UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 504
 
 THE OLD MASTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 BELGIUM AND HOLLAND 
 
 [LES MA!TRES D'AUTREFOIS] 
 
 BY EUGENE FROMENTIN 
 
 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 MRS. MARY C. ROBBINS 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 Cfic flrtxrsiDc press* CambriDfle
 
 Copyright, 1882, 
 BY JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY. 
 
 All rights reserved.
 
 Art 
 Library 
 
 WD 
 G36, 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 I HAVE just been viewing Rubens and Rembrandt in 
 their own homes, and at the same time the Dutch school 
 in its unchanging frame of agricultural and maritime life, of 
 downs, pastures, huge clouds, and low horizons. 
 
 Here are two arts, distinct, perfectly complete, entirely 
 independent of each other, and very brilliant, which re- 
 quire to be studied at once by an historian, a thinker, and a 
 painter. That the work should be properly done requires 
 the union of these three men in one ; and I have nothing in 
 common with the two first, while as to the painter, however 
 a man may have a feeling for distances, he ceases to be one 
 in approaching the least known of the masters of these priv- 
 ileged countries. I shall traverse the museums, but I shall 
 not review them. I shall stop before certain men : I shall 
 not relate their lives, nor catalogue their works, even those 
 preserved by their compatriots. I shall define simply as I
 
 iv PREFACE. 
 
 understand them, as fully as I can seize them, certain charac- 
 teristic sides of their genius or talent. I shall not grapple 
 with too great questions ; I shall avoid profundities and dark 
 places. The art of painting is only the art of expressing 
 the invisible by the visible. Whether its roads be great or 
 small, they are sown with problems which it is permitted 
 to sound for one's self as truths, but which it is well to leave 
 in their darkness as mysteries. I shall only speak con- 
 cerning certain pictures, of the surprise, the pleasure, the 
 astonishment, and with no less precision of the vexation, 
 which they have caused me. In all this I shall only trans- 
 late with sincerity the inconsequent sensations of the mere 
 amateur. 
 
 I warn you that there will be no method, no course pur- 
 sued in these studies. You will find here many gaps, prefer- 
 ences, and omissions, without this want of balance detracting 
 at all from the importance or the value of the works of which 
 I may not have spoken. I shall often recall the Louvre, and 
 shall not fear to conduct you thither, that examples may be 
 nearer, and verifications easier. It is possible that some of 
 my opinions may conflict with those generally received. I 
 shall not seek, but I shall not avoid, any revision of ideas 
 which may arise from these disagreements. I entreat you 
 not to see in this any indication of a guerilla spirit, which
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 seeks to distinguish itself by boldness, and which, while trav- 
 elling the beaten path, would fear to be accused of observ- 
 ing nothing, if it did not judge everything differently from 
 others. 
 
 To tell the truth, these studies will be only notes, and 
 these notes the disconnected and disproportionate elements 
 of a book to be made in a more special manner than those 
 which have been made up to this time, a book in which 
 philosophy, aesthetics, nomenclature, and anecdotes will hold 
 less place and the questions of the craft much greater place. 
 
 It should be like a sort of talk about painting, where the 
 painters would recognize their habits, where men of the 
 world would learn to better know painters and painting. 
 For the moment my method will be to forget everything 
 which has been said on this subject ; my aim, to raise ques- 
 tions, to produce a wish to think about them, and to inspire 
 in those who would be capable of rendering us such a service 
 the curiosity to solve them. I call these pages, The Old 
 Masters, as I should speak of the severe or familiar masters 
 of our French tongue, if I were speaking of Pascal, of Bos- 
 suet, of La Bruyere, of Voltaire, or of Diderot, with this 
 difference, that in France there are schools where respect 
 for and study of these masters of style are still maintained, 
 while I scarcely know where in these days the advice is
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 given to respectfully study the ever exemplary masters of 
 Flanders and Holland. 
 
 I shall, moreover, suppose that the reader whom I address 
 is enough like me to follow me without too much fatigue, 
 and yet different enough to give me the pleasure of con- 
 tradicting him, so that I can put some ardor into my at- 
 tempts to convince him. 
 
 BRUSSELS, July 6, 1875.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. BELGIUM. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE MUSEUM AT BRUSSELS 3 
 
 II. THE MASTERS OF RUBENS 18 
 
 III. RUBENS IN THE BRUSSELS MUSEUM 28 
 
 IV. RUBENS AT MECHLIN 39 
 
 V. THE ELEVATION OF THE CROSS AND THE CRUCIFIXION . . 56 
 
 VI. RUBENS AT THE ANTWERP MUSEUM 72 
 
 VII. RUBENS AS A PORTRAIT PAINTER 80 
 
 VIII. THE TOMB OF RUBENS . 95 
 
 IX. VANDYCK 108 
 
 PART II. HOLLAND. 
 
 I. THE HAGUE AND SCHEVENINGEN 117 
 
 II. ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THE DUTCH SCHOOL .... 123 
 
 III. THE VIJVER 141 
 
 IV. THE SUBJECT IN DUTCH PAINTING 146 
 
 V. PAUL POTTER 157
 
 viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CMArra PAGE 
 
 VI. TERBURG, METZU, AND PIETER DE HOOGH AT THE LOUVRE 168 
 
 VII. RUYSDAEL 183 
 
 VIII. CUYP 196 
 
 IX. THE INFLUENCE OF HOLLAND UPON FRENCH LANDSCAPE . 203 
 
 X. THE ANATOMICAL LECTURE 218 
 
 XI. FRANS HALS AT HAARLEM 224 
 
 XII. AMSTERDAM 235 
 
 XIII. THE NIGHT WATCH 245 
 
 XIV. REMBRANDT AT THE Six AND VAN LOON GALLERIES. 
 
 REMBRANDT AT THE LOUVRE 276 
 
 XV. THE SYNDICS 292 
 
 XVI. REMBRANDT . . 299 
 
 PART III. BELGIUM. 
 
 THE VAN EYCKS AND MEMLING 317
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 RUBENS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS Frontispiece 
 
 CHRIST ASCENDING CALVARY 32 
 
 THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI 40 
 
 THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES 44 
 
 THE ELEVATION OF THE CROSS 66 
 
 PAUL POTTER. 
 THE YOUNG BULL 162 
 
 REMBRANDT. 
 
 THE ANATOMICAL LECTURE 220 
 
 THE NIGHT WATCH 252
 
 PART I. 
 
 BELGIUM.
 
 THE 
 
 OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 ~>3. -'+- I 
 BELGIUM. 
 
 I. 
 
 Z./0 B 
 
 THE MUSEUM AT BRUSSELS. 
 
 THE Brussels Museum has always had much greater value than 
 renown. What injures it in the eyes of people whose minds in- 
 stinctively take long flights, is its being but two steps from our own 
 frontier, and consequently the first stage in a pilgrimage which con- 
 ducts to sacred shrines. Van Eyck is at Ghent, Memling at Bruges, 
 Rubens at Antwerp. Brussels possesses as its own none of these 
 great men. She did not witness their birth ; she scarcely saw them 
 paint ; she has neither their ashes nor their masterpieces. A pre- 
 tence is made of visiting them at home ; but it is elsewhere that 
 they await us. All this gives to this pretty capital the appearance 
 of an empty house, and exposes it to being quite unjustly neglected. 
 It is not known, or it is forgotten, that nowhere in Flanders do the 
 three princes of Flemish painting march with such an escort of paint- 
 ers and able men, who surround them, follow them, precede them, 
 and open for them the gates of history, disappearing when they
 
 4 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 enter, but still causing them to enter. Belgium is a magnificent 
 book of art, whose chapters, fortunately for provincial glory, are to 
 be found everywhere, but whose preface is at Brussels, and only at 
 Brussels; and I would say to any one who should be tempted to 
 skip the preface to reach the book, that he makes a mistake, that 
 he opens the book too soon, and that he will read it unprofitably. 
 This preface is very fine in itself; it is, moreover, a document 
 whose place nothing supplies. It informs one what is to be seen, 
 prepares for, suggests, explains everything ; setting in order the con- 
 fusion of proper names, and works which are entangled in the multi- 
 tude of chapels, where the chance of time has disseminated them, and 
 classing them here without mistake, thanks to the perfect tact which 
 has united and classified them. It is a kind of list of what artists 
 Belgium has produced up to the time of the modern school, and 
 really a record of what it possesses in its divers places of deposit, 
 museums, churches, convents, hospitals, town halls, and private col- 
 lections. Possibly she herself scarcely comprehended with exact- 
 ness the extent of this vast national treasure, the most opulent in 
 the world, except that of Holland, and second only to that of Italy, 
 before she came into possession of these two equally well kept regis- 
 ters, the museums of Antwerp and Brussels. In a word, the history 
 of art in Flanders is capricious, even romantic. At each moment 
 the thread is broken and found again ; one imagines painting lost, 
 gone astray upon the great highways of the world ; it is a little 
 like the Prodigal Son returning when he is no longer expected. If 
 you would have an idea of its adventures, and learn what happened
 
 THE MUSEUM AT BRUSSELS. 5 
 
 to it during its absence, examine the museum of Brussels ; it will 
 tell you all, with that facility of information which an abridgment 
 can offer, an abridgment, complete, truthful, and perfectly clear, 
 of a history that has endured for two centuries. I am not speaking 
 merely of the management of the place, which is perfect. Fine 
 rooms, good light, works choice from their beauty, their rarity, or 
 merely for their historical value ; the most ingenious exactitude in 
 determining the value of works coming from abroad, in fine, a taste, 
 a care, a knowledge, a respect for the things of art, which make to- 
 day of this rich collection a model museum. Understand, it is 
 especially a Flemish museum, which gives it a family interest for 
 Flanders, and for Europe an inestimable value. 
 
 In it the Dutch school is scarcely seen ; you scarcely look for it. 
 It would find here habits and beliefs foreign to its own, mystical, 
 catholic, and pagan, with none of which it would feel at home. 
 Here it would encounter the legends, the ancient history, and the 
 direct or indirect memorials of the dukes of Burgundy, the arch- 
 dukes of Austria, the Italian dukes, the Pope, Charles V., Philip II., 
 that is to say, all the things and all the people that it did not rec- 
 ognize or which it denied, against which it combated for a hun- 
 dred years, and from which its genius, its instincts, its needs, and 
 consequently its destiny, sharply and violently separated it Be- 
 
 
 
 tween Moerdyk and Dordrecht there is only the Meuse to pass, 
 but a whole world separates the two frontiers. Antwerp is the 
 antipodes of Amsterdam, and by his good-natured eclecticism and 
 the gay and sociable side of his genius, Rubens is more ready
 
 6 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 to fraternize with Veronese, Tintoretto, Titian, Correggio, or even 
 with Raphael, than with Rembrandt, his contemporary, but his in- 
 tractable contradictor. 
 
 As to Italian art, it is here only as a reminder. It is an art 
 that is falsified by acclimation, and which alters its very nature 
 in entering Flanders. In perceiving, in the least Flemish part 
 of the gallery, two portraits by Tintoretto, not excellent, much 
 retouched, but typical, one fails to understand them beside the 
 works of Memling, of Martin de Vos, of Van Orley, of Rubens, of 
 Vandyck, even of Antonio Moro. It is the same with Veronese ; 
 he is out of place, his color is faded and bears traces of dis- 
 temper, his style seems a little cold, his pomp studied and almost 
 affected. The work is, however, a superb one in his finest manner ; 
 it is a fragment of triumphal mythology detached from one of the 
 ceilings of the ducal palace, one of the best ; but Rubens is beside 
 it, and that very thing suffices to give to the Venetian Rubens a 
 foreign accent. Which of the two is right ? In listening only to 
 the tongue so excellently spoken by these two men, which is the 
 better, the correct and learned rhetoric they employ in Venice, 
 or the emphatic, grandiose, and warm incorrectness of the Antwerp 
 speech ? In Venice one inclines to Veronese, but in Flanders 
 Rubens is better understood. 
 
 Italian art has that quality common to all strongly constituted 
 arts, that it is at once very cosmopolitan because it has been 
 everywhere, and very haughty because it has been sufficient to 
 itself. It is at home in all Europe except in two countries,
 
 THE MUSEUM AT BRUSSELS. 7 
 
 Belgium, whose spirit it has visibly impregnated without ever 
 mastering it, and Holland, which at first seemed to consult it, and 
 finally did without it ; so that, while it lives on friendly terms with 
 Spain, and reigns in France, where, at least in historical painting, 
 our best painters have been Romans, it encounters in Flanders 
 two or three very great men of lofty and indigenous race, who 
 hold sway, and mean to divide their empire with none. 
 
 The history of the relations of these two countries, Italy and 
 Flanders, is curious ; it is long, it is diffuse. Elsewhere it is con- 
 fusing ; but here, as I have told you, it can be read easily. It 
 begins at Van Eyck, and ends on the day that Rubens left Genoa 
 and returned, bringing with his luggage the cream of Italian les- 
 sons, that is, all of it that the art of his country could reasonably 
 support. This history of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in 
 Flanders forms the medium part and the truly original founda- 
 tion of this museum. 
 
 We enter by the fourteenth century ; we end with the first half 
 of the seventeenth. At the two extremities of this brilliant course 
 we are struck by the same phenomenon, rare enough in such 
 a little country, we see an art which was born of itself, on the spot ; 
 and an art which was born again when it was thought to be dead. 
 Van Eyck is recognized in a very fine Adoration of the Magi ; 
 Memling is suggested by certain fine portraits ; and there, at the 
 very end, a hundred and fifty years later, Rubens is perceived ; 
 each time a sun rises, and then sets with the splendor and the 
 brevity of a beautiful day without a morrow.
 
 8 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 While Van Eyck is above the horizon, he casts gleams whiui 
 reach to the very confines of the modern world ; and it seems as 
 if it were these gleams, that it recognized and which illumined it, 
 that awakened the modern world. Italy is warned of it and comes 
 to Bruges. Thus it was, that from a visit of workmen curious to 
 know what they must do in order to paint well, with brilliancy, 
 with consistency, with ease, with permanence, there began between 
 these two peoples those comings and goings which, however they 
 changed in character and direction, never ceased. Van Eyck is 
 not alone ; around him swarm works, works rather than names. 
 They cannot be well distinguished either among themselves or 
 from the German school : it is a jewel case, a reliquary, a 
 sparkling of precious gems. Imagine a collection of painted jewel 
 work in which is recognized the hand of the enameller, of the 
 glass-worker, of the engraver, and of the illuminator of psalters ; 
 whose sentiment is grave, whose inspiration is monastic, whose 
 destination is princely ; which show already experienced handling 
 and dazzling effect in the midst of which Memling remains ever 
 distinct, unique, candid, and delicious, like a flower whose root is 
 unattainable, and which has sent forth no shoots. 
 
 After the extinction of this fair dawn, the fading of this lovely 
 twilight, night descended upon the North, and Italy was seen to 
 shine. Quite naturally the North rushed thither. Flanders was 
 at that time at that critical moment in the life of individuals and 
 of peoples when, if they are no longer young, they must ripen ; 
 for when one almost ceases to believe, one must know. Flanders
 
 THE MUSEUM AT BRUSSELS. 9 
 
 did to Italy what Italy had been doing to antiquity ; she turned 
 towards Rome, Florence, Milan, Parma, and Venice, even as Rome 
 and Milan, Florence and Parma, had turned towards Latin Rome 
 and Greece. 
 
 The first to go was Mabuse, who went to Italy about 1 508 ; then 
 Van Orley, at the latest in 1527; then Floris, then Coxcie, and 
 others followed. For a century there existed on classic ground 
 a Flemish academy, which formed excellent pupils and some good 
 painters ; which came near stifling the Antwerp school by force 
 of culture without greatness of soul, by lessons well or ill learned, 
 and which finally served to sow the unknown. Do we here 
 find the precursors ? At least these are the original stock, the 
 intermediaries, the men who study with a will, who desire renown, 
 who are charmed by novelty, tormented by ideal excellence. I 
 cannot say that in this hybrid art everything was of a kind to 
 console for what no longer existed, or to excite hopes of what 
 was coming. 
 
 But in any case they all captivate, interest, instruct us, even if 
 we only learn from them to understand one thing, which seems 
 common because so definitely proved, the renewal of the mod- 
 ern by the ancient world, and the extraordinary gravitation which 
 drew Europe towards the Italian Renascence. The Renascence was 
 produced in the North exactly as it was in the South, with this 
 difference, that at the time we have reached, Italy precedes, 
 Flanders follows ; and while Italy possesses schools of rare culture 
 and noble understanding, Flemish scholars hasten thither.
 
 10 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 These scholars, to call them by a name which does honor to 
 their masters, these disciples, better so named from their enthu- 
 siasm and according to their merits, are diverse, and diversely 
 impressed by the spirit which speaks to all of them from afar, 
 and charms them when near, according to their natures. Some 
 of them Italy attracts but does not convert, like Mabuse, who re- 
 mained Gothic in mind and in execution, and brought back from 
 his excursion only the taste for fine architecture, already prefer- 
 ring palaces to chapels. There are some whom Italy retained and 
 kept, others whom she sent back, freer, more supple, more nervous, 
 even too much inclined towards moving attitudes, like Van Orley ; 
 others she despatched to England, Germany, or France ; and still 
 others returned unrecognizable, notably Floris, whose turbulent and 
 cold manner, irregular style, and thin execution were hailed as an 
 event in the school, and gave him the dangerous honor of forming, 
 it is said, one hundred and fifty pupils. 
 
 It is easy to recognize, amidst these deserters, certain rarely obsti- 
 nate souls who, ingenuous and powerful, remain extraordinarily at- 
 tached to their native soil, and, ploughing it, discover on the spot 
 something new, witness Quentin Matsys, the Antwerp blacksmith, 
 who began with the wrought-iron well, still to be seen before the 
 portal of Notre Dame, and later, with the same honest hand, pre- 
 cise and powerful, and the same metal-worker's tool, painted the 
 Banker and his Wife in the Louvre, and the admirable Burial of 
 Christ in the Antwerp Museum. 
 
 Without leaving this historical hall of the Brussels Museum, one
 
 THE MUSEUM AT BRUSSELS. II 
 
 might make extensive studies and discover many curiosities. The 
 period comprised between the end of the fifteenth century and the 
 last third of the sixteenth, that which begins after Memling, with 
 Gerard David and the Stuerbouts, and which finishes with the last 
 pupils of Floris, for instance, Martin de Vos, is really one of the 
 periods in the school of the North that we can poorly understand 
 from our French museums. Here are found names wholly unknown 
 among us, like Coxcie and Connixloo. We can learn to understand 
 the merit and the transitory value of Floris, and at a glance can 
 define his historical interest ; as to his glory, it will forever astonish, 
 but can be better explained. Bernard van Orley, in spite of all the 
 corruptions of his manner, his mad gesticulations when he grows 
 animated, his theatrical rigidity when he is self-conscious, his faults 
 in drawing, his errors in taste, is revealed to us as an exceptional 
 painter, first, by his Trials of Job, and finally, and even more surely, 
 by his portraits. You find in him something Gothic and something 
 Florentine, Mabuse mingled with an imitation Michael Angelo, the 
 anecdotic style in his triptych of Job, his historical style in the trip- 
 tych of the Virgin weeping over Christ, in one, the heavy and 
 pasty style, the sombre color, the tiresomeness of a pale rendering of 
 foreign methods ; in the other, the violence and the happy hits of the 
 palette, glittering surfaces, and the glassy brilliancy appropriate to 
 a practitioner from the workshops of Bruges. And yet such is the 
 vigor, the inventive force, and the power of this eccentric and 
 changeful painter, that in spite of his extravagances, he is recog- 
 nized by an indescribably imposing originality. At Brussels he has
 
 12 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 some surprising works. Observe that I do not speak to you of 
 Franken, Ambroise Franken, a pure Fleming of the same epoch, 
 who has nothing in the Brussels Museum, but who figures at Ant- 
 werp in an altogether wonderful way, and who, if he is wanting to 
 the series, is at least represented by analogous painters. Observe, 
 too, that I omit those pictures poorly defined and catalogued as 
 unknown masters, triptychs, portraits of various dates, beginning 
 with the two life-sized figures of Philip the Fair and the Mad Joanna, 
 two works rare from the value attached to them by iconography, 
 charming in their execution, most instructive by their appropriate- 
 ness. The museum possesses about fifty of these anonymous num- 
 bers. No one expressly claims them. They recall certain pictures of 
 better determined origin, sometimes connect and confirm them, make 
 their relationship clearer, and better fill out their genealogical tree. 
 
 Consider, moreover, that the primitive Dutch school, that of 
 Haarlem, which is confounded with the Flemish school till the day 
 when Holland ceased to be confounded entirely with Flanders, this 
 first effort of the Netherlands to produce indigenous fruits of painting, 
 is to be seen here, and I pass it by. I will only mention Stuerbout, 
 with his two imposing panels of the Justice of Otho, and Heemes- 
 kerke and Mostaert, Mostaert, a refractory spirit, an aborigine, a 
 gentleman of the household of Margaret of Austria, who painted all 
 the important personages of his time, a genre painter remarkably 
 tinged with history and legend, who in two episodes of the life of 
 St. Benedict represents the interior of a kitchen, and paints for us, 
 as they did a hundred years later, the familiar domestic life of his
 
 THE MUSEUM AT BRUSSELS. 13 
 
 time, Heemeskerke, a pure apostle of linear forms, dry, angular, 
 glaring, blackish, who cuts out of hard steel his figures vaguely imi- 
 tated from Michael Angelo. 
 
 It is easy to mistake a Dutchman for a Fleming. At that date it 
 made very little difference on which side of the Meuse a man was 
 born ; what mattered, was to know if such a painter had or had not 
 tasted the troubled waters of the Arno or the Tiber. Had he or 
 had he not visited Italy ? Everything is in that, and nothing can be 
 stranger than this mingling, in large or small doses, of Italian culture 
 and persistent Germanisms, of a foreign tongue and the indelible 
 local accent which characterizes this school of Italo-Flemish mon- 
 grels. Journeys are in vain ; something is changed, but the substratum 
 exists. The style is new, movement is to be found in the grouping, 
 a hint of chiaroscuro begins to dawn upon palettes, nudities appear 
 in an art hitherto wholly clothed and costumed according to local 
 fashions, the height of personages increases, the groups are more 
 numerous, the pictures more crowded, fancy mingles with the myths, 
 an unbridled picturesqueness is combined with history ; it is the 
 moment of Last Judgments, satanic and apocalyptic conceptions, 
 and grimacing deviltries. The imagination of the North yields 
 with joyful heart, and gives itself over, in the whimsical or in the 
 terrible, to extravagances which Italian art never suspected. 
 
