than a local repu- tation. The visit of some Flemish artists in the 15th century, and somewhat later of Titian and other Italian masters, gave the native painters their first practical ideas of color and design. In the 16th century schools were already es- tablished in Castile, Valencia, Seville, and else- where, that of Seville being perhaps the most distinguished. Among the eminent painters connected with them were Antonio del Rincon, Luis de Vargas, Luis de Morales, Vicente Jua- nes, sometimes called the Spanish Raphael, Pablo de Cespedes, Francisco Ribalta, and Juan de las Roelas, most of whom studied in Italy, and flourished in the 16th century; Francisco Pacheco; Alonso Cano, eminent as sculptor,