Landscape Painting

The Netherlands.

Before considering the Franco-Roman school as it developed after Titian's death, and which had so much influence upon French art, we must speak of the Flemish and Dutch schools. Holland and Belgium became very pros perous. Protestantism frowned upon church adornment and the demand for religious paintings became very slack. The wealthy citizens of the Netherlands built handsome chateaux and a de mand for small pictures was created, what is known as the "easel picture." One kind of the easel picture was the landscape, which was not, however, popular. John Van Dyke in his volume on Rembrandt avers that there was no commercial demand for landscape painting until 200 years after Rembrandt's death. The extreme poverty of the Dutch landscapists was proverbial and Hobbema had to give up painting and take a post in a wine cellar. On this account, landscape painting did, in a manner, represent the high water mark of idealism, inasmuch as painters without prospect of profit, were seeking to express their love and knowledge of nature as they saw it.

Gilles van Coninxloo (b. 1544), left a reputation ; of his sur viving works there is but one landscape owned by Prince Liechenstein of Vienna, and his work is said to have had much influence upon his contemporaries and successors. They said "his touch was spirited and light." Joachim Patenir (1485-1524) who was characterized by Diirer as "that good painter of land scape" is thought to be the first landscapist although he too had to introduce figure subjects into his landscapes. He tried to rid himself of conventions such as painting a brown foreground, a green median and blue distances. He earned his living painting backgrounds for other artists' pictures.

Of the painters in the Netherlands attempting pure landscape, there was Bruegel the Elder (1525?-69) who had a broad style and composed his pictures splendidly; Sebastian Vraurex, ad mired by Rubens, and who introduced Italian ruins into his scenes, as also did Jacob Grimmer and others. Jan Sibrecht, David Teniers, Lucas van Valkenbrogh and Josse de Momper became very decorative and unconventionally gave the appear ance of vastness to untrodden snow, or the peaceful vistas of the countryside in pale sunshine.

Peter Paul Rubens (q.v.) late in his life retired to the Chateau d'Elevyt and there, having no studio, did all his magnificent land scapes. At this time he spoke of his admiration for many of the Flemish landscape painters and may have had only a modest esti mate of his own, but they were so living, graceful and charming that they are considered among the world's masterpieces. They were done in Titian's manner and introduced qualities he admired in that master, but his colour is that of his northern contempo raries. Constable said of Rubens : "In no branch of art is Rubens

greater than in landscape painting." "Rubens delighted in phe nomena, rainbows in a stormy sky, bursts of sunshine, moonlight, meteors and impetuous torrents mingling their sounds with wind." The Dutch landscape painters long enjoyed the limelight of appreciation due to French and English admiration for their works throughout the 18th and 19th centuries but modern criti cisms seem to have brought about a slight decrease in the high estimation in which they were held. They are not so much re valued as out of mind, set aside, as it were, from consideration as something the spirit of which our own age does not sympathize with. We are to-day more interested in the appeal of the less natural but more handsome landscapes of the Flemish painters.

We discover in some of those until recently almost obscure artists, such as Bruegel the Elder, qualities which we think the connoisseurs of former times were curiously blind to. This out of mindness was but a phase of current criticism, perhaps in part a mood of uncertainty over the probability that Rembrandt's pictures were not all painted by himself, but as recent experts deduce, were the works of his pupils which he signed as was the custom of some of the Italian masters and of Rubens. It may seem that the expression of the Flemish landscape painters is more distinctly individual and individuality appeals to the modern mind.

If then, Rembrandt's landscapes were nearly all painted by his students (a view not generally accepted) the following are some of those of them who painted landscapes : Simon de Veeger, Anthon van Borssom, Lambert Dooner, Jacob Esselus, Phillip Komick, a prolific painter of landscapes, usually of flat river basins, Jan Griffers and Albert Cuyp whose work was radiant with light when attempting landscape ; also Roeland Roghman who although not a student was particularly a friend of Rem brandt's.

One of the earliest and best of Dutch landscape painters was Jan van Goyen (1596-1656) who taught Jan Sheen; his pictures show an especial liking for soft browns and greys. Jacob van Ruisdael (1628 or 1629-82), was a very distinct landscapist and his work is especially important in marking the transition from the old to the later landscape. He was the first to put a sad plaintive chord in the harmony of things seen and to give the feeling of restlessness, the never satisfied feeling which is so akin to the modern spirit. Meindert Hobbema (1638-1709) is now a much admired landscapist ; Pane Potter (1625-54), painted with masterly skill Dutch out-of-door scenes; William van de Velde (1633-1707) a prolific worker, executed a large number of marine pictures as did his father Van de Velde the Elder (1610-93).