 In the first place, nothing deranges the methodical and tenacious 
 foundation of Flemish genius. Execution remains precise, sharp, 
 minute, and crystalline : the hand remembers having not long since 
 manipulated polished and dense substances ; recalls the chiselling of
 
 14 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 copper, the enamelling of gold, the melting and coloring of glass. 
 Then gradually the trade changes, the coloring is broken, the tone 
 is divided into lights and shades ; it becomes iridescent, preserves 
 its substance in the folds of stuffs, evaporates and whitens at each 
 salient point. Painting becomes less solid, and color of less con- 
 sistency, in proportion as it loses the conditions of force and bril- 
 liancy which came from its unity ; it is the Florentine method which 
 begins to disorganize the rich and homogeneous Flemish palette. 
 This first ravage well established, the evil makes rapid progress. In 
 spite of the docility with which it follows the Italian teaching, the 
 Flemish spirit is not supple enough to bend entirely to such lessons. 
 It takes what it can, not always the best, and something ever es- 
 capes it, either the method when it tries to seize the style, or the 
 style when it succeeds in approaching the method. After Florence, 
 Rome dominates it, and at the same time Venice. At Venice the 
 influences which it undergoes are singular. 
 
 One can hardly perceive that the Flemish painters have studied 
 the Bellini, Giorgione, or Titian. Tintoretto, on the contrary, has 
 visibly impressed them. They find in him something grandiose, a 
 movement, and a muscularity, which tempt them, and a certain tran- 
 sitional coloring, from which that of Veronese will separate itself, 
 and which seems to them more useful to consult for '-the purpose of 
 discovering the elements of their own. They borrow from him two 
 or three tones, his yellow especially, with the manner of accompany- 
 ing them. It is to be remarked that in these disconnected imitations 
 there are not only many incoherences, but striking anachronisms.
 
 THE MUSEUM AT BRUSSELS. 15 
 
 They adopt more and more the Italian fashion, and yet they wear it 
 ill. An inconsequence, a badly assorted detail, an odd combination 
 of two manners which do not go well together, continue to manifest 
 the rebellious side of the natures of these incorrigible scholars. In 
 the full tide of the Italian decadence, on the eve of the seventeenth 
 century, there are found still among these Italo-Flemings men of the 
 past who seem never to have remarked that the Renascence was 
 over and done. They inhabit Italy, and only follow its evolu- 
 tions from afar. Whether from inability to understand things, or 
 from native stiffness and obstinacy, there seems to be one side of 
 their minds which resists, and will not be cultivated. An Italo- 
 Fleming is invariably far behind the Italian time of day, which 
 explains why during the life of Rubens his master hardly walked in 
 the steps of Raphael. 
 
 While in historical painting some are belated, elsewhere there are 
 some who divine the future, and are in advance. I speak not only 
 of the elder Breughel, the inventor of genre painting, a terrible 
 genius, an original master if ever there was one, father of a school 
 to come, who died without having seen his sons, yet whose sons 
 are his very own. The museum of Brussels makes us recognize an 
 unknown painter of uncertain name, recognized by sobriquets : in 
 Flanders he is called Henri met de Bles, or de Blesse, the man 
 with the tuft ; in Italy, Civetta, because his pictures, now very rare, 
 have an owl in place of a signature. A picture by this Henri de 
 Bles, a Temptation of St. Anthony, is a most unexpected work, 
 with its bottle-green and black-green landscape, its bituminous
 
 1 6 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 ground, its sky of light Prussian blue, its audacious and ingenious 
 masses of color, the terrible black, which serves for background 
 to the two nude figures, and its chiaroscuro so boldly obtained 
 with a clear sky. This enigmatic painting, which savors of Italy, 
 and announces what Breughel and Rubens will be later, in their 
 landscapes, reveals a skilful painter, and a man impatient to antici- 
 pate the hour. 
 
 Of all these painters more or less disacclimated, of all these 
 Romanists, as they were called on their return into Antwerp society, 
 Italy not on-ly made skilful, copious artists, of great experience, 
 of true knowledge, especially of great aptitude for diffusion and for 
 vulgarizing (I ask their pardon for the word, it being used in its 
 double signification), but she also gave them the taste for multifa- 
 rious methods. According to the example of their own masters, 
 they became architects and engineers and poets. To-day this fine 
 fire causes a slight smile at the thought of the sincere masters who 
 preceded them, and the inspired master who was to follow them. 
 
 They were brave men, who worked for the culture of their time, 
 and unconsciously for the progress of their school. They went away, 
 enriched themselves, and returned home like emigrants whose sav- 
 ings are made with a view to the fatherland. Some of them were 
 very secondary, and local history itself might forget them if they 
 did not all follow each other from father to son, and if genealogy 
 were not in such cases the only means of estimating the utility 
 of those who seek, and of understanding the sudden grandeur of 
 those who find.
 
 THE MUSEUM AT BRUSSELS. IJ 
 
 To sum up, a school had disappeared, that of Bruges. Aided by 
 politics, war, journeys, and all the active elements which compose 
 the physical and moral character of a people, another school was 
 formed at Antwerp ; ultramontane beliefs inspired it, ultramontane 
 art advised it, princes encouraged it, all national needs called for 
 it. It was at once very active and very undecided, very brilliant, 
 astonishingly fruitful, and almost obscure ; it was metamorphosed 
 from top to bottom, so as to be no longer recognizable, until it 
 arrived at its decisive and final incarnation in a man born to bend 
 to all the needs of his age and of his country, nourished by all 
 schools, and who was the most original expression of his own, that 
 is to say, the most Flemish of all Flemings. 
 
 Otho Vcenius is placed in the museum of Brussels immediately 
 beside his great pupil. It is towards those two inseparable names 
 that we must tend if we would draw any conclusion from what pre- 
 cedes. They are seen from the whole horizon, the former concealed 
 in the glory of the other; and if I have not named them twenty 
 times already, you should be grateful for the effort I have made to 
 induce you to expect them.
 
 II 
 
 THE MASTERS OF RUBENS. 
 
 IT is known that Rubens had three teachers, that he began 
 his studies with a well-known landscape-painter, Tobias Verhaegt ; 
 that he continued them with Adam Van Noort, and ended them 
 with Otho Vcenius. Of these three professors, there are but two 
 with whom history concerns itself, and it still accords to Vcenius 
 almost all the honor of this great education, one of the finest from 
 which a master has ever gained fame, because in fact Voenius 
 directed his pupil until he attained his majority, and was not 
 separated from him till the age when Rubens was already a man, 
 and, at least in talent, already a great man. As to Van Noort, 
 we learn that he was a painter of real but fantastic originality, 
 who was very harsh with his pupils. In his studio Rubens spent 
 four years ; but he disliked him, and found in Vcenius a master 
 of more compatible temper. ThJ* is about all that is said of this 
 intermediary director, who held this child in his hands precisely 
 at the age when youth is most susceptible to impressions ; but 
 according to my idea this hardly accounts for the influence he 
 must have had upon this young mind.
 
 THE MASTERS OF RUBENS. 19 
 
 If from Verhaegt Rubens learned the elements, if Voenius in- 
 structed him in the humanities, Van Noort did something more ; 
 he showed him in his own person a character wholly individual, 
 an unconquerable organization, in short, the sole contemporary 
 painter who remained a Fleming when every one in Flanders 
 had ceased to be one. 
 
 Nothing is so singular as the contrast afforded by these two 
 men, so different in character and consequently so opposite in 
 their influence, and nothing is more curious than the destiny which 
 led them in succession to concur in that delicate task, the edu- 
 cation of a child of genius. Remark that by their disparities 
 they corresponded precisely to the contrasts of which was formed 
 this multifarious nature, as circumspect as it was bold. Isolated, they 
 represent its contrary elements, that is, its incongruities ; together, 
 they reconstitute, minus the genius, the whole man with all his 
 forces, his harmony, his equilibrium, and his unity. 
 
 Now, when we understand the genius of Rubens in its plenitude, 
 and the contradictory talents of his two instructors, it is easy to 
 perceive, I do not say the one who has given the wisest counsels, 
 but which of the two has most vividly moved him, the man who 
 appealed to his reason, or the one who addressed his tempera- 
 ment ; the irreproachable painter who exalted Italy to him, or the 
 man of the soil who perhaps showed him what he might one day 
 be, by remaining the greatest of his own nation. In any case 
 there is one whose action is explained but scarcely seen, and 
 another whose influence is manifest without being explained ; and
 
 20 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 if a man be absolutely determined to recognize some family 
 feature in this face so markedly individual, I can see but one 
 which has the character and persistency of an hereditary trait, 
 and this characteristic comes from Van Noort. And now I will 
 say what I have to express concerning Vcenius, claiming for a 
 man too much forgotten the right to figure at Rubens's side. 
 
 This Vcenius was no ordinary man. Without Rubens he would 
 find it difficult to sustain the renown he has in history ; but at least 
 the lustre from his disciple illumines a noble figure, a personage of 
 distinguished mien, of lofty birth, of high culture, a learned, some- 
 times even an original painter from the variety of his knowledge, 
 and from a talent almost natural, his excellent education forming 
 a part of his nature, the result being a man and an artist each 
 as admirably trained as the other. He had visited Florence, 
 Rome, Venice, and Parma, and certainly it was in Rome and 
 Venice and Parma that he spent the longest time. A Roman in 
 his scrupulousness, a Venetian in his taste, a Parmesan above all, 
 from affinities which are more rarely revealed, but which are most 
 intimate and true, at Rome and in Venice he had found two 
 schools constituted like no other ; at Parma he met one isolated 
 creator, without relations, without doctrines, who did not even 
 pride himself on being a master. Had he, on account of his 
 differences, more respect for Raphael, more sensuous ardor for 
 Veronese and Titian, more tenderness at bottom for Correggio ? 
 This I believe. His successful compositions are a little trivial, 
 rather empty, rarely imaginative ; and the elegance he derives from
 
 THE MASTERS OF RUBENS. 21 
 
 nature and his association with the best masters as with the best 
 company, the uncertainty of his convictions and preferences, the 
 impersonal force of his coloring, his draperies destitute of truth 
 and of grandeur of style, his untypical heads, his winy tones 
 lacking in great warmth, all these suggestions, full of good 
 breeding, would give of him the impression of a mind accom- 
 plished, but mediocre. He might be called an excellent court 
 master, who teaches admirably lessons too admirable and powerful 
 for himself. He is, however, something much better than that, 
 and as proof of it, I only need his Mystical Marriage of St. Cath- 
 erine, which is found in the Brussels Museum on the right, above 
 the Magi of Rubens. 
 
 This picture struck me forcibly. It was painted in 1589, and 
 is penetrated with that Italian substance on which the painter had 
 been profoundly nurtured. At this time Vcenius was thirty-three 
 years old. On his return to his own country he took the first 
 rank as architect and painter to Prince Alexander of Parma. 
 From his family picture, which is in the Louvre and which dates 
 from 1584, to this, that is, in five years, the stride is enor- 
 mous. It seems as if his Italian memories had slumbered during 
 his sojourn at Liege with the Princfe Bishop, and were revived at 
 the Court of Farnese. This picture, the best and most surprising 
 produced from all the lessons he had learned, has this in par- 
 ticular : it reveals a man behind many influences, it indicates at 
 least in what direction his native inclinations lead, and we learn 
 from it what he desired to do, while seeing most distinctly what
 
 22 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 inspired him. I will not describe it, but, the subject seeming to 
 me to deserve that one should pause before it, I took some run- 
 ning notes which I here transcribe. 
 
 " More opulent, more supple, less Roman, although at the first 
 glance the tone remains Roman. From a certain tenderness of 
 type, an arbitrary crumpling of stuffs, a little mannerism in the 
 hands, we feel Correggio introduced into Raphael. There are 
 angels in the sky who make a pleasing spot ; a dark yellow 
 drapery in half-tint is thrown, like a tent with folds turned back, 
 across the branches of the trees. The Christ is charming ; the 
 young and slender St. Elizabeth is adorable. She has the cast- 
 down eyes, the chaste and infantile profile, the pretty well-turned 
 neck, the candid air of Raphael's virgins, humanized by an inspira- 
 tion from Correggio, and by a marked personal sentiment. The 
 blond hair which melts into the blond flesh, the grayish white 
 linens which lead into each other, the colors shadowy or marked, 
 which melt or are distinguished very capriciously according to 
 new laws, and according to the author's proper fancy, all these 
 are pure Italian blood transfused into veins capable of turning 
 them into new blood. All this prepares for Rubens, whom it an- 
 nounces, and towards whom ft leads. 
 
 "Certainly there is in the Marriage of St. Catherine enough 
 to enlighten and urge forward a mind of such delicacy, a tempera- 
 ment of such ardor. From his Italian souvenirs Voenius derived 
 these elements, this arrangement, the spots of color ; this bend- 
 ing, waving chiaroscuro ; this yellow, no longer Tintoretto's, though
 
 THE MASTERS OF RUBENS. 23 
 
 derived from it; the pearly flesh, no longer the pulp of Correggio, 
 although it has its savor; this thinner skin,, this colder flesh, a 
 more feminine grace or a more local femininity ; an entirely Italian 
 background, from which, however, the warmth has departed, and 
 in which the red principle gives way to the green principle, with 
 an infinitely greater caprice in the disposition of shadows, and a 
 light more diffused, and less rigorously submitted to the arabesques 
 of form. It is but a slight effort at acclimation, but the effort ex- 
 ists. Rubens, for whom nothing was lost, must have found, when 
 he went to Vcenius seven years later, in 1596, the example of a 
 style of painting already very eclectic and passably emancipated. 
 It is more than one would expect from Vcenius, and enough that 
 Rubens should be indebted to him for a moral influence, if not a 
 decided impression." 
 
 As can be seen, Vcenius had more exterior than depth, more 
 order than native richness, and an excellent education ; but he 
 lacked ardor, and had not a shadow of genius. He gave good 
 examples, being himself a good example of what may be produced in 
 all things by good birth, a well-trained mind, a supple comprehension, 
 an active and mobile will, and a peculiar aptitude for submission. 
 
 Van Noort was the counterpart of Voenius. He was wanting 
 in almost all that Voenius had acquired ; he naturally possessed what 
 Voenius lacked. He had neither culture, nor politeness, nor ele- 
 gance, nor style, nor submissiveness, nor balance ; but, on the other 
 hand, real gifts and vivid gifts. Savage, hasty, violent, unpolished, 
 just as nature had made him, he never ceased to be either in his 
 conduct or his works.
 
 24 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 He was a man all of a piece, of pure impulse ; perhaps an ignorant 
 man, but a somebody, the opposite of Voenius, the opposite of 
 an Italian, a Fleming in race and temperament, who remained a 
 Fleming. With Vcenius he represented marvellously the two ele- 
 ments, native and foreign, which for a hundred years had divided 
 the mind of Flanders, one almost wholly stifling the other. In 
 manner, and allowing for the difference of epoch, he was the last 
 offshoot of the strong national stem of which the Van Eycks, 
 Memling, Quentin Matsys, the elder Breughel, and all the portrait 
 painters had been, according to the spirit of each age, the natural 
 and vigorous product. 
 
 Changed as was the old German blood in the veins of the eru- 
 dite Vcenius, it flowed rich, pure, and abundant in this strong, 
 uncultivated organization. In his tastes, his instincts, his habits, 
 Van Noort belonged to the people. He had their brutality, even, it 
 is said, their love of wine, their loud voice, their coarse but frank 
 language, their ill-taught and rough sincerity, everything, in a word, 
 except their good-humor. A stranger to society as well as to acad- 
 emies, no more polished in one sense than in another, but absolutely 
 a painter by his imaginative faculties, by the eye and by the hand ; 
 rapid, alert, of undisturbed self-possession, he had two motives 
 for daring all, he knew that he was capable of doing everything 
 without any one's help, and he had no scruples about his own ig- 
 norance. 
 
 To judge by his works, now become very rare, and by the little 
 that remains to us of a laborious career of eighty-four years, he loved
 
 THE MASTERS OF RUBENS. 2$ 
 
 what in his country was scarcely esteemed longer, an action, even 
 heroic, expressed in its crude reality apart from any ideal, whether 
 mystical or pagan. He loved sanguine and ill-combed men, gray- 
 beards tanned and aged, hardened by rude labor, with shining 
 thick hair, unkempt beards, veined necks, and broad shoulders. 
 In handling he delighted in strong accents, showy colors, great 
 clearness in powerful and inharmonious tones, the whole but little 
 blended, painted broadly, glowing, shining, and rippling. His touch 
 was impatient, sure, and true. He had a way of striking the can- 
 vas and imprinting upon it a tone rather than a form, which made 
 it resound under the brush. He massed many stout figures in 
 a little space, disposed them in abundant groups, and drew from 
 numbers a general relief which added to the individual relief of 
 things. Everything that could shine, shone, brow, temples, mus- 
 taches, the white of the eye, the edge of the eyelid ; and by this 
 fashion of rendering the action of vivid light upon the blood, the 
 moisture and gleam contracted by the skin from the heat of day 
 which burns it, by much red, intensified by much silver, he gave 
 to all his personages a certain most pronounced activity, and, so to 
 speak, the appearance of being in a sweat. 
 
 If these traits are exact, and I believe them to be so, from hav- 
 ing observed them in a very characteristic work, it is impossible to 
 misunderstand what an influence such a man must have had upon 
 Rubens. The pupil certainly had a good deal of the master in his 
 blood. He had indeed almost everything which makes the origi- 
 nality of his master, but also many other gifts in addition, whence
 
 26 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 result the extraordinary plenitude, and the not less extraordinary 
 temper of his fine mind. Rubens, it has been written, was tranquil 
 and lucid, which means that his lucidity arose from an imperturbable 
 good sense, and his tranquillity from the most admirable equilibrium 
 which has perhaps ever reigned in a brain. 
 1 But it is none the less true that there exist between him and Van 
 
 ; 
 
 'Noort evident family relations. If that were doubted, one need 
 only look at Jordaens, his co-disciple and his substitute. With age, 
 with education, the traits of which I speak were all to disappear 
 in Rubens, but in Jordaens they have existed underneath his ex- 
 treme resemblance to Rubens, so that to-day it is by the relation- 
 ship of the two pupils that one can recognize the original marks 
 which unite both to their common master. Jordaens would cer- 
 tainly have been quite other had he not had Van Noort for an 
 instructor and Rubens for a constant model. Without that in- 
 structor would Rubens have been all that he is? and would not 
 one accent have been wanting to him, that plebeian accent which 
 attaches him to the very heart of his people, thanks to which he 
 has been understood as well by them as by delicate minds and 
 princes ? However that may be, Nature seems to have been 
 groping when from 1557 to 1581 she sought the mould in which 
 to melt the elements of modern art in Flanders. It may be said 
 that she tried Van Noort, that she hesitated before Jordaens, and 
 that she only found what she wanted in Rubens. 
 
 We have now reached 1600. Henceforth Rubens had enough 
 force to be independent of a master, but not of masters. He de-
 
 THE MASTERS OF RUBENS. 27 
 
 parted for Italy, and what he did there is known. He sojourned 
 there eight years, from the age of twenty-three to thirty-one years. 
 He stopped at Mantua, preluded his embassy by a journey to the 
 Court of Spain, returned to Mantua, went to Rome, then to Florence, 
 then to Venice, then from Rome he went to settle at Genoa. There 
 he beheld princes, became celebrated, there took possession of 
 his talent, his glory, and his fortune. After the death of his mother 
 he returned to Antwerp in 1609, and made himself recognized with- 
 out difficulty as the first master of his age.
 
 III. 
 
 RUBENS IN THE BRUSSELS MUSEUM. 
 
 IF I were writing the history of Rubens, it would not be here that 
 I should compose the first chapter. I should look for Rubens in his 
 very beginnings, in his pictures anterior to 1609, or else I should 
 choose some marked period, and from Antwerp follow this career, 
 which is so direct that the undulations of the widely developing 
 nature can scarcely be perceived, as it increases its extent without 
 the uncertainties and contradictions of a mind which seeks its way. 
 But remember that I am only turning the leaves of an impercepti- 
 ble fragment of this immense work. Detached pages of his life are 
 offered by chance, and I accept them thus. Everywhere, moreover, 
 that Rubens is represented by a good picture, he is present, I will not 
 say in all parts of his talent, but certainly in at least one of the 
 finest. 
 
 The museum at Brussels has seven of his important pictures, a 
 sketch, and four portraits. If this is not enough to measure Rubens, 
 it suffices to give a grand, varied, and just idea of his value. With 
 his master, his contemporaries, his co-disciples, or his friends, he fills 
 the last division of the gallery, and there sheds abroad that restrained
 
 RUBENS IN THE BRUSSELS MUSEUM. 29 
 
 brilliancy, and that soft and powerful radiance which are the grace of 
 his genius. There is no pedantry, no affectation of vain grandeur or 
 of offensive pride, but he is naturally imposing. Give him for neigh- 
 bors the most overpowering and contrary works, and the effect is the 
 same. He extinguishes those which resemble him, silences those 
 which attempt to contradict him ; from afar he makes his presence 
 consciously felt, he isolates himself, and wherever he may be he is 
 at home. 
 
 These pictures, though undated, are evidently of very diverse 
 periods. Many years separate the Assumption of the Virgin from 
 the two dramatic canvases, St. Lieven, and Christ ascending Cal- 
 vary. Not that in Rubens are seen those striking changes which 
 mark, in the greater part of painters, the passage from one age to 
 another, commonly called their manners. Rubens ripened too early 
 and died too suddenly to have his paintings preserve visible traces of 
 his first ingenuousness, or feel the least effect of his decline. From 
 his youth up he was himself. He had found his style, his form, 
 almost his types, and once for all the elementary principles of his 
 craft. Later, with experience, he acquired still more liberty ; his 
 palette, while it grew richer, became more temperate ; he obtained 
 greater results with less effort, and his extreme boldness, when ex- 
 amined, reveals at bottom perfect moderation, the knowledge, the 
 wisdom, and the pertinence of a consummate master, who is as con- 
 tained as he is free. He began by working rather thinly and 
 smoothly and vividly. His color, pearly in surface, was more glit- 
 tering and less resonant, the under tints were less well chosen, the
 
 30 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 substance less delicate or less deep. He feared a negative tone, not 
 suspecting the learned use of it that he should one day make. 
 
 Even at the end of his life, in full maturity, that is, in the full 
 effervescence of brain and method, he returned to this studied man- 
 ner, which is relatively timid. Therefore in his little anecdotic 
 genre pictures made with his friend Breughel to amuse his later 
 years, there is no longer to be recognized the powerful hand, un- 
 bridled or refined, which painted at the same epoch the Martyrdom 
 of St. Lieven, the Magi of the Antwerp Museum, or the St. George 
 of the Church of St. Jacques. The spirit in truth never changed ; 
 and if one would follow the progress of age, it is the man who 
 must be considered rather than the attractions of his thought ; his 
 palette must be analyzed, his method studied, and above all only 
 his great works must be consulted. 
 
