Rembrandt van Rijn (1607-69) and Frans Hals (158o-1666) are the great portrait painters. Each looked at life from an entirely different angle and treated what he saw with entirely different methods. Hals is known as the painter of laughter, but it is not only the laughter of merrymakers ; it is also the smile of the man of the world too proud to show emotion—laughing so as not to weep. His amazing knowledge of anatomy permitted him to treat these fleeting expressions with an assurance and breadth of touch which fascinates.
Rembrandt was a profound student of human nature for whom every form, condition and action had its significance. Character and soulfulness interested him more than perfection of form. He saw with the eye of a lover, a lover of humanity, revealing beauty where it is least expected. What Holbein accomplished with line Rembrandt obtained with colour, with his golden light and luminous shadows. His etcher's point has left us portraits which are the classics of etching. (See DRYPOINT : Portrait of Arnold Tholinx.) Among the numerous Dutch painters who devoted themselves to portraiture must be mentioned Bartolommeo Van der Helst and Jan Steen. As with all other schools, decadence began when the Dutch tried to reduce the methods of the masters to formulae.
Spanish artists always remained very free from academic tend encies. Their portraits are therefore unusually fine.
Dominico Theotocopuli, called El Greco, a Greek, born in Crete, settled in Spain after working in Titian's studio. His early in fluences were doubtless Byzantine. He owes perhaps to Tintoretto his impressionistic handling. Through Ribera (I588-1656) Cara-. vaggio became the inspiration of most of the Spanish artists. Zurbaran (1598–?1669) excelled where most of the masters failed : in portraits of children.
It is difficult to trace the influences which might have affected Velasquez (I599-166o), so completely did he see with his own eyes. Even his technique was a new departure. He was the first to use oil as a sole medium in order to paint directly on his canvas without preparatory underpainting. This made possible the accurate values which give depth and air to his pictures. Although as a court painter to Philip IV. he was forced to repeat the same subjects many times, his sincerity and interest in the pictorial qualities of his sitters kept his vision keen. There was so much to fascinate him in light, colour and atmosphere besides the person ality of his models, that his portraits are perhaps the most real ever painted. There is no evidence of preoccupation with techni
cal problems. His palette was simple and his brush responded to his mind like the instrument of a great musician. His portraits make their appeal through truthfulness, refinement and reserve. Elie Faure compares him to Beethoven, because he possessed the supreme virtue—heroic simplicity.
Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) kept alive the best Spanish tradition when in other countries artists had forgotten how to paint, and has had a great influence on modern art.
The wealth and wholesome vigour of Flanders which in the 17th century enjoyed the advantages of commerce with all parts of the world, found an interpreter in Petrus Paulus Rubens (1577– 1640). The portraits of his family, especially of Helena Four ment, his second wife, are the best examples of his art and reflect his joy in life, his health and vitality. His pupil, Anthony Van Dyck, although brilliant when he painted his early portraits as court painter to Charles I. of England, was so overwhelmed with work that he rarely painted more than the head himself, leaving the rest to assistants. The hands were painted from models and this, more than anything else, weakened the character of his por traits. He also used landscape backgrounds which shock our mod em taste accustomed to the reflections and colour shadows of out door painting.
These insincere methods were unfortunately adopted by the English portrait painters of the 18th century. England had im ported her portrait painters, Holbein, Rubens and Van Dyck, without developing any native talent except for some miniaturists such as Isaac Oliver and Samuel Cooper. (See MINIATURE PAINT ING.) Puritanism brought all art to a standstill. Under the reign of Charles II. other foreigners became the vogue—Sir Peter Lely (Dutch) and Sir Godfrey Kneller (German). William Hogarth (1697-1764) was the first native English painter of real merit. He rebelled against the prevailing insincerity in art and wrote of his "contempt of the portraits by native and foreign impostors who puffed and flattered themselves into fashion. By this inun dation of folly and fuss I was much disgusted and determined to try if by any means I could stem the current and by opposing, end it." The few portraits he painted are of a high order, too true, per haps to make him popular.