 The Assumption corresponds to this first period, since it would be 
 inexact to say his first manner. This picture has been much re- 
 touched, and though we are assured that on this account it loses a 
 large part of its merit, I cannot see that it has lost that which I am 
 seeking. It is a page at once brilliant and cold, inspired in render- 
 ing, methodical and prudent in execution. It is like the pictures of 
 that date, polished, clean in surface, a trifle glassy. The common- 
 place types lack naturalness ; the palette of Rubens resounds already 
 with certain dominant notes, red, yellow, black, and gray, brilliant 
 but crude. These are its insufficiencies. As to merits entirely ac- 
 quired, they are here applied in a masterly way. Great figures lean- 
 ing over the empty tomb, all the colors vibrating over a black opening,
 
 RUBENS IN THE BRUSSELS MUSEUM. 31 
 
 the light spreading from a central point of brilliancy, broad, powerful, 
 sonorous, wavy, dying in softest half-tints ; on the right and left 
 nothing but weak points except two accidental spots, two horizontal 
 strong points which attach the scene to the frame half-way up the 
 picture. Below, some gray steps ; above, a sky of Venetian blue 
 with gray clouds and flying vapors, and in this shaded azure, her 
 feet buried in bluish fleecy clouds, her head in a glory, floats the 
 Virgin, clothed in pale blue, with a dark blue mantle, three winged 
 groups of angels accompanying her, all radiating with pearl and rose 
 and silver. At the upper angle, just touching the zenith, a little 
 agile cherub, beating his wings, shining like a butterfly in the light, 
 mounts directly and flies through the open heaven like a swifter 
 messenger than the others. Here are suppleness, breadth, depth of 
 grouping, and a marvellous union of the picturesque with the grand. 
 In spite of certain imperfections all Rubens is here, more than in 
 embryo. Nothing can be more tender, more frank, or more striking. 
 As an improvisation of happy spots of color, as life, as a harmony 
 for the eye, it is perfect, a summer festival. 
 
 Christ in the -Lap of the Virgin is a much later work, grave, gray, 
 and black. The Virgin is in sad blue ; the Magdalen in a purple- 
 black garment. The canvas has suffered much from transportation, 
 either in 1794, when it was sent to Paris, or in 1815, when it returned. 
 It passed for one of the finest works of Rubens, which it no longer 
 can be called. I confine myself to transcribing my notes, which say 
 enough. 
 
 The Magi are neither the first nor the last expression of a subject
 
 32 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 that Rubens has treated many times. In any case, in whatever rank 
 they are classed in these versions developed from one theme, they 
 follow that of Paris, and very certainly they precede that of Mechlin, 
 of which I will speak further on. The idea is ripe, the arrangement 
 more complete. The necessary elements, of which is to be composed 
 later this work so rich in transformations, types, and personages, with 
 their costumes and their habitual colors, are all found here, playing 
 the rdle designed for them, occupying in the scene their destined 
 place. It is a vast page, conceived, contained, concentrated, summed 
 up, like an easel picture, and for that reason less decorative than 
 many others. It has a great clearness, no tiresome neatness, not 
 one of the chilling drynesses of the Assumption, a great carefulness, 
 with the maturity of most perfect knowledge. The whole school of 
 Rubens might have been instructed from this one example. 
 
 With the Ascent of Calvary, it is quite another thing. At this 
 date Rubens had made the greater part of his great works. He was 
 no longer young ; he knew everything ; he could only have lost, if 
 death, which protected him, had not removed him before he began 
 to fail. Here we have movement, tumult, agitation, in form, in 
 gesture, in countenances, in the disposition of groups, in the oblique 
 light, diagonal and symmetrical, going from the base to the top 
 and from right to left. Christ falling under his cross, the escort of 
 horsemen, the two thieves held and driven by their executioners, 
 are all marching in the same line, and seem to climb the narrow 
 ascent which leads to the place of torture. The Christ is dying 
 with fatigue ; St. Veronica is wiping his brow ; the Virgin in
 
 I
 
 RUBENS IN THE BRUSSELS MUSEUM. 33 
 
 tears rushes towards him, extending her arms to him ; Simon of 
 Cyrene bears the cross ; and in spite of this tree of infamy, these 
 women in tears and mourning, this struggling victim on his knees, 
 whose panting mouth, moist temples, and haggard eyes excite pity, 
 in spite of the terror, the shouts, the near approach of death, it 
 is clear to him who can see, that this equestrian pomp, these 
 floating banners, this harnessed centurion turning upon his horse 
 with a noble gesture, in whom are recognized the features of 
 Rubens, all these cause the execution to be forgotten, and give 
 more manifestly the impression of a triumph. . 
 
 And this is the individual logic of this brilliant mind. It might 
 be said that the scene is comprehended falsely, that it is melo- 
 dramatic, without gravity, without majesty, without beauty, without 
 august character, in fine, almost theatrical. The picturesque, which 
 might well ruin it, is what saves it. Fancy takes possession of it, 
 and elevates it. A gleam of true sentiment pierces and ennobles it. 
 Something like a trait of eloquence enhances the style. Finally, 
 there is an inexpressible fire, an admirably inspired enthusiasm, which 
 make of this picture exactly what it ought to be, a picture of 
 trivial death, and an apotheosis. I find, on examination, that this 
 picture dates from 1634. I was not mistaken in attributing it to 
 the last and finest years of Rubens. 
 
 Is the Martyrdom of St. Lieven of the same epoch ? At least 
 it is in the same style, but in spite of something terrible in the 
 rendering, it has more liveliness in its attraction, its method, 
 and its color. Rubens thought less of it than the Calvary. His 
 
 3
 
 34 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 palette was gayer at that time, the workman more rapid, and his 
 brain less nobly disposed. Forget that this is an ignoble and 
 savage murder of a holy bishop whose tongue has just been 
 torn out, who is vomiting blood, and writhing in agonizing con- 
 vulsions ; forget the three executioners who are torturing him, 
 one with his bloody knife between his teeth, the other with his 
 heavy pincers holding the frightful morsel of flesh to the dogs ; 
 look only at the white horse curveting under a white sky, the 
 golden cope of the bishop, his white stole, the dogs spotted with 
 black and white, four or five of them black, the two red caps, 
 the flushed faces with ruddy skins, and all around in the vast 
 field of canvas the delicious concert of gray and azure and pale 
 or dark silver, and you will receive only the sentiment of a 
 radiant harmony, the most admirable perhaps, and the most un- 
 expected that Rubens ever used to express, or, if you prefer, to 
 excuse, a scene of horror. 
 
 Did Rubens seek contrast? Did he need for the altar which 
 it was to occupy in the church of the Jesuits at Ghent, that 
 this picture should be at once raging and celestial, terrible and 
 smiling, a shuddering horror and a consolation ? I think that 
 the poetical side of Rubens adopted quite voluntarily such an- 
 titheses. Even if he did not think of it, involuntarily his nature 
 would have inspired them. It is well from the beginning to 
 accustom ourselves to these contradictions which produce an 
 equilibrium, and constitute an exceptional genius. Here are much 
 blood and physical vigor, but a winged spirit, a man who fears
 
 RUBENS IN THE BRUSSELS MUSEUM. 35 
 
 not the horrible but has a tender and truly serene soul; here are 
 hideousnesses and brutalities, a total absence of taste in form, com- 
 bined with an ardor which transforms ugliness into force, bloody 
 brutality into terror. This desire for apotheosis of which I spoke 
 in the Calvary, he carries into all he does. If well understood, 
 there is a glory, a trumpet call, in his grossest works. He is 
 very earthy, more earthy than any of the masters whose equal 
 he is, but the painter comes to the aid of the draughtsman and 
 thinker, and sets them free. Therefore there are many who cannot 
 follow him in his flights. There is a suspicion of an imagination 
 which elevates him, but what is seen is only what attaches him 
 below, to the common, the too real, the thick muscles, the redun- 
 dant or careless design, the heavy types, the flesh, and the blood 
 just under the skin. And yet there is a failure to perceive that 
 he has formulas, a style, an ideal, and that these superior formu- 
 las, this style, this ideal, are in his palette. 
 
 Add to this his special gift of eloquence. His language, to de- 
 fine it accurately, is what in literature is called oratorical. When 
 he improvises, he is not at his best ; when he restrains his speech, 
 it is magnificent. It is prompt, sudden, abundant, and warm ; in all 
 circumstances it is eminently persuasive. He strikes, astonishes, re- 
 pels you ; he irritates, but almost always convinces ; and if there is a 
 chance for it, more than any one else he can touch you. Certain pic- 
 tures of Rubens are revolting, but there are some that bring tears to 
 the eyes, and such an influence is rare in all schools. He has the 
 weaknesses, the digressions, and also the magnetic fire of the great
 
 36 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 orators. He sometimes perorates and declaims, he beats the air 
 with his huge arms, but there are words he can speak as no other 
 man can. In general, his ideas are such as can only be expressed 
 by eloquence, by pathetic gesture and sonorous utterance. 
 
 Remark also that he paints for walls, for altars to be seen from 
 the nave ; that he speaks for a vast audience ; that consequently 
 he must be heard from afar, must strike a long way off, seize 
 and charm from a distance, whence results the necessity of in- 
 sisting, of enlarging methods, of increasing the volume of sound. 
 There are laws of perspective, and so to speak of acoustics, which 
 preside over this solemn art, of such immense range. 
 
 It is to this kind of declamatory and incorrect, but very moving 
 eloquence, that belongs his Christ coming to judge the World. The 
 earth is a prey to vices and crimes, to conflagrations, assassinations, 
 and violence; the idea of these human perversities being rendered 
 by a bit of animated landscape such as Rubens alone can paint. 
 
 Christ appears armed with thunderbolts, half flying, half march- 
 ing ; and while he prepares to punish this abominable world, a poor 
 monk in his woollen robe implores mercy, and covers with his two 
 arms an azure globe, around which is twined a serpent. Does the 
 prayer of the saint suffice? No. Then the Virgin, a tall woman 
 in widow's weeds, throws herself before Christ and arrests him. 
 She neither implores, nor prays, nor commands ; she is before 
 her God, but she addresses her Son. Opening her black robe, 
 she uncovers her large immaculate bosom, which she touches with 
 her hand, displaying it to him whom it has nourished. The apos-
 
 RUBENS IN THE BRUSSELS MUSEUM. 37 
 
 trophe is irresistible. Everything may be criticised in this purely 
 passionate picture, painted without retouching: the Christ, who is 
 only ridiculous ; the St. Francis, who is but a terrified monk ; the 
 Virgin, who resembles a Hecuba with the features of Helen Four- 
 ment, even her gesture is not without boldness, if one remembers 
 ithe taste of Raphael, or even the taste of Racine. But I believe 
 it is none the less true that neither at the theatre nor on the 
 tribune, and this picture recalls both, nor in painting, which is 
 its true domain, have been found so many pathetic effects from 
 such vigor and such novelty. 
 
 I neglect and Rubens will lose nothing thereby the Assump- 
 tion of the Virgin, a picture without a soul ; and Venus in the Forge 
 of Vulcan, a canvas too closely related to Jordaens. I pass over 
 likewise the portraits, to which I shall return. Five of the seven 
 pictures, as you see, give a first idea of Rubens not destitute of 
 interest. Supposing that he were unknown, or known only by the 
 Medici Gallery at the Louvre, and that is an ill-chosen example, 
 one would begin to suspect what he is in his mind, his method, his 
 imperfections, and his power. From this, one would conclude that 
 he must never be compared to the Italians, under penalty of mis- 
 understanding, and judging him falsely. If we mean by style the 
 ideal of the pure and beautiful transcribed in formulas, he has no 
 style. If we mean by grandeur loftiness, penetration, the medita- 
 tive and intuitive force of a great thinker, he has neither grandeur 
 nor thought. If taste be requisite, he has no taste. If one delights 
 in a restrained, concentrated, condensed art, like that of Leonardo
 
 38 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 da Vinci for example, this can only irritate and displease by its 
 habitual exaggerations. If all human types must bear some relation 
 to those of the Dresden Madonna, or to La Joconde, to those of 
 Bellini, Perugino, and Luini, those delicate definers of grace and 
 beauty in woman, no indulgence can be felt for the abundant beauty 
 and plump charms of Helen Fourment. Finally, if, approaching 
 more and more to the sculptural manner, there should be demanded 
 from the works of Rubens the conciseness, the rigid bearing, the 
 peaceable gravity, that painting wore when he began, very little 
 would be left to Rubens, except a gesticulator, a man full of force, a 
 sort of imposing athlete, with little cultivation, in short, a bad 
 example. In this case, as has been said, " We salute when we pass, 
 but do not look." 
 
 It is necessary then to find, apart from all comparison, a special 
 position for this glory which is so legitimate a glory. It must be 
 found in the world of the true through which Rubens travels as a 
 master ; and also in the world of the ideal, that region of clear ideas, 
 of sentiments, and emotions, whither his heart as well as his mind 
 bear him incessantly. Those wing strokes by which he there 
 maintains himself must be understood. It must be comprehended 
 that his element is light, that his means of exaltation is his palette, 
 his aim the clearness and evidence of objects. The works of Ru- 
 bens cannot only be viewed in an amateur fashion as shocking the 
 mind and charming the eye. There is something more to be con- 
 sidered and to say. The Brussels Museum is the beginning of the 
 matter, but we must remember that Mechlin and Antwerp remain.
 
 IV. 
 
 RUBENS AT MECHLIN. 
 
 MECHLIN is a great dreary city, empty, dead, and buried in the 
 shadow of its basilicas and convents, in a silence from which noth- 
 ing is able to rouse it, neither its industries, its politics, nor the 
 controversialists who sometimes meet there. At the present mo- 
 ment they are having processions with cavalcades, congregations, 
 and banners, on the occasion of the Centennial Jubilee. All this 
 commotion animates it for a day, but on the morrow the province 
 goes to sleep again. There is very little movement in the streets, 
 a great desert in the squares, many mausoleums of black marble, 
 and statues of bishops in its churches ; and around the churches 
 that fine short grass which grows in solitude among the pavements. 
 In short, in this metropolitan, or rather I should say necropolitan 
 city, there are but two things which survive its past splendor, 
 its sanctuaries of exceeding richness, and the pictures of Rubens. 
 These pictures are the celebrated triptych of the Magi at St. John, 
 and the not less celebrated triptych of the Miraculous Draught of 
 Fishes, which belongs to the church of Notre Dame. 
 
 The Adoration of the Magi is, as I have previously informed you,
 
 40 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 a third version of the Magi of the Louvre and of Brussels. The 
 elements are the same, the principal personages textually the same, 
 with an insignificant change of age in the heads, and some trans- 
 positions of equally little importance. Rubens has made no great 
 effort to remodel his first idea. According to the example of the 
 greatest masters, he had the good sense to live largely upon him- 
 self, and when one rendering appeared to him fertile in variations, 
 he simply made some slight alteration in the repetitions. This 
 theme of the Wise Men coming from the four corners of the earth 
 to adore a homeless infant, born one winter night in the manger of 
 a poor and hidden stable, was one of those which pleased Rubens 
 by its pomp and its contrasts. It is interesting to follow the 
 development of the first idea, as he essays it, enriches, completes, 
 and finally establishes it. After the picture at Brussels, which might 
 have satisfied him, he was able, it seems, to treat the subject better 
 still, with greater richness, more freedom, giving to it that flower 
 of certainty and perfection which belongs only to works absolutely 
 mature. This he has done at Mechlin, after which he returned to 
 it, abandoned himself more entirely, added to it new fancies, aston- 
 ished still more by the fertility of his resources, but did no better. 
 The Magi at Mechlin may be considered as the final expression 
 of the subject, and as one of the finest pictures of Rubens in this 
 style of grand spectacular canvases. 
 
 The composition of the central group is reversed from right to 
 left, with the exception of this change, it can be almost wholly 
 recognized. Here are the three Wise Men, the European, as at
 
 RUBENS AT MECHLIN. 41 
 
 Brussels, with his white hair minus the baldness ; the Asiatic, in red ; 
 the Ethiopian, faithful to his type, here smiles, as he smiles elsewhere, 
 with that ingenuous negro laugh, tender and wondering, so deli- 
 cately observed in this affectionate race ever ready to show its teeth, 
 only he has changed his role and his place. He has been relegated 
 to the second rank, between the princes of the earth and the super- 
 numeraries ; the white turban which he wore at Brussels here adorns 
 a fine ruddy head of Oriental type, whose bust is clothed in green. 
 Also the man in armor is here, half-way up the staircase, bareheaded, 
 rosy, fair, and charming. Instead of keeping back the crowd by 
 facing them, he makes a happy counter-movement, bends to admire 
 the child, and by a gesture repels the eager multitude thronging up 
 the steps. Remove this elegant knight of the time of Louis XIII., 
 and it is the East. How could Rubens know that in every Mussul- 
 man country people are so intrusive that they crush each other in 
 order to see better ? As at Brussels, the accessory heads are the 
 most characteristic and the finest 
 
 The arrangement of color and the distribution of the lights is 
 unchanged. The Virgin is pale, the infant Christ radiating with 
 whiteness under his aureola. Immediately around all is white, the 
 sage with his ermine collar and hoary locks, the silver head of the 
 Asiatic, finally the turban of the Ethiopian, a circle of silver, 
 shaded with rose and pale gold. All the rest is black, tawny, or 
 cold. The heads, ruddy or of a burning brick-red, contrast with 
 bluish countenances of a most unexpected coldness. The dark roof 
 melts away in air. A figure in blood-red in the half-tint relieves,
 
 42 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 finishes, and sustains the whole composition, attaching it to the vault 
 by a knot of color, soft, but very precise. It is a composition that 
 cannot be described, for it expresses nothing formal, nothing pathetic 
 or moving, especially nothing literary. It charms the mind because 
 it enchants the eye ; to a painter, the painting is priceless. To the 
 delicate it must cause great joy, and it must confound the wise. It 
 is wonderful to see how it all lives, moves, breathes, looks, acts, is 
 full of color or fades away, forms a part of the frame or detaches it- 
 self from it, melts into it by its lights, reinstates itself and maintains 
 itself there by its force. And as to the crossing of shades, the ex- 
 treme richness obtained by simple means, by the violence of certain 
 tones, the softness of certain others ; the abundance of red, and yet 
 the coolness of the whole picture, as to the laws which preside 
 over such effects, they are things absolutely disconcerting. 
 
 Analysis reveals only a few very simple formulas, two or three 
 master colors whose purpose is explained, whose action is_ foreseen, 
 and whose influence every man who knows how to paint to-day 
 understands. The colors are always the same in the works of Ru- 
 bens ; there are no secrets, to speak truly. The accessory combi- 
 nations can be noted, his method can be expressed ; it is so con- 
 stant, and so plain in its application, that a pupil, it would seem, 
 would only have to follow it. Never was handiwork easier to 
 seize, with fewer tricks and reticences, because there never was a 
 painter so little mysterious, either when thinking, composing, color- 
 ing, or executing. The sole secret which belongs to him, and 
 which he never yielded even to the most intelligent or the best
 
 RUBENS AT MECHLIN. 43 
 
 informed, even to Gaspard de Grayer, even to Jordaens, even to 
 Vandyck, is that imponderable, unseizable point, that irreducible 
 atom, that nothing, which in all the things of this world is called 
 the inspiration, the grace, or the gift, which is everything. 
 
 This is what must be understood in the first place when Ru- 
 bens is spoken of. Every man of the craft, or a stranger to the . 
 craft, who does not understand the value of the gift in a work 
 of art, in all its degrees of illumination, inspiration, or fancy, is 
 hardly fit to taste the subtle essence of things, and I would ad- 
 vise him never to touch Rubens nor even many others. 
 
 I will spare you the doors of the triptych, which, however, are 
 superb, not only being of his best period, but in his best manner, 
 brown and silvery, which is the last expression of his richness. 
 There is a St. John there of a very rare quality, and an Herodias 
 in dark gray with red sleeves, who is his eternal woman. 
 
 The Miraculous Draught is also a fine picture, but not the 
 finest, as they say at Mechlin, in the Notre Dame quarter. The 
 cure" of St. Jean would share my opinion, and in good conscience 
 he would be right. This picture has just been restored, and at 
 present it is placed upon the ground, in a schoolroom, leaning 
 against a white wall, under a glass roof which inundates it with 
 light, without a frame, in the crudity, in the violence, in the 
 cleanliness of its very first day. Examined by itself, with the eye 
 close to it, and entirely to its disadvantage, it is a picture which 
 I will not call gross, because the handiwork elevates the style a 
 little ; but material, if the word expresses, as I understand it, in
 
 44 THE OLD. MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 genious but narrow construction of a vulgar character. It is 
 wanting in that something, I know not what, in which Rubens 
 infallibly succeeds when he touches the common, a note, a grace, 
 a tenderness, something like a kind smile which makes an excuse 
 for heavy features. Christ, relegated to the right, in the wing, as 
 an accessory in this fishing picture, is as insignificant in gesture 
 as he is in physiognomy ; and his red mantle, which is not a fine 
 red, is sharply relieved against a blue sky, which I suspect is very 
 much altered. St. Peter, a little neglected, but of a fine winy 
 value, would be, if the Gospel were thought of before this canvas 
 painted for fishermen and entirely executed from fishermen, the 
 sole evangelical person in the scene. At least he says exactly 
 what an old man of his class and rusticity would say to Christ in 
 similarly strange circumstances. He holds pressed against his ruddy 
 and rugged breast his sailor's cap, a blue cap, and it is not Rubens 
 who would be deceived in the truth of such a gesture. As to the 
 two naked figures, one bending towards the spectator, the other 
 turned towards the background, and both seen by the shoulders, 
 they are celebrated among the best academy pieces that Rubens 
 ever painted, from the free and sure manner with which the 
 painter has brushed them in, doubtless in a few hours, at the first 
 painting, with the wet paint clear, even abundant, not too fluid, 
 not thick, neither too modelled nor too rough. It is Jordaens with- 
 out reproach, without excessive redness, without glitter ; or rather 
 it is, in its way of seeing the flesh, and not the meat, the best 
 lesson that his great friend could give him. The fisherman with his
 
 RUBENS AT MECHLIN. 45 
 
 Scandinavian head, his flowing beard, his golden hair, his bright 
 eyes in his flushed countenance, his great sea-boots and red gar- 
 ment, is overwhelming. And, as usual in all Rubens's pictures 
 where excessive red is employed as a quietus, it is this flaming 
 personage who tempers the rest, acts upon the retina, and dis- 
 poses it to see green in all the neighboring colors. Note also 
 among the accessory figures a great boy, a cabin boy standing on 
 the second boat, leaning on an oar, dressed no matter how, with gray 
 trousers, a purplish waistcoat, too short, unbuttoned, and open over 
 his naked stomach. 
 
 These men are fat, red, sunburned, tanned and swollen by the 
 fierce breezes, from their finger ends to their shoulders, from the 
 brow to the nape of the neck. All the irritating salts of the sea 
 have exasperated whatever the air touches, have brightened the blood, 
 flushed the skin, swollen the veins, roughened the white flesh, and 
 in a word stained them with vermilion. It is brutal, exact, taken 
 on the spot : all has been witnessed on the quays of the Scheldt by 
 a man who sees largely, sees truly, both color and form ; who respects 
 the truth when it is expressive, nor fears to express crude things 
 crudely, for he knows his trade like an angel and fears nothing. 
 
 What is truly extraordinary in this picture, thanks to the cir- 
 cumstances which permit me to see it so near, and examine the 
 workmanship as closely as if Rubens executed it before me, is that 
 it seems to reveal all his secrets, and that after all it astonishes just 
 as much as if it revealed nothing. I had already said this of Ru- 
 bens, before this new proof of it was given me.
 
 46 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 The embarrassment is not to know how he did it, but how he 
 could do so well by working thus. The means are simple, the 
 method elementary. It is a fine panel, smooth, clean, and white, 
 on which works a hand magnificently agile, adroit, sensitive, and 
 composed. The impetuosity supposed to be his is a way of feel- 
 ing, rather than a disorderly way of painting. The brush is as 
 calm as the soul is hot and ready to rush forward. In such an 
 organization there is such an exact relation and such a rapid con- 
 nection between the vision, the sensitiveness, and the hand, such 
 perfect obedience of the one to the others, that the habitual ex- 
 plosions of the brain which directs make one believe in the sum- 
 mersaults of the instrument. Nothing is more deceptive than this 
 apparent fever, restrained by profound calculation, and served by a 
 mechanism practised in every exercise. It is the same with the sen- 
 sations of the eye, and consequently of the choice he makes of colors. 
 His colors are also very simple, and only appear so complicated on 
 account of the results achieved by the painter, and the part he 
 makes them play. Nothing can be more limited than the number 
 of primary tints, nor more foreseen than the manner in which they 
 are opposed ; nothing also is more simple than the habit by virtue 
 of which he shades them, and nothing more unexpected than the 
 result which is produced. 
 
 Not one of Rubens's tones is very rare in itself. If you take his 
 red, it is easy to dictate the formula ; it is vermilion and ochre 
 very little broken, in its state of first mixture. If you examine 
 his blacks, they are taken out of a pot of ivory black, and serve,
 
 RUBENS AT MECHLIN. 47 
 
 with white, for all the imaginable combinations of his dull or tender 
 grays. His blues are accidents ; his yellows, one of the colors 
 which he feels and manages least well in point of tint, except the 
 golds, which he excels in rendering in their warm deep richness, 
 have, like his reds, a double part to play, first, to make the light 
 fall somewhere beside upon the whites ; secondly, to exercise in 
 the neighborhood the indirect action of a color which changes other 
 colors, for instance, to turn into violet, and give a certain bloom 
 to a dull and very insignificant gray, quite neutral when viewed 
 upon the palette. All this one may say is not very extraordinary. 
 
 Brown undertones, with two or three active colors, to make one 
 believe in the wealth of a vast canvas ; broken grays obtained by dull 
 mixtures; all the intermediary grays between deep black and pure 
 white, consequently very little coloring matter and the greatest 
 brilliancy of color, great luxury obtained with small expense, light 
 without excessive brightness, an extreme sonorousness from a small 
 number of instruments, a key-board in which nearly three fourths of the 
 keys are neglected, but which he runs over, skipping many notes and 
 touching it when necessary at the two ends ; such is, in the mixed 
 language of music and painting, the habit of this great practitioner. 
 He who sees one of his pictures knows them all, and he who has 
 seen him paint one day has seen him paint at almost every moment of 
 his life. There is ever the same method, the same coolness, the same 
 calculation. A calm and intelligent premeditation presides over his 
 always sudden effects. Whence comes his audacity, at what moment 
 he is carried away and abandons himself, can never be known. Is
 
 48 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 it when he executes some violent work, some extravagant gesture, 
 a moving object, an eye that gleams, a mouth that shouts, tangled 
 hair, a bristling beard, a hand that grasps, foam that lashes the 
 beach, disorder in array, a breeze in light objects, or the uncer- 
 tainty of muddy water dripping through the meshes of a net ? Is it 
 when he imbues many yards of canvas with a glowing tint, when he 
 makes his red ripple in waves, so that everything around this red 
 is spattered with its reflections ? Is it, on the contrary, when he 
 passes from one strong color to another, circulating through neutral 
 tones as if this rebellious and sticky material were the most manage- 
 able of the elements ? Is it when he gives a loud cry, or when he 
 utters a sound so feeble that one can hardly catch it ? Did this 
 painting, which puts the beholder into a fever, burn in this manner 
 the hands whence it issued, fluid, easy, natural, healthy, and ever 
 virgin, no matter at what moment you surprise it ? Where, in a 
 word, is the effort in this art, which might be called forced, while it 
 is the intimate expression of a mind which never was forced ? 
 
 Did you ever close your eyes during the execution of a brilliant 
 piece of music ? The sound gushes everywhere. It seems to leap 
 from one instrument to the other ; and as it is very tumultuous, in 
 spite of the perfect harmony of the whole, it might well be believed 
 that everything was agitated, that the hands trembled, and that the 
 same musical frenzy had seized the instruments and those who held 
 them ; and because the performers move the audience so violently, 
 it seems impossible that they should remain calm before their music 
 rests ; so that one is quite surprised to see them peaceable, self-
 
 RUBENS AT MECHLIN. 49 
 
 contained, solely attentive to watching the movement of the ebony 
 wand which leads them, sustains them, dictates to each what he 
 should do, and which is itself only the agent of a mind fully awake 
 and of great knowledge. Thus Rubens wields, during the execution 
 of his works, the ebony baton which commands, conducts, and over- 
 looks ; his is the imperturbable will, the master faculty, which also 
 directs very attentive instruments, I mean the auxiliary faculties. 
 
 Shall we return for a moment more to this picture ? It is under 
 my hand, it is an occasion not often to be had, and which I shall 
 never have again. I will seize it. 
 
 The painting is done at once, completely, or with very little re- 
 touching. This can be seen by the lightness of certain lays of color, 
 in the St. Peter in particular, in the transparency of the great flat 
 and sombre tints, such as the boats, the sea, and all that participates 
 in the same brown, bituminous, or greenish element ; it is equally 
 seen in the not less rapid, though heavier execution of the parts 
 which require a thick paint and a more sustained labor. The bril- 
 liancy of the tone, its freshness and its radiance, are due to this. The 
 white ground of the panel and its smooth surface give to the color, 
 frankly applied, that vibration proper to all tinting laid upon a clear, 
 resisting, and polished surface. If it were thicker, the material 
 would be muddy ; if it were more' rugose, it would absorb as many 
 luminous rays as it would reflect, and the effort would have to be 
 doubled to produce the same result of light ; were it thinner, more 
 timid, or less generously smooth in its contours, it would have that 
 enamelled character, which, however admirable in certain cases, would 
 
 4
 
 50 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 suit neither the style of Rubens, nor his spirit, nor the romantic 
 purpose of his fine works. Here, as elsewhere, his moderation is 
 perfect. The two torsi, finished as thoroughly as a bit of nude of 
 this extent can be within the conditions of a mural picture, have not 
 undergone much retouching with the brush. It might well be that 
 in his days so regularly divided by labor and repose, that each figure 
 was the result of an afternoon of joyous work, after which the painter, 
 content with himself with good reason, laid aside his palette, had his 
 horse saddled, and thought no more about it. 
 
 With still better reason, in all the secondary and supporting parts, 
 the sacrificed portions, the large spaces where the air circulates, the 
 accessories, boats, waves, nets, and fishes, the hand runs along and 
 does not emphasize. A vast wash of the same brown, which is 
 brownish above and green below, grows warm when there is a reflec- 
 tion, is gilded in the hollows of the sea, and descends from the edge of 
 the vessels to the frame. Through this abundant and liquid material 
 the painter has given the appropriate life to each object, or, accord- 
 ing to the language of the studio, " he has found the lifer A few 
 gleams, a few reflections laid on with a fine brush, and you have the 
 sea. It is the same with the nets and their meshes, their planks 
 and corks ; the same with the fish struggling in the muddy water, so 
 wet that they drip with the very colors of the sea ; the same with the 
 feet of Christ and the boots of the glowing sailor. To call this the 
 last word of the art of painting, when it is severe, or when it seeks, 
 with the grand style in mind, eye and hand to express ideals or 
 epics ; to maintain that this is the true method under all circum-
 
 KUBENS AT MECHLIN. 51 
 
 stances, would be like applying the picturesque, rapid language, full 
 of imagery, of our modern writers to the ideas of Pascal. In any 
 case it is Rubens's own language, his style, and consequently is appro- 
 priate to his own ideas. 
 
 The real astonishment, when one thinks about it, comes from the 
 fact that the painter has meditated so little ; that, having thought of 
 any subject, no matter what, he is not turned aside, but can make a 
 picture of it ; that with so little study he is never trivial, and that 
 with such simple means he can produce such an effect. If the sci- 
 ence of his palette is extraordinary, the sensitiveness of his agents 
 is none the less so ; and a merit of which one would hardly suspect 
 him comes to the aid of all the others, moderation, and even I might 
 say sobriety, in the purely exterior manner of handling the brush. 
 
 There are many things that people forget in our time, that they 
 appear to misunderstand, and that they vainly strive to abolish. 
 I cannot tell where our modern school found its taste for thickness 
 of material, and that love of heavy masses of paint, which constitutes 
 in the eyes of some people the principal merit of certain works. I 
 have seen no authoritative examples for it anywhere, except in the 
 painters of the visible decadence and in Rembrandt, who appar- 
 ently could not always do without it, but who knew how to do with- 
 out it sometimes. Fortunately in Flanders it is an unknown method ; 
 and as to Rubens, the accredited master of transport and fury, 
 the most violent of his pictures are often the least loaded. I do not 
 say that he systematically thins his lights, as they did up to the 
 middle of the sixteenth century, or that, on the other hand, he
 
 52 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 thickens all the strong tints. This method, exquisite in its first 
 destination, has undergone all the changes since introduced by the 
 necessities of ideas, and the more multiplied needs of modern paint- 
 ing. However, if he is far from the purely archaic method, he is still 
 farther from the practices in favor since GeYicault, to take a recent 
 example from the illustrious dead. His brush glides and does not 
 plunge. It never drags after it that sticky mortar that accumulates 
 on the salient points of objects, and produces the effect of high re- 
 lief, because the canvas itself thus becomes more salient. He does 
 not load, he paints ; he does not build, he writes ; he caresses, lightly 
 touches, or bears heavily. He passes from an immense impasto to the 
 most delicate, the most fluid touch, always with that degree of con- 
 sistency or lightness, that breadth or that minuteness, which suits the 
 subject that he treats, so that the prodigality or the economy of his 
 paint is a matter of local suitability, and the weight or the marvel- 
 lous lightness of his brush is a means of expressing what demands 
 or does not demand emphasis. 
 
 To-day, when divers schools divide our French school, and to tell 
 the truth, we have only certain more or less adventurous talents 
 without fixed doctrines, the value of a picture well or badly exe- 
 cuted is of very little consequence. A crowd of subtle questions 
 induce forgetfulness of the most necessary elements of expression. 
 In carefully examining certain contemporary pictures, whose merit, 
 at least as attempts, is often more real than is believed, we find 
 that the hand is no longer reckoned among the agents which serve 
 the mind. According to recent methods, to execute is to fill a form
 
 RUBENS AT MECHLIN. 53 
 
 with a tone, whatever may be the tool that performs the labor. 
 The mechanism of the operation seems unimportant, provided the 
 operation succeeds ; and it is wrongly supposed that thought can be 
 as well served by one instrument as another. It is precisely the 
 opposite of this that all the skilful painters, that is to say, the sensi- 
 tive ones, of these countries of Flanders and Holland, have affirmed 
 in advance by their method, which is the most expressive of all. And 
 it is against the same error that Rubens protests, with an authority 
 which will perhaps have a little better chance of being heeded. 
 
 Take from the pictures of Rubens from this one which I am 
 studying the spirit, the variety, the propriety of each touch, and 
 you take from it a word which tells, a necessary accent, a trait 
 of physiognomy. You take away from it perhaps the sole element 
 which spiritualizes so much materiality, and transfigures its fre- 
 quent hideousness, because you suppress all sensitiveness ; and, 
 tracing effects to their primary cause, you kill the life and make 
 a picture without a soul. I might almost say that one touch the 
 less would cause the disappearance of some artistic feature. 
 
 The rigor of this principle is such, that in a certain order of pro- 
 ductions there is no thoroughly felt work which is not naturally 
 well painted, and that any work where the hand shows itself with 
 success or brilliancy is from that very fact a work which comes 
 from the brain and manifests that fact. Rubens had on this sub- 
 ject opinions which I recommend to you, if you should ever be 
 tempted to scorn a brush stroke made in an appropriate manner. 
 
 There is not in this great picture, apparently so brutal and so free
 
 54 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 in handling, a single detail, small or great, which is not inspired by 
 sentiment, and instantaneously rendered by a happy touch. If the 
 hand did not move so rapidly, it would be behind the thought ; if 
 the improvisation were less sudden, the life communicated would be 
 less ; if the work were more hesitating or less comprehensible, the 
 picture would become impersonal in proportion to its acquired heavi- 
 ness and its loss of spirit. Consider, moreover, that this unequalled 
 dexterity, this careless skill in playing with ungrateful materials 
 and rebellious instruments, this noble movement of a well-handled 
 tool, this elegant fashion of moving it over free surfaces, the impulse 
 which escapes from it, the sparks that seem to fly from it, all this 
 magic of the great performers, which in others becomes mannerism, 
 or affectation, or purely a spirit of common alloy, in him (I repeat 
 it to satiety) is only the exquisite sensibility of an eye admirably 
 healthy, a hand marvellously submissive, and finally and especially, of 
 a soul truly open to all things, happy, confident, and great. I defy 
 you to find in the great repertory of his works one perfect work ; 
 but I also defy you not to feel even in the manias, the faults, I was 
 going to say the trivialities, of this noble mind, the marks of incon- 
 testable grandeur ; and this exterior mark, the last seal placed upon 
 his thought, is the imprint of the hand itself. 
 
 What I say to you in many phrases far too long, and too often in 
 the special jargon which it is hard to avoid, would doubtless have 
 found a more suitable place elsewhere. Do not imagine that the 
 picture I dwell upon is a finished specimen of the finest merits of 
 the painter. In no degree is it that. Rubens has frequently con-
 
 RUBENS AT MECHLIN. 55 
 
 ceived better, seen better, and painted far better ; but the execution 
 of Rubens, so unequal in results, scarcely varies in principle, and the 
 observations made with regard to a picture of medium merit, are 
 equally applicable, and with much better reason, to whatever he has 
 produced that is excellent
 
 V. 
 
 THE ELEVATION OF THE CROSS AND THE CRUCIFIXION. 
 
 MANY people say Antwerp, but many too say the Home of Ru- 
 bens ; and this way of speaking expresses still more exactly all the 
 things which make the magic of the place, a great city, a great 
 personal destiny, a famous school, and pictures ultra-celebrated. All 
 this is imposing, and the imagination becomes more than usually 
 active, when in the midst of the Place Verte is seen the statue of 
 Rubens, and beyond, the old Basilica, where are preserved the trip- 
 tychs which, humanly speaking, have consecrated it. The statue is 
 not a masterpiece, but it is he in his own home. Under the figure 
 of a man who was merely a painter, with the attributes only of a 
 painter, in very truth is personified the sole Flemish royalty which 
 has been neither contested nor menaced, and which certainly never 
 will be so. 
 
 At the end of the square Notre Dame is seen, in profile, drawn 
 at full length from one of its lateral fronts, the darkest, because 
 it is the weather side. Its surrounding of light low houses increases 
 its size and makes it darker. With its wrought architecture, its 
 rusty color, its blue and shining roof, its colossal tower, where shines
 
 THE ELEVATION OF THE CROSS AND THE CRUCIFIXION. $7 
 
 in the stone, smoky with the Scheldt fogs and the winters, the golden 
 disk and golden hands of the clock, it gains immeasurable propor- 
 tions. When, as to-day, the sky is lowering, the clouds add to the 
 grandeur of its lines all the freaks of their caprice. Imagine then 
 the invention of a Gothic Piranesi, exaggerated by the fancy of the 
 North, wildly lighted by a stormy day, and traced in irregular spots 
 upon the great background of a tempest-swept sky, all black or all 
 white. No preliminary scenic effect could be combined more original 
 and striking. 
 
 In spite of coming from Mechlin and Brussels, in spite of having 
 seen the Magi and the Calvary, and of having formed of Rubens an 
 exact and measured idea, in spite of having familiarly examined him 
 until you feel quite at your ease, you will not enter Notre Dame as 
 you would a museum. 
 
 It is the hour of three, the clock in the air has just struck ; 
 hardly a sacristan makes a sound in the quiet naves, clean and bright 
 as Peter Neefs has reproduced them, with an inimitable sentiment 
 of their solitude and their grandeur. It rains, and the light is 
 changing ; gleams and shadows succeed each other upon the two 
 triptychs, attached unostentatiously, in their narrow frames of 
 brown wood, to the cold smooth walls of the transepts ; yet these 
 superb paintings only appear more distinct amid the glaring lights 
 and the obscurities which struggle with them. German copyists 
 have established their easels before the Descent from the Cross, but 
 there is no one before the Elevation of the Cross. This simple fact 
 expresses sufficiently the world's opinion of these two works.
 
 58 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 They are much admired, almost without reserve, and the fact is 
 rare for Rubens ; but admiration is divided. Great renown has pre- 
 ferred the Descent from the Cross ; the Elevation of the Cross has 
 the gift of touching more deeply the passionate or more thoroughly 
 persuaded friends of Rubens. Nothing indeed can be more unlike 
 than these two works, conceived at an interval of two years, inspired 
 by the same effort of mind, and which yet bear so clearly the marks 
 of his two tendencies. The Descent from the Cross is of 1612, the 
 Elevation of the Cross of 1602. I insist upon the dates, for they are 
 important. Rubens had just returned to Antwerp, and it was, so to 
 speak, upon landing that he painted them. His education was com- 
 pleted. At that time he had made an excessive amount of studies, 
 rather too oppressive for him, of which he meant to make use openly, 
 once for all, but of which he was to get rid almost immediately. Each 
 one of the Italian masters whom he had consulted of course advised 
 him differently. The violent masters advised him to dare great 
 things.; the severe masters recommended him greatly to restrain him- 
 self. Nature, temper, native faculties, former lessons, recent lessons, 
 everything was prepared to divide him ; the task itself required him 
 to separate his fine gifts into two parts. He felt the occasion, seized 
 it, treated each subject according to its own spirit, and gave of him- 
 self two contrary and yet just ideas, one the most magnificent 
 example of his wisdom, the other the most astounding revelation ol 
 his dash and ardor. Add to the personal inspiration of the painter 
 a very marked Italian influence, and you will still better understand 
 the extraordinary value that posterity attaches to these pages, which
 
 THE ELEVATION OF THE CROSS AND THE CRUCIFIXION. 59 
 
 may be considered his masterworks, and which were the first public 
 act of his life as the head of a school. 
 
 I will tell you how this influence is manifested and by what 
 character it is recognized. It is enough at first to remark that it ex- 
 ists, that the physiognomy of Rubens's talent loses none of its features 
 at the very moment that we are examining it. It is not that he is 
 positively restrained by the canonical formulas in which others would 
 have been imprisoned. Heaven knows with what ease he moves in 
 them, with what liberty he uses them, with what tact he disguises 
 or avows them, according as it pleases him to permit us to see the 
 learned man or the innovator. However, whatever he does, we feel 
 the Romanist who has just passed years on classic ground, who 
 comes home but has not yet changed his atmosphere. 
 
 Something remains, which recalls his journey like a strange odor 
 in his garments. Certainly it is to this good Italian odor that the 
 Descent from the Cross owes the exceeding favor it enjoys. Those, 
 in fact, who would have Rubens a little as he is, but very much 
 also as they dream he should be, find here a youthful seriousness, 
 a flower of pure and studious maturity which soon disappears and 
 is unique. 
 
 The composition does not need describing. Not one can be cited 
 that is more popular as a work of art and as a page of religious 
 character. There is no one who does not bear in mind the ar- 
 rangement and effect of the picture, its great central light against a 
 dark background, its grand masses of color, its distinct and massive 
 divisions. It is known that Rubens got the first idea of it in Italy,
 
 60 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 and that he makes no effort to conceal that he borrowed it. The 
 scene is powerful and grave. It has an effect from a distance, is 
 strongly marked upon the wall; it is serious, and produces serious- 
 ness. When the murders are remembered with which the work of 
 Rubens is bloody, the massacres, the torturing executioners, using 
 pincers and exciting roars of anguish, it is evident that this is a 
 noble suffering. Everything is as restrained, concise, and laconic 
 as a page of Scripture. 
 
 Here are neither gesticulations, nor cries, nor horrors, nor excessive 
 tears ; scarcely one real sob bursts from the Virgin ; and thus the 
 intense mournfulness of the drama is expressed by a gesture of the 
 inconsolable mother, by a face bathed in tears, and reddened eyes. 
 The Christ is one of the most elegant figures that Rubens ever 
 imagined in order to paint a God. It has an inexpressible slender 
 grace, pliant and almost meagre, which gives it all the delicacy of 
 nature, and all the distinction of a fine academic study. Its mod- 
 eration is subtle, its taste perfect, the drawing very nearly equals 
 the sentiment. 
 
 You cannot have forgotten the effect of this long body, slightly 
 out of joint, with the little head, so thin and delicate, fallen on one 
 side, so livid and so perfectly limpid in its pallor, neither contracted 
 nor distorted ; whence all pain has passed away, and which falls 
 with such blessedness for a moment into the strange beauty of the 
 death of the righteous. Remember how heavy and how precious 
 it is to bear, in what an exhausted attitude it glides along the wind- 
 ing-sheet, with what affectionate anguish it is received by the ex-
 
 THE ELEVATION OF THE CROSS AND THE CRUCIFIXION. 6 1 
 
 tended arms and hands of women. Can anything be more touching ? 
 One of its feet, livid and scarred with the nails, touches at the foot 
 of the cross the naked shoulder of the Magdalen. It does not bear 
 upon, it lightly brushes it. The contact cannot be perceived ; it is 
 divined rather than seen. It would have been profane to empha- 
 size it ; it would have been cruel not to let it be believed. All the 
 furtive sensibility of Rubens is in this imperceptible contact, which 
 says so much respecting everything, and touches all with ten- 
 derness. 
 
 The Magdalen is admirable ; it is incontestably the best piece of 
 workmanship in the picture, the most delicate, the most personal, 
 one of the best also that Rubens ever executed in his career so 
 fertile in the invention of feminine beauty. This delicious figure 
 has its legend ; how could it fail to have one, its very perfection hav- 
 ing become legendary? It is probable that this fair girl with the 
 dark eyes, firm look, and clean-cut profile is a portrait, and that por- 
 trait one of Isabel Brandt, whom he had married two years before, 
 and who also served him, perhaps during a pregnancy, as a model for 
 the Virgin of the Visitation in the wing of the triptych. However, 
 in seeing this ampleness of person, the blond hair, and rounded pro- 
 portions, one thinks of what will be one day the splendid and indi- 
 vidual charm of the beautiful Helen Fourment whom he married 
 twenty years after. From the first to the last, a tenacious type 
 seemed to be lodged in the heart of Rubens, a fixed ideal haunted 
 his amorous and constant imagination. He pleases himself with it, 
 completes it, finishes it ; he pursues it after a fashion in his two
 
 62 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 marriages, as he does not cease to pursue it in his works. There is 
 always something of Isabel and Helen in the women that Rubens 
 painted from each of them. In the first he seems to put some pre- 
 conceived feature of the second ; in the second he introduces a sort 
 of ineffaceable memory of the first. At the date we speak of, he 
 possessed one and was inspired by her ; the other is not yet born, and 
 still he divines her. Already the future mingles with the present, 
 the real with the ideal divination ; when the image appears, it has its 
 double form. Not only is it exquisite, but not a feature is wanting 
 to it. Does it not seem as if, in perpetuating it thus from the first 
 day, Rubens meant that it should be forgotten neither by himself 
 nor by any one? 
 
 Moreover, it is the sole mundane grace with which he has em- 
 bellished this austere picture, slightly monastic, absolutely evangelical, 
 if by that is understood gravity of sentiment and manner, and the 
 rigor be considered with which such a mind must have restrained 
 itself. On this occasion, as you will guess, a large part of his reserve 
 came from his Italian education, as well as the respect he accorded 
 to his subject. 
 
 The canvas is dark in spite of its brilliancy and the extraordinary 
 whiteness of the winding-sheet. In spite of its relief, the painting is 
 fiat. It is a picture with blackish undertones, on which are placed 
 large firm lights, destitute of shades. The coloring is not very rich ; 
 it is full, sustained, calculated with precision to have an effect from a 
 distance. He constructs the picture, frames it, expresses the weak 
 points and the strong, and does not seek to embellish, it at all. It
 
 THE ELEVATION OF THE CROSS AND THE CRUCIFIXION. 63 
 
 is composed of a green almost black, of an absolute black, of a rather 
 dull red, and a white. These four tones are set side by side as 
 frankly as four notes of such violence can be. The contact is abrupt, 
 but they do not suffer from it. In the high light the corpse of Christ 
 is drawn with a delicate and supple line, and modelled by its own 
 reliefs, with no effort in the shading, thanks to imperceptible grada- 
 tions of values. There is nothing shining, not a single division in 
 the lights, hardly a detail in the dark parts. All this is of a singular 
 breadth and rigidity. The edges are narrow, the half-tints simple, 
 except in the Christ, where the undertints of ultramarine have ob- 
 truded, and now make some useless spots. The material is smooth, 
 compact, flowing easily and prudently. At the distance from which 
 we examine it, the handiwork disappears, but it is easy to divine 
 that it is excellent, and directed with perfect security by a mind 
 inured to good habits, who conforms to them, applies himself, and 
 is determined to do well. Rubens recollects himself, observes him- 
 self, restrains himself, and, taking possession of all his forces, sub- 
 ordinates them, and only half makes use of them. 
 
 In spite of this constraint, it is a work singularly original, attrac- 
 tive, and powerful. From it Vandyck will receive his best religious 
 inspiration. Philippe de Champagne will imitate it, I fear, only in 
 its weak portions, and will compose from it his French style. Vce- 
 nius must certainly have applauded. What did Van Noort think 
 of it? As to Jordaens, he waited, before following him in these 
 new ways, for his old companion of the studio to become more 
 decidedly Rubens.
 
 64 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 One of the wings, that of the Visitation, is delightful in every re- 
 spect. Nothing can be more severe and charming, richer and more 
 sober, more picturesque and nobly familiar. Never did Flanders 
 clothe itself in the Italian style with so much good feeling, grace, and 
 naturalness. Titian furnished the gamut and partly dictated its 
 tones, colored the architecture in chestnut brown, advised the fine 
 gray cloud which gleams above the cornices, perhaps also the green- 
 ish azure which is so effective between the columns ; but it was Ru- 
 bens who discovered the pregnant Virgin with her curved figure, her 
 costume ingeniously combined of red, dark blue, and fawn-color, and 
 her great Flemish hat. It is he who designed, painted, colored, ca- 
 ressed with eye and brush this pretty hand, so luminous and tender, 
 which rests like a rosy flower upon the black iron balustrade ; just as 
 he imagined the serving-woman, and intersected her with the frame, 
 showing of this blond girl with blue eyes only her open bodice, 
 her round head with hair turned back, and her lifted arms sus- 
 taining a basket of rushes. In short, is Rubens already himself? 
 Yes. Is he entirely himself, and nothing but himself? I think 
 not. Has he ever done better ? Not according to foreign methods, 
 but he certainly has, according to his own. 
 
 Between the central panel of the Descent from the Cross and the 
 Elevation of the Cross, which decorates the northern transept, every- 
 thing has changed, the point of view, tendency, bearing, even a 
 few of the methods, and the influences which the two works feel so 
 differently. A glance suffices to convince you of this. And if one 
 considers the period when these significant pages appeared, it can be
 
 THE ELEVATION OF THE CROSS AND THE CRUCIFIXION, 65 
 
 understood that if the one was more satisfying and more convincing, 
 the other must have been more astonishing, and consequently have 
 caused the perception of something much more novel. Less perfect, 
 because it is more stirring, and because it contains no figure so per- 
 fectly lovely to see as the Magdalen, the Elevation of the Cross 
 conveys much more of the originality of Rubens, more of his im- 
 petuosity, his audacity, his happy hits, in a word, more of the 
 fermentation of that mind full of fervor for novelties and projects. 
 It opens a wider career. It is possible that it is finished in a less 
 masterly manner, but it announces a master of a very different 
 originality, who is both daring and powerful. The drawing is stiffer, 
 less delicate, the forms more violent, the modelling less simple and 
 rougher; but the coloring already shows profound warmth, and that 
 resonance which will be Rubens's great resource when he neglects 
 vivacity of tone for the sake of radiance. Imagine the color more 
 flaming, the outlines less hard, the setting less rough ; remove this 
 grain of Italian stiffness, which is only a kind of knowledge of the 
 world, and a gravity of demeanor, contracted during the journey ; 
 look only at what is Rubens's own, the youth, the fire, the already 
 mature convictions, and little is wanting to have before your eyes 
 Rubens in his best days ; in fine, this is the first and last word of 
 his fiery and rapid manner. The slightest latitude would make of 
 this picture, relatively severe, one of the most turbulent that he ever 
 painted. Such as it is, with its sombre amber tints, its strong 
 shadows, the low muttering of its stormy harmonies, it is still one 
 of those in which his ardor bursts forth even more evidently because 
 
 5
 
 66 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND.. 
 
 it is sustained by the most manly effort maintained to the very 
 end by the determination not to fail. 
 
 It is a picture of impulse, conceived around a very audacious 
 arabesque, which, in its complication of forms displayed and con- 
 cealed, of bent bodies, of extended arms, of repeated curves, of rigid 
 lines, preserves throughout the work the instantaneous character 
 of a sketch struck off with sentiment in a few seconds. The first 
 conception, the arrangement, effect, gestures, faces, the caprice of 
 color, the handiwork, all seem to be the sudden result of an irre- 
 sistible, lucid, and prompt inspiration. Nrver will Rubens use 
 greater emphasis to express a page apparently so sudden. 
 
 To-day, as in 1610, there may be a difference of opinion about 
 this work, which is absolutely personal in spirit, if not in manner. 
 The question which must have been agitated during the life of the 
 painter is still pending ; it consists in deciding which would have 
 been best represented in his country and in history, Rubens be- 
 fore he was himself, or Rubens as he always was. 
 
 The Elevation of the Cross and the Descent from the Cross 
 are the two moments of that drama of Calvary whose prologue 
 we have seen in the triumphal picture at Brussels. At the dis- 
 tance apart that the two pictures are placed, the principal spots 
 of color can be perceived, their dominant tone seized, I might say 
 that their sound might be heard. This is sufficient for briefly 
 understanding their picturesque expression and divining their 
 meaning. 
 
 In the other we were present at the ending, and I have told
 
 THE ELEVATION OF THE CROSS AND THE CRUCIFIXION. 67 
 
 you with what solemn sobriety it is exhibited. All is over. It 
 is night, or at least the horizon is of leaden black. All are silent, 
 in tears ; receiving the august remains, they display most tender 
 care. Hardly are interchanged those words which the lips speak 
 after the death of those who were dear. The mother and the 
 friends are there, and above all, the most loving and the weakest 
 of women, she in whose fragility and grace and repentance are in- 
 carnated all the sins of the earth, pardoned, expiated, and now 
 atoned for. Living flesh is opposed to funereal pallor. There is 
 a charm even in the dead body. The Christ seems like a fair 
 flower cut down. He hears no longer those who blasphemed him. 
 He has ceased to hear those who weep for him. He belongs no 
 longer to man, nor to time, nor to anger, nor pity. He is beyond 
 all, even death. 
 
 Here there is nothing of that kind. Compassion, tenderness, 
 mother and friends, are far off. In the left wing the painter has 
 assembled all the friendliness of grief in a violent group, in lament- 
 ing or despairing attitudes. In the right wing there are only two 
 mounted guards, and on that side there is no mercy. In the 
 centre there are cries, blasphemies, insults, and the trampling of 
 feet. With brute efforts, butcher like executioners plant the cross, 
 and labor to raise it erect in the canvas. Arms clench, ropes 
 stretch, the cross wavers, and is only half-way up. Death is cer- 
 tain. A Man, nailed by his four members, suffers, agonizes, and 
 forgives with his whole being. Nothing that belongs to him is 
 free, a pitiless fatality has seized his body, the soul alone escapes
 
 68 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND, 
 
 from it. This is thoroughly felt in this upward glance which turns 
 from earth, and, seeking its certainty elsewhere, goes straight to 
 heaven. All that human ferocity can express of its thirst for 
 slaughter, and its promptness in doing its work, the painter ex- 
 presses like a man who understands the effect of anger, and knows 
 the workings of savage passions. And all the gentleness of human 
 nature, the bliss in dying of a martyr who gives himself to the 
 sacrifice, look attentively and see how he translates it ! 
 
 The Christ is in light ; he gathers into a narrow sheaf almost 
 all the lights disseminated in the picture. Plastically he is less 
 excellent than the one in the Descent from the Cross. A Roman 
 painter would certainly have corrected the style of the figure. A 
 Gothic artist would have desired more salient bones, fibres more 
 strained, ligaments more precise, the whole structure more meagre, 
 or perhaps only more delicate. Rubens had, you know, a prefer- 
 ence for the full health of form, which belonged to his manner 
 of feeling, and still more to his manner of painting, and without 
 which it would have been necessary for him to change the greater 
 part of his formulas. With that exception the picture is beyond 
 price. No man but Rubens could have imagined it as it is, in 
 the place it occupies, in the highly picturesque acceptation he has 
 given it. And as to that fine head, inspired and suffering, manly 
 and tender, with the hair clinging to the temples, its sweat, its glow, 
 its agony, its eyes reflecting celestial beams, and its ecstasy, 
 who is the sincere master, even in the palmy days of Italy, who 
 would not have been struck by what force of expression can do
 
 THE ELEVATION OF THE CROSS AND THE CRUCIFIXION. 69 
 
 when it reaches this degree, and who would not in it have recog- 
 nized a dramatic ideal of art absolutely novel ? 
 
 Pure sentiment came, on one day of fever and clear insight, to 
 lead Rubens as far as he could go. Afterwards he will become 
 more free, he will develop still more. There will be, thanks to his 
 flowing and absolutely unfettered manner, more consecutiveness and 
 notably more method in all parts of his work, in the exterior and 
 interior drawing, the color, and the workmanship. He will mark 
 less imperiously the outlines which should disappear ; he will arrest 
 less suddenly the shadows which ought to melt away ; he will ac- 
 quire a suppleness which does not exist here ; he will gain more 
 agile modes of speech, a language of a more pathetic and personal 
 turn. But will he find anything clearer and more energetic than 
 the inspired diagonal which cuts this composition in two ; first 
 makes it hesitate in its perpendicular, then straightens it, and di- 
 rects it to the top, with the active and resolute flight of a lofty 
 idea ? Will he find anything better than these sombre rocks, this 
 faded sky, this great white figure in full brilliancy against the 
 shadows, motionless and yet moving, that a mechanical impulse 
 pushes diagonally across the canvas, with its pierced hands, its 
 oblique arms, and that grand gesture of clemency which makes them 
 balance widely opened over the blind, and black, and wicked world ? 
 
 If one could doubt the power of a successful line, of the dra- 
 matic value of an arabesque, and an effect, finally, if examples 
 were wanting to prove the moral beauty of a picturesque concep- 
 tion, one would be convinced of it after this.
 
 70 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 It was by this original and masculine picture, that this young 
 man, having been absent ever since the first year of the century, 
 signalized his return from Italy. What he had acquired in his 
 journeys, the nature and the choice of his studies, above all, the 
 human fashion which he intended to use, were known ; and no one 
 doubted his destiny, neither those whom this picture astonished 
 like a revelation, nor those whom it shocked like a scandal ; those 
 whose doctrines it overturned and who attacked it, nor those 
 whom it converted and carried away. The name of Rubens was 
 sacred at that day. Even to-day very little is wanting for that first 
 work to appear as accomplished as it seemed, and was, decisive. 
 There is here, too, an inexpressible individuality, like a great breath, 
 that is rarely found elsewhere in Rubens. An enthusiast would 
 write sublime, and he would not be wrong if he could determine 
 precisely the signification proper to attach to that term. At Brus- 
 sels and Mechlin have I not said everything concerning the so 
 diverse gifts of this composer of vast compass, whose fire is a sort 
 of exalted good sense? I have spoken of his ideal, so different 
 from that of others, of the dazzling nature of his palette, of the 
 radiance of his ideas full of illumination, of his persuasive force, 
 of his oratorical clearness, of his leaning towards apotheoses which 
 elevate him, of that heated brain which expands at the risk of in- 
 flating him. All this leads us to a still more complete definition, 
 to a word that I am going to say, which says everything, Rubens 
 is a* lyric, and the most lyrical of all painters. His imaginative 
 promptness, the intensity of his style, his sonorous and progressive
 
 THE ELEVATION OF THE CROSS AND THE CRUCIFIXION. 71 
 
 rhythm, the range of this rhythm, its passage, which might be called 
 vertical, call all this lyric art, and you will not be far from the 
 truth. 
 
 There is in literature a form, the most heroic of all, that it has 
 been agreed to call the ode. It is, as you know, the most agile and 
 the most sparkling of the varied forms of metrical language. There 
 never can be too great breadth, nor too much enthusiasm in the 
 ascending movement of the strophes, nor too great light at their 
 summit. Now I might cite for you a picture by Rubens, conceived, 
 conducted, scanned, illuminated like the proudest verses written in 
 Pindaric form. The Elevation of the Cross would furnish me the 
 best example, an example so much the more striking in that every- 
 thing here is in harmony, and the subject was worthy of being thus 
 expressed. And I shall not merit the reproach of subtlety if I tell 
 you that this page of pure expansion is written from one end to 
 the other in the form rhetorically called sublime, from the leap- 
 ing lines that cross it, the idea which becomes more luminous as 
 it reaches its culmination, to the inimitable head of Christ which 
 is the dominant and expressive note of the poem, the sparkling 
 note, in the idea it contains, that is, the final strophe.
 
 VI. 
 
 RUBENS AT THE ANTWERP MUSEUM. 
 
 HARDLY does one set foot in the first hall of the Antwerp Mu- 
 seum before Rubens is encountered. On the right is an Adora- 
 tion of the Magi, a vast canvas in his rapid and learned manner, 
 painted in thirteen days it is said, about 1624, that is, in his 
 palmiest years of middle life ; on the left is an enormous picture, 
 also celebrated, a Passion, called the Lance Thrust. 
 
 Casting a glance along the opposite gallery to the right and left, 
 is seen from far this unique touch, powerful and suave, unctuous 
 and warm, Rubens and Rubens again. We begin, catalogue in 
 hand. Do we always admire ? Not always. Do we remain cold ? 
 Almost never. 
 
 I copy my notes : " The Magi, fourth version since the one at 
 Paris, this time with notable changes. The picture is less scrupu- 
 lously studied than that of Brussels, less finished than that at Mech- 
 lin, but of a greater boldness, of a breadth, a fulness, a certainty, 
 and a self-poise that the painter has rarely exceeded in his calm 
 works. It is truly a tour de force, especially if the rapidity of this 
 improvised work be considered Not one gap, nor one violence ;
 
 RUBENS AT THE ANTWERP MUSEUM. 73 
 
 a vast luminous half-tint with lights not too brilliant envelops all 
 the figures, which lean upon each other, all in visible colors, and 
 multiply values of the rarest, the subtlest, the least studied, and at 
 the same time the most distinct character. 
 
 "Beside very ugly types cluster finished types. The African king, 
 with his square face, his thick lips, his reddish skin, his great eyes 
 strangely illumined, and his huge body wrapped in a pelisse with 
 sleeves of peacock blue, is a figure entirely unprecedented, before 
 which certainly Tintoretto, Titian, and Veronese would have clapped 
 their hands in applause. On the left two colossal cavaliers pose with 
 solemnity, in a very strange Anglo-Flemish style, the rarest bit 
 of color in the picture with its dull harmony of black, greenish 
 blue, brown, and white. Add to these the profile of the Nubian 
 camel-drivers, the troops, the men in helmets, the negroes ; all in 
 the largest, the most transparent, the most natural reflected lights. 
 Spiders' webs float among the beams, and at the very bottom, the 
 ox's head rubbed on with a few strokes of the brush in bitumen 
 has no more importance, and is executed no otherwise than would 
 be a hasty signature. The child is delicious, and can be instanced 
 as one of the most beautiful of the purely picturesque compositions 
 of Rubens, the highest expression of his knowledge of color and of 
 his dexterity of handling, when his vision was clear and instanta- 
 neous, his hand rapid and careful, and he was in no difficult humor ; 
 it is the triumph of spirit and knowledge, and, in a word, of self- 
 confidence." 
 
 The Lance Thrust is a disconnected picture with great blank
 
 74 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 spaces, sharpnesses, vast and rather arbitrary masses of color, fine 
 in themselves, but of doubtful relation. Two great reds, too un- 
 broken and badly supported, are astonishing in it because they are 
 out of tone. The Virgin is very beautiful, although her gesture is 
 conventional ; the Christ is insignificant ; the St. John very ugly, or 
 very much altered, or else repainted. As often happens in Rubens, 
 and other painters of the picturesque and ardent, the best parts are 
 those where the imagination of the artist has been accidentally im- 
 pressed, such as the expressive head of the Virgin, the two thieves 
 writhing upon their crosses, and perhaps particularly the helmeted 
 soldier in black armor, who is descending the ladder which leans 
 against the gibbet of the impenitent thief, and turns around, raising 
 his head. 
 
 The harmony of the bay and gray horses relieved against the sky 
 is magnificent. As a whole, although there are parts of high merit, 
 characteristic of the first order, and at each instant the mark of a 
 master, the Lance Thrust seems to me to be an incoherent work, 
 conceived in fragments, as it were, of which portions taken sepa- 
 rately would give an idea of the painter's most beautiful pages. 
 
 The Trinity, with its famous foreshortened Christ, is a picture of 
 Rubens's early youth, anterior to his Italian journey. It is a fair 
 beginning, cold, thin, smooth, and colorless, which already contains 
 the germ of his style as to the human figure, its type as to coun- 
 tenances, and his suppleness of hand. All the other merits are to 
 come, so that, though the engraved picture already greatly resembles 
 Rubens, the painting gives no idea of what Rubens will be ten 
 years later.
 
 RUBENS AT THE ANTWERP MUSEUM. 75 
 
 His Christ in the Manger very celebrated, too celebrated is 
 not much stronger nor richer, and does not appear perceptibly more 
 mature, although it belongs to much later years. It is equally 
 smooth, cold, and thin. The abuse of his facility is here felt, the 
 use of a cursive method not at all rare, of which the formula might 
 be thus dictated : a vast grayish undertone, flesh tones clear and 
 lustrous, much ultramarine in the half-tint, an excess of vermilion 
 in the reflections, a painting lightly made at once upon a drawing 
 of slight consistency. The whole is liquid, flowing, slippery, and 
 careless. When in this cursive style Rubens is not very fine, he 
 is no longer fine at all. 
 
 As to the Incredulity of St. Thomas (No. 307), I find in my notes 
 this short and disrespectful observation, " This a Rubens ? What 
 a mistake ! " 
 
 The Education of the Virgin is the most charming decorative 
 fancy ever seen ; it is a little panel for an oratory or a room, painted 
 for the eyes more than the mind, but in its sweetness, of an incom- 
 parable grace, tenderness, and richness. A fine red, a fine black, 
 and on an azure field, shaded with changing tones of mother-of-pearl 
 and silver, like two flowers, are two rosy angels. Take away the 
 figure of St. Anne and that of St. Joachim, preserve only the Virgin 
 with the two winged figures, which might as well be descending 
 from Olympus as Paradise, and you have one of the most delicious 
 portraits of a woman that Rubens ever conceived and recorded in 
 an allegorical portrait to make an altarpiece. 
 
 The Virgin of the Parrot savors of Italy and recalls Venice,
 
 76 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 both by the scale, the power, the choice, and the intrinsic nature 
 of its colors. The quality of the background, the very arabesque 
 of the picture, the form of the canvas, the square shape, reminds 
 us of a Palma lacking somewhat in severity. It is a fine, almost 
 impersonal picture. I do not know why I think that Vandyck 
 must have been tempted to draw inspiration from it. 
 
 I pass by the St. Catherine, and a great Christ on the Cross, a 
 repetition in little of the Descent from the Cross, at Notre Dame. 
 I will neglect even better things than these, to reach, with an 
 emotion that I will not conceal, a picture which has, I believe, only 
 a semi-celebrity, but is none the less a marvellous masterpiece, and 
 possibly the one of all the works of Rubens which does most honor 
 to his genius. I speak of the Communion of St. Francis of Assisi. 
 
 The scene represents a dying man, a priest offering him the Host, 
 and monks who surround him, aiding, sustaining, and mourning over 
 him. The saint is naked, the priest in a golden chasuble, faintly 
 tinted with carmine, the two acolytes of the priest in white stoles, 
 the monks in robes of cloth, dark brown or gray. Surrounding 
 them is a strait and sombre architecture, a reddish dais, a bit of 
 blue sky ; and in that azure gap, just above the saint, three rosy 
 angels, flying like heavenly birds, form a soft and radiant crown. 
 The aspect is composed of the most simple elements, the gravest 
 colors, a most severe harmony. To sum up the picture in a rapid 
 glance, you perceive but a vast bituminous canvas of austere style, 
 where everything is in low tone, and where three accidents alone are 
 perfectly evident from afar : the saint in his livid meagreness ; the Host
 
 RUBENS AT THE ANTWERP MUSEUM. 77 
 
 towards which he leans ; and above, at the summit of that triangle so 
 tenderly expressive, a vista of rose and silver into a happy eternity, 
 a smile of the half-opened heaven of which we assuredly have need. 
 
 Here is no pomp, no ornament, no turbulence, nor violent ges- 
 tures, nor grace, nor fine clothing, not one lovely or useless incident, 
 nothing which does not appertain to a cloistral life at its most 
 solemn moment. A dying man, worn with age and a life of sanc- 
 tity, has left his bed of ashes to be borne to the altar ; he longs to 
 die there while he receives the sacred elements, but fears to fail 
 before the Host has touched his lips. He makes an effort to kneel, 
 but cannot. All his movements are over, the chill of the last mo- 
 ments has seized his limbs, his arms make that inward gesture which 
 is the certain sign of approaching death ; he is distorted, out of his 
 axis, and would break at all his joints were he not supported by 
 the armpits. The only thing living about him is his small and 
 humid eye, clear, blue, fevered, glassy, with red lids, dilated by the 
 ecstasy of the last vision, and upon his lips, livid with his agony, 
 the wonderful smile of the dying, and the yet more wonderful smile 
 of the righteous believer, who, filled with hope, awaits his end, 
 hastens to meet his salvation, and looks upon the Host as upon 
 his present Lord. 
 
 Around the dying man there is weeping, and those who weep 
 are grave men, robust, tried, and resigned. Never was grief more 
 sincere or more sympathetic than this virile tenderness of men of 
 warm blood and great faith. Some restrain themselves, others give 
 way to grief. Some are young, stout, ruddy, and healthy, who strike
 
 78 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND 
 
 their breasts with their clenched fists, and whose grief would be 
 noisy if it could be heard. There is one grizzled and bald monk, 
 with a Spanish head, hollow cheeks, thin beard, and pointed mus- 
 tache, who is sobbing gently within himself, with that tension of 
 feature of a man who restrains himself until his teeth chatter. All 
 these magnificent heads are portraits. The type is admirable in 
 its truthfulness ; the design simple, learned, and powerful ; the color- 
 ing incomparably rich in its shaded, delicate, and beautiful sobriety. 
 Here are clustered heads, joined hands clasped fervently and con- 
 vulsively, bared foreheads, intense glances, some reddened by emo- 
 tion, and others, on the contrary, pale and cold as old ivory ; the two 
 acolytes, one of whom holds the censer, and wipes his eyes with 
 the back of his sleeve ; all this group of men, differently moved, 
 sobbing, or masters of themselves, forms a circle around the unique 
 head of the saint, and the little white crescent held like a lunar disk 
 in the pale hand of the priest. It is all inexpressibly fine. 
 
 Such is the moral value of this exceptional page of Rubens at 
 Antwerp, and who knows ? perhaps of all the work of Rubens, 
 that I should almost fear to profane it in speaking of its exterior 
 merits, which are not less eminent. I will only say that this great 
 man has never been more master of his thought, his sentiment, and 
 his hand ; his conception has never been more serene or of wider 
 range ; his notion of the human soul has never seemed more pro- 
 found ; he has never been more noble or more healthful, richer in 
 color without extravagance, more scrupulous in the drawing of the 
 parts, or more irreproachable, that is to say, more surprising in his
 
 RUBENS AT THE ANTWERP MUSEUM. 79 
 
 execution. This marvel is dated 1619. What noble years ! The 
 time in which he painted it is not given, perhaps a few days only. 
 What days ! When this unequalled work, in which Rubens is 
 transfigured, has been long examined, it is impossible to look at 
 anything or anybody, neither others, nor Rubens himself, we 
 must for to-day leave the museum.
 
 VII. 
 
 
 
 RUBENS AS A PORTRAIT PAINTER. 
 
 Is Rubens a great portrait painter, or merely a good one ? Had 
 this great painter of physical and moral life, so skilful in rendering 
 the movement of the body by a gesture, and that of souls by the 
 play of feature ; this observer, so prompt, so exact ; this mind, so clear 
 that the ideal of human form never for a single instant distracted him 
 from his study of the exterior of things ; this painter of the pictur- 
 esque, of accidents, of individualities, of personal traits ; finally, this 
 master, the most universal of all, had he really all the aptitudes 
 we suppose, and particularly the special faculty of representing the 
 human being in its intimate resemblance ? 
 
 Are the portraits of Rubens likenesses ? I do not think it has 
 ever been said whether they were or not. People have confined 
 themselves to recognizing the universality of his gifts, and because, 
 more than any other, he has employed the portrait as a natural ele- 
 ment of his pictures, they take for granted that a man who excelled in 
 painting the human being under all circumstances, acting and think- 
 ing, ought from the strongest reasons to paint him well in a portrait. 
 The question is of some moment, for it touches one of the most
 
 RUBENS AS A PORTRAIT PAINTER. 8 1 
 
 singular phenomena of this multiplex nature, and consequently offers 
 an opportunity for studying nearer the real organism of his genius. 
 
 If one adds to all the portraits he has painted solely to satisfy the 
 desire of his contemporaries kings, princes, great lords, doctors, 
 abbe's, and priors the incalculable number of living beings whose 
 features he has reproduced in his pictures, it might well be said that 
 Rubens passed his life in painting portraits. Without dispute his 
 best works are those where he yields the greatest part to real life ; for 
 instance, his admirable picture of St. George, which is nothing but 
 a family ex voto t the most curious document a painter ever left con- 
 cerning his domestic affections. I do not speak of his own portrait, 
 of which he was lavish, nor those of his two wives, of which he made, 
 as is known, such continual and indiscreet use. 
 
 It was Rubens's habit to use nature for every purpose, to take 
 individuals from real life and introduce them into fiction, because it 
 was one of his needs, a weakness, as well as a power of his mind. 
 Nature was his great and inexhaustible repertory. What were the 
 truths he sought to tell ? Subjects ? No. His subjects he bor- 
 rowed from history, from legend, from the gospel, from fables, and 
 always more or less from his fancy. Attitudes, gestures, expressions 
 of countenance ? Not at all. The expressions and gestures issued 
 naturally from himself, and were derived by the logic of a well- 
 conceived subject, from the necessities of the action, almost always 
 dramatic, which he had to render. What he asked from nature 
 was what his imagination furnished him but imperfectly, when it was 
 necessary to wholly constitute a living person from head to foot, 
 
 6
 
 82 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 living as he desired him to live, I mean, in the most personal features, 
 the most praise characteristics both as an individual and a type. 
 His types^e 7 accepted rather than chose. He took them as they 
 existed around him in the society of his time, from all ranks, from 
 all classes, if necessary from all races, princes, soldiers, church- 
 men, monks, tradesmen, blacksmiths, boatmen, especially hard- 
 working men. 
 
 He had in his own town, on the quays of the Scheldt, enough to 
 furnish all the necessities of his great evangelical pages. He had a 
 lively feeling for the relation of these people, continually offered by 
 life itself, to the conventionalities of his subject. When the adap- 
 tation is not very rigorous, which often happens, and good sense and 
 good taste also are a little shocked, it is then that his love of individ- 
 ualities gets the better of the conventionalities of taste and good 
 sense. He never denied himself an eccentricity, which in his hands 
 became an evidence of mind, sometimes a happy audacity. It was 
 by his very inconsistencies that he triumphed over subjects most 
 uncongenial to his nature. He put into them the sincerity, the good- 
 humor, the extraordinary unrestraint of his free bursts ; the work 
 was nearly always saved by an admirable bit of almost textual im- 
 itation. 
 
 In this respect he invented but little, he the great inventor. He 
 looked, informed himself, copied or translated from memory with a 
 security of memory which was equal to direct reproduction. The 
 spectacle of the life of courts, of the life of churches, of monasteries, 
 streets, or of the river, imprinted itself upon this sensitive brain with
 
 RUBENS AS A PORTRAIT PAINTER. 83 
 
 its most recognizable features, its sharpest accent, its most salient col- 
 ors, so that beyond this reflected image of things he imagined hardly 
 anything but the frame and the dramatic grouping. His works are 
 (so to speak) a theatre, whose arrangements he regulates, whose 
 decorations he prepares, while he creates the roles and furnishes life 
 to the actors. Original as he is, affirmative, resolute, and powerful, 
 when he executes a portrait, whether from nature or from the im- 
 mediate memory of the model, the gallery of his imaginary person- 
 ages is poorly inspired. 
 
 Every man, every woman, who has not lived before him, and to 
 whom he has not succeeded in giving the essential features of human 
 life, are figures that are failures from the beginning. This is why 
 his evangelical personages are more human than they should be, his 
 heroic figures below their fabulous r61e, while his mythological per- 
 sonages exist neither in reality nor in a dream ; there is a perpetual 
 contradiction in the action of the muscles, the lustre of the flesh, 
 and the total vacancy of the faces. It is clear that humanity en- 
 chants him, Christian dogmas trouble him a little, and Olympus 
 bores him to death. Look at his great allegorical series in the 
 Louvre. It does not take long to discover his indecisions when he 
 creates a type, his infallible certitude when he is informed, and to 
 understand what is strong and what is weak in his mind. There are 
 commonplace parts, there are others absolutely negative which are 
 fictions ; the superior parts that you notice are portraits. Whenever 
 Marie de Medici enters the scene she is perfect. The Henri IV. 
 with the Portrait is a masterpiece. No one contests the absolute
 
 84 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 insignificance of his gods, Mercury, Apollo, Saturn, Jupiter, or 
 Mars. 
 
 In the same way, in the Adoration of the Magi, there are principal 
 personages who are always of no account, and supernumeraries who 
 are always admirable. The European king does it harm. He is well 
 known ; he is the man in the foreground who figures with the Virgin, 
 either standing or kneeling in the centre of the composition. Rubens 
 may dress him in vain in purple, in ermine or gold, make him hold 
 the censer, offer a cup or a ewer, make him young or make him old, 
 make bald his sacerdotal head or cause it to bristle with dry hairs, 
 give him an air collected or wild, gentle eyes or the glare of an old 
 lion, whatever he does, he is always a commonplace figure, whose 
 only r61e consists in wearing one of the dominant colors of the pic- 
 ture. It is the same with the Asiatic. On the contrary, the Ethi- 
 opian the grizzled negro with his bony flat-nosed face, livid, and 
 lighted by two shining sparks, the white of his eyes and the pearls 
 of his teeth is invariably a masterpiece of observation and of 
 nature, because it is a portrait, and a portrait with no alteration 
 whatever from an individual. 
 
 What would be the conclusion but that by instinct, necessity, his 
 dominant faculties, his very infirmities (for he had them), Rubens 
 more than any other was destined to make marvellous portraits ? It 
 is not so at all. His portraits are feeble, poorly studied, superficially 
 constructed, and of but vague resemblance. When he is compared 
 to Titian, Rembrandt, Raphael, Sebastien del Piombo, Velasquez, 
 Vandyck, Holbein, Antonio Moro, I might exhaust the list of the
 
 RUBENS AS A PORTRAIT PAINTER. 85 
 
 most diverse and great, and descend many degrees to Philippe de 
 Champagne in the seventeenth century, and to the excellent portrait 
 painters of the eighteenth, it is perceived that Rubens was want- 
 ing in that attentive simplicity, at once submissive and powerful, 
 that the study of the human face requires, to be perfect. 
 
 Do you know one portrait of his which satisfies you as the result 
 of faithful and profound observation, which edifies you with the per- 
 sonality of its model, which instructs, and I may say reassures you ? 
 Of all the men of age and rank, of such diverse character and tem- 
 perament, whose portraits he has left us, is there a single one who 
 impresses himself upon the mind as a particular and very distinct 
 person, and whom one remembers as one does a striking countenance ? 
 At a distance they are forgotten ; seen together, they might almost 
 be confounded. The individualities of their existence have not 
 clearly separated them in the mind of the painter, and separate 
 them still less in the memory of those who only know them from 
 him. Are they like ? Yes, almost. Are they living ? They live 
 rather than are living. I will not say that they are commonplace, 
 but they are not precise. I will not say either that the painter 
 has failed to see them properly, but I think he has looked at 
 them lightly, only skin deep, perhaps through the medium of habit, 
 doubtless according to a formula, and that he has treated them, 
 whatever their sex or their age, as women love, it is said, to be 
 painted, as handsome first, and after that with a likeness. They 
 are good for their time, and not bad for their rank, although Van- 
 dyck, to take an example beside the master, puts them still more de-
 
 86 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 cidedly at their date and in their social surrounding ; but they have 
 the same blood, they have especially the same moral character, and all 
 the exterior features modelled on a uniform type. They have the 
 same clear eye, wide open, with a direct glance, the same com- 
 plexion, the same mustache, delicately curled up, lifting by two 
 black or blond slits the corner of a manly mouth, that is to say, 
 one that is a little conventional. There is red enough in the lips, 
 carnation enough in the cheeks, roundness enough in the oval, to 
 proclaim, with the want of youth, a man in his normal condition, 
 whose constitution is robust, whose body is healthful, and whose 
 soul is at rest. 
 
 It is the same for the women, a clear complexion, a round fore- 
 head, large temples, small chins, eyes prominent, the same coloring, 
 almost the identical expression, the style of beauty peculiar to the 
 time, a breadth befitting the races of the North, with a sort of grace 
 peculiar to Rubens, which is felt as the mingling of several types, 
 Marie de Medici, the Infanta Isabella, Isabel Brandt, Helen Four- 
 ment. All the women that he has painted seem to have contracted, 
 in spite of themselves and in spite of him, an inexplicable familiar 
 air, resulting from the contact of his persistent memories ; and all 
 of them partake more or less of one or another of these four cele- 
 brated personages, less surely immortalized by history than by his 
 brush. They themselves have together a sort of family air which 
 is largely owing to Rubens. 
 
 Can you picture to yourself the women of the courts of Louis 
 XIII. and Louis XIV. ? Have you a very clear idea of Mesdames
 
 RUBENS AS A PORTRAIT PAINTER. 87 
 
 de Longueville, de Montbazon, de Chevreuse, de Sable, of that 
 beautiful Duchesse de Guemene, to whom Rubens, interrogated by 
 the Queen, dared to give the prize of beauty as the most charming 
 goddess of the Luxembourg Olympus ; of that incomparable Made- 
 moiselle du Vigean, the idol of society at Chantilly, who inspired 
 so great a passion, and such a quantity of little verses ? Can you 
 see any more distinctly Mademoiselle de la Valliere, or Mesdames 
 de Montespan, de Fontanges, de Sevign6, and de Grignan ? And if 
 you cannot perceive them as you would wish, whose fault is it? 
 
 Is it the fault of that epoch of display, of politeness, of artificial 
 manners, both pompous and forced? Is it the fault of the women 
 themselves, who all sought a certain court ideal ? Have they been 
 ill-observed, unscrupulously painted ? Or was it agreed that among 
 so many kinds of grace or beauty, there was but one that was in 
 good style and good taste and according to etiquette ? One 
 hardly knows just what nose, what mouth, what oval, what com- 
 plexion, what glance, what degree of seriousness or freedom, of 
 delicacy or plumpness, or indeed what soul, should be given to each 
 of these celebrated people, become so alike in their imposing roles 
 of favorites, Frondeuses, princesses, and great ladies. We know 
 what they thought of themselves, and how they painted themselves 
 or how they were painted, according as they made their own 
 literary portraits or allowed them to be made by others. From 
 the sister of Cond to Madame d'Epinay, that is, through the whole 
 seventeenth century and the larger half of the eighteenth, we have 
 only fine complexions, pretty mouths, superb teeth and shoulders,
 
 88 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 and admirable arms and throats. They undressed themselves a 
 good deal, or let themselves be undressed, without displaying any- 
 thing but rather cold perfections modelled on an absolutely hand- 
 some type according to the fashion and ideal of the time. Neither 
 Mademoiselle de Scudery, nor Voiture, nor Chapelain, nor Des- 
 marets, nor any of the witty writers who occupied themselves with 
 their charms, have had the idea of leaving us a portrait of them 
 perhaps- less flattered but more faithful. It is with difficulty that 
 one perceives, here and there in the gallery of the H6tel de Ram- 
 bouillet, a complexion less divine, lips less purely outlined or of a 
 less perfect carnation. 
 
 The most truthful and the greatest portrait painter of his time, 
 St. Simon, was necessary to teach us that a woman might be charm- 
 ing without being perfect, and that the Duchesse de Maine and the 
 Duchess of Burgundy, for instance, had many attractions of physi- 
 ognomy, quite natural grace and fire, the one with her limp, and 
 the other with her dark complexion, her thin figure, her turbulent 
 expression and imperfect teeth. Up to that time the hand of the 
 image-maker was directed by the neither too much nor too little 
 principle. An inexpressible impressiveness, a solemnity, some- 
 thing like the three scenic unities, the perfection of a fine phrase, 
 had clothed them all with the same impersonal, almost royal as- 
 pect, which for us moderns is the opposite of charming. Times 
 changed ; the eighteenth century destroyed many formulas, and 
 consequently treated the human countenance with no more respect 
 than the other unities. But our age has restored, with other tastes
 
 RUBENS AS A PORTRAIT PAINTER. 89 
 
 and other fashions, the same tradition of portraits without type, 
 and the same ostentation, less solemn, but yet more objectionable. 
 Recall the portraits of the Directory, of the Empire and the Resto- 
 ration, those of Girodet and of Gerard. I except the portraits of 
 David, but not all, and a few of those of Prudhon. Form a gallery 
 of the great actresses and great ladies, Mars, Duchesnois, Georges, 
 the Empress Josephine, Madame Tallien, also that unique head of 
 Madame de Stael, and even that pretty Madame Recamier, and 
 tell me whether it lives, is as characteristic and diversified as a 
 series of portraits by Latour, Houdon, and Caffieri. 
 
 Well ! all the proportions being maintained, this is what I find 
 in Rubens's portraits, great uncertainty and conventionality, the 
 same chivalrous air in the men and the same princess-like beauty 
 in the women, but nothing individual, which arrests the attention, 
 impresses, causes reflection, and is not forgotten. Not one plainness 
 of feature, not one meagreness of contour, not one inharmonious 
 eccentricity of any feature. 
 
 Have you ever perceived in his world of thinkers, of politicians, 
 of men of war, any characteristic accident wholly personal, like 
 Condi's falcon head, the wild eyes and nocturnal mien of Descartes, 
 the fine and adorable countenance of Rotrou, the angular and pen- 
 sive face of Pascal, and the never to be forgotten glance of Richelieu ? 
 How is it that these human types swarmed before the great obser- 
 vers, and not one really original type sat to Rubens ? Must I finish 
 explaining myself at one blow by the most rigorous of examples ? 
 Imagine Holbein with the personages of Rubens, and you see at
 
 90 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND, 
 
 once appear a new human gallery, very interesting for the moralist, 
 equally admirable for the history of life and the history of art, 
 which Rubens, we must agree, would not have enriched by one single 
 type. 
 
 The Brussels Museum possesses four portraits by Rubens, and it 
 is precisely in remembering them that these reflections come to me 
 afterwards. These four portraits represent justly enough the power- 
 ful and the mediocre side of his talent as a portrait painter. Two 
 of them are very fine, the Archduke Albert and the Infanta Isabella. 
 They were both ordered to adorn the Arch of Triumph erected in 
 the Place de Merr, on the occasion of the entry of Ferdinand of 
 Austria, and it is said that each was executed in a day. They are 
 larger than life, conceived, designed, and treated in the Italian man- 
 ner, ample and decorative, a little theatrical, but very ingeniously ap- 
 propriate to th'eir destination. There is in them so much Veronese 
 melted into the Flemish manner that Rubens never had more style, 
 and yet was never more completely himself. There is here seen 
 a way of filling a canvas, of composing a grand arabesque with a 
 bust, two arms and two hands diversely occupied, of increasing a 
 border, and rendering a doublet majestically severe, of giving bold- 
 ness to the contour, of painting thickly and flatly, which is not 
 habitual in his portraits, and which recalls, on the other hand, the 
 best parts of his pictures. The likeness is of the kind which im- 
 presses from afar by a few just and brief accents that might be 
 called a resemblance of effect The work is of extraordinary rapidity, 
 assurance, and seriousness, and, for the style, of remarkable beauty.
 
 RUBENS AS A PORTRAIT PAINTER. 91 
 
 It is quite superb. Rubens is there with his habits, on his own 
 ground, in his element of fancy, and of very lucid, but hasty and em- 
 phatic observation. He would not have proceeded otherwise for a 
 picture : success was certain. 
 
 The two others, bought recently, are very celebrated, and a great 
 price is attached to them. Dare I say that they are among his 
 weakest works ? They are two portraits of familiar order, two little 
 busts, rather short and rather scanty, presented in full face, with no 
 arrangement, cut in the canvas with no more preparation than if 
 they were studies of heads. 
 
 With much brilliancy, relief, and apparent life, of extremely skilful 
 but succinct rendering, they have precisely this fault of being seen 
 from near and seen lightly, made with application and little studied, 
 in a word, they are treated by surfaces. The putting together 
 is correct, the drawing insignificant. The painter has given accents 
 which resemble life ; the observer has not marked a single trait which 
 intimately resembles his model. Everything is on the epidermis. 
 From the physical point of view we look for something beneath, which 
 has not been observed ; from the moral point we seek an inwardness 
 that has not been divined. The painting is flat upon the canvas, 
 the life is but skin deep. The man is young, about thirty years 
 of age ; his mouth is mobile, his eye moist, his glance direct and 
 clear, nothing more, nothing beyond, nothing below. Who is this 
 young man ? What has he done ? Has he thought ? Has he suf- 
 fered ? Has he himself lived on the surface of things as he is rep- 
 resented without consistency on the surface of a canvas ? These
 
 92 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 are the characteristic indications that a Holbein would give us be- 
 fore thinking of the rest, which cannot be expressed by a spark in 
 an eye or a red touch on a nostril. 
 
 The art of painting is perhaps more indiscreet than any other. 
 It is the indisputable witness of the mental state of the painter at 
 the moment he held the brush. What he intended to do he did ; 
 that which he desired but feebly is seen in his indecisions ; what 
 he did not wish for is, with even better reason, absent from his work, 
 whatever he or others may say. An abstraction, a forgetfulness, 
 a warmer sensation, a less profound insight, application wanting, a 
 less hearty love for what he is studying, whether he is tired of 
 painting or has a passion for painting, all the shades of his nature, 
 even to the intermittent character of his sensitiveness, are manifest 
 in the works of the painter as clearly as if he took us into his con- 
 fidence. One can say with certainty what is the deportment of a 
 scrupulous portrait painter to his models, and in the same way one 
 can fancy what Rubens was to his. 
 
 When one looks, a few paces from the portraits of which I am 
 speaking, at the portrait of the Duke of Alva by Antonio Moro, 
 he is certain that, grand nobleman as he was, and wholly accus- 
 tomed to painting great lords, Antonio Moro was very serious, very 
 attentive, and a good deal moved at the moment when he seated 
 himself before this tragic personage, dry, angular, choked in his 
 dark armor, jointed like an automaton, with an eye which looks 
 sidelong up and down, cold, hard, and black, as if the light of heaven 
 had never touched its surface.
 
 RUBENS AS A PORTRAIT PAINTER. 93 
 
 On the contrary, on the day when Rubens painted, to please them, 
 the Seigneur Charles de Cordes and Jacqueline his wife, he was 
 undoubtedly in a good humor, but absent-minded, sure of his work, 
 and in a hurry as he always was. It was in 1618, the year of the 
 Miraculous Draught. He was forty-one years old, in the full tide 
 of his talent, his glory, and his success. He did everything rapidly. 
 The Miraculous Draught had just cost him ten days' labor. The 
 two young people had been married October 30, 1617 ; the portrait of 
 the husband was made to please the wife, that of the wife to please 
 the husband, so you can see under what conditions the work was 
 done, and you can imagine the time he took for it ; the result was 
 a painting hasty and brilliant, an agreeable likeness, an ephemeral 
 work. 
 
 Many, I may say the greater part, of Rubens's portraits are the 
 same. Look in the Louvre at that of the Baron de Vicq. (No. 458 
 of the catalogue), in the same style, the same quality, almost of the 
 same period as the portrait of the- Seigneur de Cordes of which I 
 speak ; look too at that of Elizabeth of France, and the one of a lady 
 of the Boonen family (No. 461), all agreeable, brilliant, light, alert 
 works, forgotten as soon as seen. See, on the other hand, the por- 
 trait sketch of his second wife, Helen, with her two children, that 
 admirable sketch, that scarcely indicated dream, left there by chance 
 or purposely ; and if you look over the three works preceding this 
 with a little reflection, I shall not need to persist to make myself 
 understood. 
 
 To resume, Rubens, to consider him only as a portrait painter,
 
 94 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 is a man who dreamed in his own way when he had the time, with 
 an eye admirably true, of slight depth of insight, which was a mirror 
 rather than a penetrating instrument, a man who occupied himself 
 little with others, much with himself; morally, and physically a man 
 of the exterior, and outwardly, marvellously but exclusively, fitted to 
 seize the exterior of things. This is why it is proper to distinguish 
 in Rubens two observers of very unequal power, of hardly com- 
 parable artistic value, one who made the life of others serve the 
 needs of his conceptions, subordinates his models, taking from them 
 only what he needs ; and the other, who remains inferior to his task, 
 because he ought, and does not know how, to subordinate himself 
 to his model. 
 
 This is why he has sometimes magnificently observed and again 
 greatly neglected the human face. This is why his portraits are 
 all a little alike, and a little like him ; why they are wanting in a 
 life of their own, and in that lack moral resemblance and interior 
 life, while his portrait personages have just that degree of striking 
 personality which increases still more the effect of their r61e, a force 
 of expression which does not permit you to doubt that they have 
 lived ; and as to their mental calibre, it is evident that they all have 
 an active soul, ardent and prompt to spring forth, just upon their 
 lips, the one that Rubens has put into them, almost the same in 
 all, for it is his own.
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE TOMB OF RUBENS. 
 
 I HAVE not yet taken you to Rubens's tomb at St. Jacques. The 
 sepulchral stone is placed before the altar, and the inscription on 
 the tomb reads thus : Non sui tantum saculi, sed et omnis avi 
 Apelles dici meruit. 
 
 With this approach to an hyperbole, which neither adds to nor 
 detracts from the universal glory nor the very certain immortality 
 of Rubens, these two lines of funereal eulogium make one remember 
 that a few feet below these flags lie the ashes of this great man. He 
 was placed there the first day of June, 1640. Two years later, by 
 an authorization of March 14, 1642, his widow finally consecrated 
 to him the little chapel behind the choir, and placed in it the fine 
 picture of St. George, one of the most charming works of the master, 
 a work wholly formed, says tradition, of the portraits of members 
 of his family, that is to say, of his affections, his dead loves, his living 
 loves, his regrets, his hopes, the past, present, and future of his 
 house. 
 
 You know, in fact, that to all the personages who compose this 
 so-called Holy Family are attributed resemblances of priceless value.
 
 96 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 Side by side in it are his two wives, first, the fair Helen Fourment, 
 a child of sixteen when he married her in 1630, a quite young wo- 
 man of twenty-six when he died, fair, plump, amiable, and gentle, 
 en grand ctishabilti, naked to the waist. 
 
 There also is his daughter, ois niece, the celebrated girl of the 
 Chapeau de Faille, his father, his grandfather, finally, his younger 
 son under the features of an angel, a youthful and delicious babe, 
 perhaps the most adorable child he ever painted. As to Rubens 
 himself, he figures there in armor shining with sombre steel and 
 silver, holding in his hand the banner of St. George. He is growing 
 old and is thinner, his hair is grizzled, he is dishevelled, a little worn, 
 but superb with inward fire. Without posturing or emphasis he has 
 conquered the dragon, and planted upon him his mailed foot. How 
 old was he then ? If the date of his second marriage is recalled, and 
 the age of his wife and the child born of this marriage, Rubens must 
 have been fifty-six or fifty-eight years of age. Almost forty years 
 before the brilliant combat had begun which, impossible for others, 
 but easy for him who was always successful, he had waged against 
 life. In what enterprises, in what order of activity, of struggle, and 
 success, had he not triumphed ? 
 
 If ever, at the solemn hour of self-examination, after the lapse of 
 years and the accomplishment of a career, at that moment of ab- 
 solute certainty, a man had a right to paint himself as a victor, it 
 was certainly he. 
 
 The thought, as you see, is most simple ; it needs not to be sought 
 after. If the picture conceals an emotion, that emotion can easily
 
 THE TOMB OF RUBENS. 97 
 
 be communicated to any man who has any warmth of heart, who 
 can be moved by glory, and who makes for himself a second religion 
 of the memory of such men. 
 
 One day, towards the end of his career, in full glory, perhaps in deep 
 repose, under an august title, invoking the Virgin and the sole 
 saint whose own image he would have permitted himself to assume, 
 it pleased him to paint within a very small frame (about two metres) 
 whatever there had been that was venerable and seductive in the 
 beings he had loved. He owed this last glorification to those who 
 had borne him, to those who had shared, beautified, charmed, en- 
 nobled with their perfume of grace, tenderness, and excellence his 
 noble and laborious career. He gave it to them as fully, in as 
 masterly a way, as could be expected from his affectionate hand, 
 his genius, and his great power. He put into it his science, his 
 piety, his most rare carefulness. He made of the work what you 
 know, an infinitely touching marvel as the work of a son, a father, 
 and a husband ; forever admirable as a work of art. 
 
 Shall I describe it to you ? The arrangement is one of those that 
 a catalogue note is sufficient to indicate. Shall I tell you its par- 
 ticular merits ? They are all the painter's qualities in their familiar 
 acceptation, under their most precious form. They do not give 
 of him a new or a more lofty idea, but one that is finer and more 
 exquisite. 
 
 It is the Rubens of his best days, with more naturalness, precision, 
 caprice, richness of coloring, and power without effort ; with a more 
 tender eye, a more caressing hand ; a more loving labor, at once 
 
 7
 
 98 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 more intimate and more profound. If I used technical terms, I 
 should spoil the greater part of those subtle things which should be 
 rendered with the pure language of idea in order to preserve their 
 character and their value. 
 
 Little as it cost me to study the mechanician in such a practical 
 picture as the Miraculous Draught of Fishes, at Mechlin, it is equally 
 befitting to ease and purify the manner of speech when the concep- 
 tion of Rubens is elevated, as it is in the Communion of St. Francis 
 of Assisi, or when his manner of painting is penetrated at once by 
 spirit, feeling, ardor, conscientiousness, affection for those he is paint- 
 ing, and attachment to what he does, the ideal, in a word, as in 
 the St. George. . 
 
 Has Rubens ever been more perfect ? I think not. Has he been 
 as perfect ? I have nowhere observed it. There are in the lives 
 of the great artists these works of predestination, not the largest, 
 nor always exhibiting the greatest knowledge, sometimes the very 
 humblest, which, by a fortuitous conjunction of all the gifts of the 
 man and the artist, have expressed unconsciously to themselves, the 
 pure essence of their genius; of this number is the St. George. 
 
 This picture, moreover, marks, if not the end, at least the last 
 five years of Rubens's life, and by a sort of grand coquetry which 
 is not unbefitting the things of the spirit, he manifests that this 
 magnificent organization knew neither fatigue nor relaxation nor 
 decline. Thirty-five years, at least, had elapsed between the Trinity 
 in the Antwerp Museum and the St. George. Which is the younger 
 of the two pictures ? At which moment had he the most fire, the
 
 THE TOMB OF RUBENS. 99 
 
 most vivid love of all things, and the most suppleness in all the 
 organs of his genius ? 
 
 His life had almost made its revolution ; it could be closed and 
 measured. It seemed as if he foresaw the end on the day when he 
 glorified himself and his family. He also had erected and nearly 
 finished his monument ; he could say this to himself with as much 
 assurance as others, without self-glorification. Only five or six 
 years more of life remained to him. He was happy, peaceable, a 
 little weary of politics ; retired from ambassadorial life, and more his 
 own than ever. Had he well spent his life? had he deserved well 
 of his country, his time, and himself? He had unique faculties ; 
 how did he use them ? Destiny heaped honors upon him ; did he 
 ever fail to merit his destiny? In this grand life, so distinct, so 
 clear, so brilliant, so adventurous and yet so pure, so correct in its 
 most astonishing events, so luxurious and so simple, so troubled 
 and so exempt from all littleness, so divided and so fruitful, can 
 you discover one stain that causes regret ? He was fortunate ; was 
 he ungrateful ? He had his trials ; was he ever bitter ? He loved 
 much and warmly ; was he forgetful ? 
 
 He was born at Spiegen, in exile, on the threshold of a prison, 
 of a mother admirably upright and generous, of a cultivated father, 
 who was a learned doctor, but a man of slight feeling, of tolerably 
 weak conscience, and of a character without great consistency. 
 When Rubens was fourteen, he was among the pages of a princess ; 
 at seventeen he was in the studios; at twenty years he is mature, 
 and a master. At twenty-nine he returned from a journey of study
 
 100 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 as from a foreign victory, and he entered his home in triumph. They 
 asked to see his studies, and, so to speak, he could show nothing 
 but works. He left behind him strange pictures which were at 
 once understood and relished. He had taken possession of Italy 
 in the name of Flanders, planted from city to city the marks of 
 his passage, founding on the way his own renown, that of his country, 
 and something more still, an art unknown to Italy. He brought 
 back, as trophies, marbles, engravings, pictures, fine works by the 
 best masters, and, above all, a new and national art, the most vast 
 in surface and the most extraordinary in resources of all the arts 
 known. 
 
 In proportion as his fame increased and radiated, and his talent 
 was noised abroad, his personality seemed to enlarge, his brain to 
 dilate, his faculties to multiply with the demands made upon him, 
 and those he made of them. Was he an astute politician ? His 
 policy appears to me to have clearly, faithfully, and nobly compre- 
 hended and transmitted the desires or wishes of his masters ; he 
 pleased by his noble mien, charmed all who approached him by his 
 wit, his cultivation, his conversation, his character, and seems to 
 have been still more seductive by the indefatigable presence of mind 
 of his painter's genius. He would arrive, often with great pomp, 
 present his letters of credence, converse and paint. He made por- 
 traits of princes and kings, mythological pictures for palaces, re- 
 ligious ones for cathedrals. It can hardly be told which has the 
 most distinction, Peter Paul Rubens pictor, or the Chevalier Ru- 
 bens, accredited plenipotentiary ; but we have every reason to believe
 
 THE TOMB OF RUBENS. IOI 
 
 that the artist was a singular help to the diplomate. He succeeded 
 in all things to the satisfaction of those whom he served with his 
 speech and his talent. The sole embarrassments, the sole delays, 
 and the rare annoyances perceived in his journeys, so picturesquely 
 divided between business, galas, cavalcades, and painting, never came 
 from sovereigns. The real statesmen were more punctilious and 
 less easy, witness his quarrel with Philippe d'Arenberg, Duke of 
 Aerschot, concerning the last mission with which he was charged 
 in Holland. Was this the only wound he received in the discharge 
 of his delicate functions ? It was at least the sole cloud observed 
 from a distance, that casts the slightest bitterness over a radiant ex- 
 istence. In everything else he was fortunate. His life from one end 
 to the other was one of those that make life lovable. In every 
 circumstance he was a man who was an honor to mankind. 
 
 He was handsome, perfectly well-bred, and cultivated. He retained 
 from his hasty early education the taste for languages, and facility 
 in speaking them. He wrote and spoke Latin, he was fond of 
 healthy and strong reading ; they amused him with Plutarch and 
 Seneca while he was painting, and " he was equally attentive to 
 both reading and painting." He lived in the greatest luxury, in- 
 habited a princely dwelling ; he had valuable horses which he rode 
 every evening, a unique collection of works of art with which he 
 delighted his hours of repose. He was regular, methodical, and cold 
 in the discipline of his private life, in the administration of his work, 
 in the government of his mind, in a certain way, in the fortifying 
 and healthful hygiene of his genius. He was simple and plain,
 
 1O2 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 of an exemplary fidelity in his relations with his friends, sympa- 
 thetic with all talent, inexhaustible in encouragements to those who 
 were making a beginning. There was no success which he did not 
 aid with his purse or his praise. His magnanimity with regard to 
 Brauwer is a celebrated episode of his benevolent life, and one of 
 the most living witnesses that he has furnished of his spirit of fra- 
 ternity. He adored everything that was beautiful, and never sepa- 
 rated from it what was good. 
 
 He experienced the accidents of his grand official life without 
 being either dazzled by them, or lessened in character, or sensi- 
 bly troubled in his domestic habits. Fortune spoiled him as little 
 as did honors. Women no more demoralized him than princes. 
 No well-known gallantries are attributed to him ; on the contrary, 
 he was always seen at home, with regular habits, in his domestic 
 surroundings from 1609 to 1626 with his first wife, from 1630 with 
 the second, with numerous fine children, assiduous friends, that 
 is to say, amusements, affections, and duties, all things which kept 
 his mind in repose, and helped him to bear with the natural ease of 
 a Colossus the daily burden of a superhuman labor. Everything 
 was simple in his occupations ; whether complicated, agreeable, or 
 overwhelming, everything is honest in this untroubled home. His 
 life is in full light ; it is broad daylight there as in his pictures ; 
 not the shadow of a mystery, not one grief, except the sincere 
 sorrow of his first widowhood ; no suspicious circumstances, nothing 
 which one is obliged to imply, nor which is a matter of conjecture, 
 except one thing, the mystery of this incomprehensible fecundity.
 
 THE TOMB OF RUBENS. IOJ 
 
 " He solaced himself," writes Taine, " by creating worlds ; " * in 
 which ingenious definition I see but one word to correct. Solace 
 would suggest tension, the malady of over-fulness, that is never to 
 be remarked in this thoroughly healthy mind, which is never troub- 
 led. He created, as a tree bears fruit, with no more uneasiness or 
 effort. When did he think ? Diu noctuque incubando, such was 
 his Latin device, which means that he reflected before painting, as 
 can be seen from his sketches, projects, and draughts. In truth, 
 the improvisation of the hand was the successor of improvisations 
 of mind ; there was the same certainty and the same facility of utter- 
 ance in one case as in the other. His was a soul without storms, 
 or languors, or torments, or chimeras. If ever the melancholy of toil 
 left its trace anywhere, it was neither on the features nor in the 
 pictures of Rubens. By his birth, in the midst of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, he belonged to that mighty race of thinkers and men of action 
 in whom action and thought were one. He was a painter as he 
 would have been a soldier ; he made his pictures as he would have 
 made war, with as much coolness as ardor, combining skilfully, decid- 
 ing quickly, and trusting, besides, to the surety of his glance on the 
 field. He takes things as they are, his fine faculties just as he has 
 received them ; he exercises them as fully as a man can, pushes 
 them to their full extent, asks of them nothing beyond, and with 
 a clear conscience in this regard he pursues his labor with the help 
 of God. 
 
 His painted work comprises about fifteen hundred productions, 
 
 * H. Taine, Philosophy of Art in the Netherlands.
 
 IO4 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 the most immense result that ever issued from one brain. To ap- 
 proach such a figure, we must add together the lives of several of 
 the men most fertile in productiveness. If, independently of the 
 number, the importance, the dimensions, and the complicated char- 
 acter of his works be considered, it is an astonishing spectacle, giv- 
 ing of human faculties the most lofty, even, we might say, the most 
 religious idea. 
 
 Such is the teaching which seems to me to result from the ampli- 
 tude and power of a soul. In this respect he is unique, and in 
 every way he is one of the grandest specimens of humanity. We 
 must in art go back to Raphael, Leonardo, and Michael Angelo, to 
 the demigods themselves, to find his equals, and in certain things 
 still his masters. Nothing, it is said, was wanting to him " except 
 the very pure instincts and the very noble." It is true that in the 
 world of the beautiful two or three spirits can be found, who have 
 gone farther, with a more lofty flight, who consequently have seen 
 more nearly the divine Light and the Eternal Truths. There are 
 also in the moral world, in that of sentiments, visions, and dreams, 
 depths into which Rembrandt alone has descended, which Rubens 
 has not penetrated and has not even perceived. 
 
 On the other hand, he has taken possession of the earth as no 
 other man has. Spectacles are his domain. His eye is the most 
 marvellous prism that has ever been given us, of the light and color 
 of objects, of true and magnificent ideas. Dramas, passions, atti- 
 tudes of the body, expressions of countenance, that is to say, the 
 whole man in the multifarious incidents of human life, pass through
 
 THE TOMB OF RUBENS. 105 
 
 his brain, take from it stronger features, more robust forms, become 
 amplified but not purified, and are transfigured into some unknown 
 heroic appearance. Everywhere he stamps them with the direct- 
 ness of his character, the warmth of his blood, the admirable equi- 
 librium of his nerves, and the magnificence of his ordinary visions. 
 He is unequal, and oversteps moderation ; he lacks taste when he 
 draws, but never when he colors. He is forgetful, even careless ; 
 but from the first day to the last, he atones for a fault by a master- 
 piece ; he redeems a want of care, of seriousness, or of taste by the 
 instantaneous testimony of self-respect, an almost touching applica- 
 tion, and supreme taste. 
 
 His grace is that of a man who sees grandly and powerfully, and 
 the smile of such a man is delicious. When he puts his hand upon 
 a very rare subject, when he touches a deep and manifest sentiment, 
 when his heart beats with a lofty and sincere emotion, he paints 
 the Communion of St. Francis of Assisi, and then, in the rank of 
 purely moral conceptions, he attains the utmost beauty in truth, 
 and in that is as great as any one in the world. 
 
 He does not look back, nor does he fear what is to be done. He 
 accepts overwhelming tasks, and accomplishes them. He suspends 
 his labor, abandons it, lets his mind wander from it, turns aside from 
 it altogether. He returns to it, after a long and distant embassy, 
 as if he had not left it for an hour. One day is sufficient for him 
 to paint The Kermis, thirteen for the Magi of Antwerp, perhaps 
 seven or eight for the Communion, judging from the price which 
 was paid him for them.
 
 106 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 Did he love money as much as was said? Did he, as has also 
 been said, commit the wrong of being helped by his pupils, and 
 did he treat with too much disdain an art to which he has done 
 such great honor, because he estimated his pictures at the rate of 
 a hundred florins a day? The truth is, that at that time the 
 craft of a painter was indeed a craft, nor was it less nobly nor 
 less well practised because it was treated almost like a high pro- 
 fession. The truth is, there were apprentices, masters, corporations, 
 and a school which was very decidedly a studio, and the pupils 
 were co-laborers with the master, while neither scholars nor master 
 had any reason to complain of this salutary and useful exchange 
 of lessons and services. 
 
 More than any one Rubens had the right to hold to the ancient 
 usages. With Rembrandt he is the last great head of a school, 
 and, better than Rembrandt, whose genius is untransmissible, he 
 has determined new, numerous, and fixed laws of aesthetics. He 
 leaves a double inheritance of good teaching and superb examples. 
 His studio recalls, with as much renown as any, the finest habits 
 of the Italian schools. He formed disciples who are the envy of 
 other schools, the glory of his own. He can always be seen sur- 
 rounded by this bevy of original minds and great talents, over 
 whom he exercises a sort of paternal authority full of gentleness, 
 solicitude, and majesty. 
 
 He had no wearisome old age, nor heavy infirmity, nor decrepi- 
 tude. The last picture that he signed, and which he never had 
 time to deliver, his Crucifixion of St Peter, is one of his very best.
 
 THE TOMB OF RUBENS. 107 
 
 He speaks of it in a letter in 1638, as of a work of predilection 
 which charms him, and which he desires to treat at leisure. Hardly 
 had he been warned, by some little suffering, that our forces have 
 limits, than he suddenly died at the age of sixty-three, leaving to his 
 son, with a very wealthy patrimony, the most solid inheritance of 
 glory that ever a thinker, at least in Flanders, had acquired by the 
 labor of his mind. 
 
 Such is this exemplary life that I would wish to see written by 
 some man of great learning and deep heart for the honor of our 
 art, and the perpetual edification of those who practise it. It is 
 here that it should be written, if possible, if it could be done, with 
 one's feet upon his tomb, and before the St. George. Having before 
 his eyes that part of us which passes away and that which en- 
 dures, that which perishes and that which abides, a man might 
 weigh with more moderation, certainty, and respect what there is 
 in the life of a great man and in his works that is ephemeral, perish- 
 able, and truly immortal ! 
 
 Who knows, too, but that if the work were meditated upon in 
 the chapel where Rubens sleeps, this miracle of genius, taken in 
 himself, might not become a little more clear, and this super- 
 natural being, as we call him, be better explained ?
 
 IX. 
 
 VANDYCK. 
 
 IT is thus I should imagine a portrait of Vandyck, made as it 
 were by a rapid sketch with a broad pencil : 
 
 A young prince of royal race, with everything in his favor, beauty, 
 elegance, magnificent gifts, precocious genius, a rare education, and 
 owing all these things to the advantages of birth ; cherished by his 
 master, himself a master among his fellow-students, everywhere 
 distinguished, everywhere sought for, feted everywhere, in foreign 
 parts even more than at home ; the favorite and friend of kings, 
 entering thus by right into the most enviable things of the world, 
 such as talent, renown, honors, luxury, passions, and adventures ; 
 ever young even at a ripe age, never steady even in his last days, 
 a libertine, a gamester, eager, prodigal, dissipated, playing the devil, 
 and, as they would have said in his time, selling himself to the devil 
 for golden guineas, then spending them wildly on horses, in display, 
 on ruinous gallantries ; as much as possible a lover of his art, but 
 ready to sacrifice it to passions less noble, to loves less faithful, 
 to attachments far less fortunate ; charming, of powerful origin, of 
 elegant stature, such as one sees in the second generation of great
 
 VANDYCK. 109 
 
 races, of a complexion less virile than delicate, the air of a Don 
 Juan rather than of a hero, with a flavor of melancholy and an 
 undercurrent of sadness penetrating through the gayeties of his life ; 
 the tenderness of a heart prompt to fall in love, and that indefina- 
 ble disillusionment of a heart too often moved ; a nature more in- 
 flammable than burning, with, at bottom, more sensuality than true 
 ardor, less fire than freedom, less capable of seizing things than 
 of being seized by them and abandoning himself to them ; a being 
 exquisite in attraction, sensitive to all attraction, consumed by the 
 two most absorbing things in the world, the muse and women ; a 
 man who abused everything, his seductions, his health, his dignity, 
 his talent ; crushed by necessities, worn out with pleasure, ex- 
 hausted in resources ; an insatiable being, who ended, says the 
 legend, by keeping low company with Italian knaves, and by seek- 
 ing gold secretly in alembics ; a seeker of adventures, who at the 
 end of his career married to order, as it were, a charming, well-born 
 maiden, when he could no longer give her either strength, or much 
 money, or great charm, or a secure life ; a wreck of a man who, 
 up to his last hour, had the good fortune, the most extraordinary 
 of all, to preserve his greatness when painting ; in fine, a mauvais 
 sujet, adored, decried, calumniated at length, better in reality than 
 his reputation ; a man who was forgiven for everything on account 
 of one supreme gift, one of the forms of genius, grace; to sura 
 up all, a Prince of Wales dying upon his accession to the throne, 
 who was by no means fitted to reign. 
 
 With his important work, his immortal portraits, his soul open
 
 1 10 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLI.AND. 
 
 to the most delicate sensations, his individual style, his personal dis- 
 tinction, his taste, his restraint, and his charm in everything he 
 touched, one may ask what Vandyck would be without Rubens. 
 . How would he have seen nature, how conceived painting ? What 
 sort of palette would he have created, what would have been his 
 modelling, what laws of color would he have fixed, what would he 
 have adopted that was poetic ? Would he have been more Italian, 
 or would he have bent more decidedly towards Correggio or towards 
 Veronese ? If the revolution made by Rubens had been retarded 
 for a few years, or had not taken place, what would have been 
 the fate of those charming spirits for whom the master had pre- 
 pared the way, who only had to see him live to live a little like 
 him, only to watch him paint to paint as none had ever painted 
 before him, and only to consider as a whole his works such as he 
 had imagined them, and the society of their time such as it had 
 become, to perceive, in their definite relations henceforth bound to 
 each other, two worlds equally new, a modern society, a modern 
 art ? Who among them could have undertaken such discoveries ? 
 There was an empire to found : could they found it ? Jordaens, 
 Grayer, G6rard, Zeghers, Rombouts, Van Thulden, Cornelis Schutt, 
 Boyermanns, Jan van Oost of Bruges, Teniers, Van Uden, Snyders, 
 Johann Fyt, all those whom Rubens inspired, enlightened, formed, 
 and employed, his co-laborers, his pupils, or his friends, could at 
 the utmost divide among themselves certain provinces, small or great ; 
 and Vandyck, the most gifted of all, deserved the finest and most 
 important among them. Deprive them of that which they owed
 
 VANDYCK. Ill 
 
 directly or indirectly to Rubens, take from them the central planet, 
 and imagine what would remain of these luminous satellites. Take 
 from Vandyck the original type from which his issued, the style 
 whence he drew his own, the feeling for form, the choice of subject, 
 the movement of mind, the manner and the method which served him 
 for example, and see what he would lack. At Antwerp, at Brussels, 
 everywhere in Belgium, Vandyck follows in the footsteps of Rubens. 
 His Silenus, and his Martyrdom of St. Peter, are like a delicate and 
 almost poetical Jordaens, that is to say, Rubens preserved in his 
 nobility by a more curious hand. His Sanctities, Passions, Cruci- 
 fixions, Descents from the Cross, beautiful dead Christs, fair women 
 in mourning and tears, would not exist, or would be different, if 
 Rubens, once for all, in his two triptychs at Antwerp, had not re- 
 vealed the Flemish formula of the Gospel, and determined the local 
 type of the Virgin, the Christ, the Magdalen, and the disciples. 
 
 There is always more sentimentality, and sometimes even more 
 profound sentiment, in the fine Vandyck than in the great Rubens ; 
 but is one quite certain of that ? It is a matter of temperament 
 and complexion. All sons like Vandyck have a feminine trait 
 added to the father's features. It is by this that the paternal type 
 is sometimes made more beautiful ; it is softened, altered, diminished. 
 Between these two souls, elsewhere so unequal, there is something 
 like this influence of the woman. In the first place there is some- 
 thing which we may call a difference of sex. Vandyck heightens the 
 statures that Rubens made too stout ; he indicates less muscle, less 
 relief, fewer bones, and not so much blood. He is less turbulent, never
 
 112 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 brutal ; his expressions are less gross ; he laughs but little, has often a 
 vein of tenderness, but he knows not the strong sob of violent men. 
 He never startles ; he often corrects the roughnesses of his master ; 
 he is easy, because his talent is prodigiously natural and facile ; he 
 is free and alert, but he never is carried away. 
 
 Taking work for work, there are some that he would draw better 
 than his master, especially when the work is choice ; an idle hand, 
 a woman's wrist, a slender finger circled by a ring. He has more 
 restraint, more polish ; one might say he is better bred. He is more 
 refined than his master, because in fact his master formed himself 
 alone, and the sovereignty of rank dispenses with, and takes the 
 place of many things. 
 
 He was twenty-four years younger than Rubens. Nothing of the 
 sixteenth century remained in him. He belonged to the first gener- 
 ation of the seventeenth, and that makes itself felt. It is felt physi- 
 cally and morally, in the man and in the painter, in his own hand- 
 some face and in his taste for other handsome faces. It is especially 
 felt in his portraits. On this ground he belongs wonderfully to the 
 world, the world of his day and hour. 
 
 Never having created an imperious type to distract him from the 
 real, he is true, he is exact, he sees correctly, he sees the likeness. 
 Possibly he gives to all the personages who sat for him something of 
 the graces of his own person, an air more habitually noble, a more 
 elegant undress, a finer attraction and style in garments, hands 
 more regularly handsome, pure, and white. In every case he has, 
 more than his master, a feeling for draperies well put on, for fashion ;
 
 VANDYCK. 113 
 
 he has a taste for silky stuffs, for satins, for ribbons, for points, for 
 plumes and ornamental swords. 
 
 These gentlemen are no longer cavaliers, they are chevaliers. 
 The men of war have laid aside their armor and their casques ; 
 they have become courtiers and men of the world in loose doublets 
 and flowing linen, in silk hose and loose breeches and high-heeled 
 satin shoes, all fashions and habits which were his own, and which 
 he was fitted better than any one to reproduce in their perfect 
 mundane ideal. 
 
 In his manner, his style, by the unique conformity of his nature 
 with the spirit, the needs, and the elegances of his epoch, he is, in 
 the art of painting his contemporaries, the equal of anybody. His 
 Charles I., from its profound feeling for model and subject, the 
 familiarity and nobility of its style, the beauty of everything in this 
 exquisite work, the drawing of the face, the coloring, the unrivalled 
 rarity and justness of the values, the quality of the handling, the 
 Charles I., I say, to choose from his work an example well known in 
 France, will bear comparison with the greatest. 
 
 His triple portrait at Turin is of the same order and of the same 
 significance. Under this head he has done better than any one 
 since Rubens. He has completed Rubens by adding to his work 
 portraits wholly worthy of him, better than his. He has created in 
 his country an original art, and consequently has his part in the 
 creation of a new art. 
 
 Elsewhere he has done still more ; he has engendered a whole 
 foreign school, the English school. Reynolds, Lawrence, Gains-
 
 114 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 borough, I might add almost all the genre painters faithful to the 
 English traditions, and the best landscape painters, are the direct 
 issue of Vandyck, and indirectly of Rubens through Vandyck. These 
 are worthy titles. Thus posterity, ever very just in its instincts, 
 makes for Vandyck a place of his own between men of the first 
 order and men of the second. The order of precedence which should 
 be accorded to him in the procession of great men has never been 
 accurately determined ; and since his death, as during his life, he 
 seems to have preserved the privilege of being placed near the 
 throne, and there being a distinguished presence. 
 
 However, I return to my statement that, in spite of his personal 
 genius, his personal grace, his personal talent, Vandyck as a whole 
 would be inexplicable if we had not before our eyes the solar light 
 from which issue so many brilliant reflections. One would seek to 
 know who had taught him these new manners, this liberal language 
 which bears no trace of the ancient tongue ; one would detect in 
 him gleams from elsewhere, which did not issue from his own genius ; 
 and finally one would suspect that somewhere in his neighborhood 
 some mighty planet must have disappeared. 
 
 No longer would Vandyck be called the son of Rubens, but to 
 his name would be added, His master is unknown, and the mystery 
 of his birth would well deserve to occupy the attention of histori- 
 ographers.
 
 PART II. 
 
 HOLLAND.
 
 HOLLAND. 
 I. 
 
 THE HAGUE AND SCHEVENINGEN. 
 
 THE Hague is unquestionably one of the least Dutch towns there 
 is in Holland, and one of the most singular towns in all Europe. 
 
 It has just the degree of local eccentricity necessary to give it that 
 individual charm and mat shade of cosmopolitan elegance which adapt 
 it especially for a place of meeting. There is a little of everything, 
 too, in this city of composite manners, and yet of very individual 
 physiognomy, whose space, cleanness, stylish picturesqueness, and 
 rather haughty grace seem to be a perfectly polite manner of show- 
 ing hospitality. Here is met an indigenous aristocracy which travels, 
 a foreign aristocracy which enjoys the place, imposing fortunes made 
 in the depths of Asiatic colonies that establish themselves here in 
 great comfort, finally envoys extraordinary on occasion, perhaps oftener 
 than is necessary for the peace of the world. It is an abode that 
 I would recommend to those whom the ugliness, the platitude, the 
 confusion, the meanness, or the vain luxury of things, have disgusted 
 with great cities but not with towns. And as for me, if I had to
 
 Il8 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 choose a place for work, a pleasant spot where I could be comfortable, 
 breathe a delicate atmosphere, see beautiful things and dream of 
 more beautiful ones, especially if I were disturbed by cares, con- 
 tentions, or difficulties with myself, and I needed tranquillity to 
 solve them, and something very agreeable about me to calm them, 
 I would do as Europe does after its storms ; I would here establish 
 my Congress. 
 
 The Hague is a capital, as can plainly be seen, even a royal city ; 
 and one might say it has always been one. It only lacks a palace 
 worthy of its rank to have all the features of its physiognomy accord 
 with its final destiny. One feels that it had princes for stadtholders, 
 and that these princes were in their way De Medicis, that they had 
 a taste for the throne, and ought to have reigned somewhere, and 
 that it only depended upon them to have their kingdom here. The 
 Hague is then a city royally distinguished ; it is so by right, for it 
 is very wealthy, and by duty, for fine manners and opulence are 
 all one when everything is as it should be. It might be dull, but 
 it is only regular, correct, and peaceable. It might be arrogant, 
 but it is only ostentatious and grand-mannered. It is clean, as would 
 be expected, but not, as one would suppose, solely because it has well- 
 kept streets paved with brick, painted houses, unbroken glasses, var- 
 nished doors, shining coppers ; but because its waters, perfectly green 
 and beautiful, green with the reflections of their banks, are never 
 soiled by the muddy wake of the canal boats and the open-air cook- 
 ing of the sailors. 
 
 The Wood is admirable. The Hague, born of a prince's caprice,
 
 THE HAGUE AND SCHEVENINGEN. 119 
 
 formerly a hunting-seat of the counts of Holland, has for trees a 
 secular passion, which comes from the natal forest which was its 
 cradle. It promenades there, gives festivities and concerts, has races 
 and military reviews ; and when its fine forest is no longer of any 
 use, it has constantly under its eyes this green, dark, compact curtain 
 of oaks, beeches, ashes, and maples, that the perpetual moisture of 
 its ponds seems every morning to paint with a newer and more in- 
 tense green. 
 
 Its great domestic luxury the sole which it ostensibly parades 
 with the beauty of its waters and the splendor of its parks, that 
 with which it decorates its gardens, its winter and summer drawing- 
 rooms, its bamboo verandas, its doorsteps, and its balconies is 
 its unrivalled abundance of rare plants and flowers. These flowers 
 come from everywhere, and go everywhere. Here India is accli- 
 mated before it goes to make Europe blossom. The Hague, as an 
 heritage of the Nassau family, has preserved a taste for the country, 
 for drives under the trees, for menageries, sheepfolds, fine animals 
 at large upon lawns. By its architectural style it is connected with 
 the seventeenth century in France. Its fancies, some of its habits, 
 its exotic adornments, and its odor come from Asia. Its actual com- 
 fort passed to England and came back again, so that at the present 
 time it is impossible to say whether the original type is at London 
 or at the Hague. In short, it is a town worth seeing, for it has much 
 without ; but what is within is worth more than what is without, for it 
 contains besides a great deal of art concealed under its elegances. 
 
 To-day I was driven to Scheveningen. The road is a long,
 
 120 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 narrow shaded avenue, leading in a straight line through the heart 
 of the woods. It is cool and dark, whatever may be the warmth of 
 the sky and the blue of the atmosphere. The sun leaves you at the 
 beginning and meets you at the end. The exit is upon the rear of 
 the downs, a vast wavy desert, sparsely sown with thin grass and 
 sand, such as are found at the edge of great beaches. Traversing 
 the village, you find casinos, bath palaces, and princely pavilions, 
 adorned with the colors and arms of Holland. You climb the 
 downs, and heavily descend them to reach the shore. Before you, 
 flat, gray, wind-blown, and white-capped, lies the North Sea. Who 
 has not been there ? and who has not seen it ? One thinks of 
 Ruysdael, Van Goyen, and of Van de Velde. Their point of view 
 is easily found. I could tell you, as if their trace had been im- 
 printed there for two centuries, the exact spot where they sat ; the 
 sea is on the right ; the terraced downs grow dark upon the left, 
 taper, grow small, and softly melt into the pallid horizon. The 
 grass is dry, the downs are pale, the beach colorless, the sea milky, 
 the sky silky, cloudy, wonderfully aerial, well drawn, well modelled, 
 and well painted, as they used to paint it in old times. 
 
 Even at high tide the beach is interminable. As formerly, the 
 promenaders make upon it spots that are soft or vivid and some- 
 times piercing. The darks are solid ; the lights, tasteful, simple, and 
 soft. The daylight is excessive, and the picture is in low tone ; 
 nothing can be more variegated, and the whole effect is dreary. 
 Red is the only vivid color that preserves its activity in this as- 
 tonishingly subdued scale, of which the notes are so rich, while the
 
 THE HAGUE AND SCHEVEN1NGEN. 121 
 
 tone remains grave. There are children playing and stamping, 
 wading, making holes and wells in the sand ; women in light 
 costumes, made of white shaded with pale blue or tender pink, 
 not at all as they are painted nowadays, but much more as they 
 would be painted, wisely and soberly, if Ruysdael and Van de Velde 
 were there to give their advice. Dripping boats lie near the shore, 
 with their delicate rigging, their black masts, their massive hulls, 
 recalling feature for feature the ancient sketches colored with bistre 
 of the best marine draughtsmen ; and when a rolling car passes by, 
 we think of the Chariot with Six Dapple-Gray Horses of the Prince 
 of Orange. If you remember certain simple pictures of the Dutch 
 School, you know Scheveningen, it is now what it was then. 
 Modern life has changed its accessories ; each era renews the per- 
 sonages, and introduces its fashions and habits, but what of that ? 
 It is hardly a special accent in an outline. Whether burghers of the 
 olden time or tourists of to-day, they are only little picturesque 
 spots, moving and changing, ephemeral points succeeding each 
 other from age to age, between the great heaven, the great sea, 
 the immense downs, and the ashy-white beach. 
 
 However, as if better to prove the permanence of things in this 
 grand scenic picture, the same wave, studied so many times, was 
 beating with regularity the shore imperceptibly sloping towards it. 
 It gathered, rolled and broke, continuing that intermittent sound 
 that has not varied a note since this world was a world. The sea 
 was empty. A storm was forming in the offing and circled the 
 horizon with banks of clouds gray and fixed. In the evening there
 
 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 would be lightning from them ; and on the morrow, if they were only 
 alive, William van de Velde, Ruysdael, who did not fear the wind, 
 and Bakhuysen, who expressed nothing well but the wind, might 
 come to watch the downs at their moment of melancholy, and the 
 North Sea in its wrath. 
 
 I came home by another route, along the new canal to the Prin- 
 cessen-gracht. There had been races in the Maliebaan.* The crowd 
 was still standing in the shelter of the trees, massed against the 
 sombre background of foliage, as if the perfect turf of the hippodrome 
 were a carpet of rare quality that must not be trampled upon. 
 
 A little smaller crowd, a few black landaus under the forest shade, 
 and I could describe to you, because I have just had it under my 
 eyes, one of those pretty pictures by Paul Potter, so patiently worked 
 with the needle, so ingeniously bathed with light green half-tints, 
 such as he painted in the days when he was only half working. 
 
 * The mall, an open field in the Wood, where reviews are held.
 
 II. 
 
 ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THE DUTCH SCHOOL. 
 
 THE Dutch School begins with the first years of the seventeenth 
 century. By taking a slight liberty with dates, the very day of its 
 birth might be fixed. 
 
 It is the last of the great schools, perhaps the most original, cer- 
 tainly the most local. At the same hour, under the same circum- 
 stances, are seen to appear in conjunction two events, a new state 
 and a new art. The origin of Dutch art has often been narrated 
 pertinently and admirably, with its character, purpose, methods, 
 appropriateness, its rapid growth, its unprecedented physiognomy, 
 and particularly the sudden manner in which it was born, on the 
 morrow of an armistice, with the nation itself, like the quick and 
 natural blossoming of a people glad to live, and in haste to under- 
 stand itself. I will touch upon the historical part only as a reminder, 
 so as to come more quickly to what is of import to my subject. 
 
 Holland had never possessed many national painters, and possibly 
 to this destitution she owes the fact of counting so many in later 
 days that belonged entirely to herself. While she was confounded 
 with Flanders, it was Flanders that undertook to think, invent, and
 
 124 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 paint for her. She had neither her Van Eyck nor her Memling, 
 nor even a Roger van der Weiden. She had a momentary gleam 
 from the school of Bruges. She can congratulate herself upon 
 having seen the birth, about the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
 of a native genius, in the painter engraver, Lucas van Leyden ; but 
 Lucas van Leyden formed no school, that flash of Dutch life died 
 with him. Just as Stuerbout (Bouts van Harlem) disappeared 
 almost, in the style and manner of the primitive Flemish school, 
 so Mostaert, Schoreel, Hemskerk, in spite of all their worth, are not 
 individual talents which illustrate and characterize a country. 
 
 Moreover, the Italian influence had reached all who held a brush, 
 from Antwerp to Haarlem, and this reason was added to others to 
 efface boundaries, mingle schools, and denationalize painters. Jan 
 Schoreel did not even leave living pupils. The last and most illus- 
 trious of them, the greatest portrait painter of whom Holland 
 can boast next to Rembrandt, and by the side of Rembrandt, that 
 cosmopolitan of such supple nature, of such virile organization, of 
 such a fine education, and so changeable a style, but of such great 
 talent, who preserved no trace of its origin even in his name, 
 Antonio Moro, Hispaniarum regis pictor> as he was called, had 
 died in 1588. Those who lived were scarcely any longer Dutchmen, 
 nor were they better grouped, nor more capable of renewing the 
 school. They were the engraver Golzius ; Cornelis van Harlem, in 
 the style of Michael Angelo ; Bloemaert, the Correggian ; Mierevelt, 
 a good characteristic painter, learned, correct, and concise, a little 
 cold, but savoring of his time, though not much of his country,
 
 ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THE DUTCH SCHOOL. 12$ 
 
 the only one, however, who was not an Italian, and who was, take 
 notice, a portrait painter. 
 
 It was the destiny of Holland to love what is like, to return to it 
 from time to time, to survive and save itself by the portrait. 
 
 However, the end of the sixteenth century approached, and, taking 
 the portrait painters as a foundation, other painters were born or 
 were formed. From 1560 to 1597 quite a number of these new births 
 may be observed ; already there was a half-awakening. Thanks 
 to many dissimilarities, and consequently to many aptitudes in dif- 
 ferent directions, the attempts were designed according to the ten- 
 dency, and the roads to be pursued multiplied They compelled 
 themselves to try all things and all scales ; there was a division 
 between the light manner and the brown manner ; the light was 
 defended by the draughtsmen, the brown inaugurated by the color- 
 ists and advised by the Italian Caravaggio. They entered into the 
 picturesque, they undertook to regulate chiaroscuro. The palette 
 and the hand became emancipated. Rembrandt already had direct 
 forerunners. Genre painting, properly so called, released itself from 
 the obligations of history ; very nearly the final expression of mod- 
 ern landscape was approached. Finally, a style almost historical 
 and profoundly national was created, the civic picture, and it was 
 with this acquisition, the most decided of all, that the sixteenth cen- 
 tury ended and the seventeenth began. 
 
 In that order of great canvases with numerous portraits, like the 
 doelen or regentenstukken? to follow the rigorous appellation of these 
 
 Corporation or Regents' pictures. T.
 
 126 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 particularly Dutch works, other things may be found, but none 
 better. 
 
 Here, as we see, are the germs of a school, but not yet a school. 
 Talent is not wanting ; it abounds. Among these painters on the high 
 road to acquire and decide, were learned artists, even one or two 
 great painters. Moreelze, issue of Mierevelt, Jan Ravesteyn, Last- 
 man, Pinas, Frans Hals, an incontestable master, Poelemburg, Van 
 Schotten, Van de "V^enne, Theodore de Keyser, Honthorst, the elder 
 Cuyp, finally, Esaias van de Velde and Van Goyen, had their names 
 
 on the birth register in this year 1597. I quote their names without 
 other explanation. You will easily recognize in this list those whom 
 history was to remember, and you will especially distinguish the 
 attempts they individually represent, the future masters whom they 
 foretell, and you will understand what Holland still lacked, and what 
 it was indispensably necessary she should possess, under penalty 
 of letting her high hopes be lost. 
 
 The moment was critical. Here there was no assured political 
 existence, and as a result everything else was in the hands of 
 chance ; in Flanders, on the contrary, was the same awakening, with 
 a certainty of life that Holland was far from having acquired. Flan- 
 ders was crammed with painters ready made or nearly so. At this 
 very hour she was about to found another school, the second in a little 
 more than a century, as brilliant as the first, and as a neighbor quite 
 otherwise dangerous, for it was extraordinarily novel and dominant. 
 It had a supportable, better inspired government, old habits, a definite 
 and more compact organization, traditions, and a society. To the
 
 ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THE DUTCH SCHOOL. 127 
 
 impulses received from above were added the needs of luxury, and con- 
 sequently artistic needs more exciting than ever. In a word, the most 
 energetic stimulus and the most powerful reasons were driving Flan- 
 ders into becoming for the second time a great centre of art. It 
 was about to have some years of peace ; and a master to constitute 
 the school was found. 
 
 In this very year 1609, which was to decide the fate of Holland, 
 Rubens entered upon the scene. 
 
 Everything depended upon a political or military accident. Beaten 
 and submissive, Holland was subject in every sense. Why should 
 there be two distinct arts among the same people under one rule ? 
 Why should there be a school at Amsterdam, and what was to 
 be its role in a country vowed henceforth to Italo-Flemish inspi- 
 ration ? What was to become of its vocation, so spontaneous, free, 
 and provincial, so little fitted for a state art ? Admitting that 
 Rembrandt would have persisted in a style very difficult to practise 
 away from its own home, can you imagine him belonging to the Ant- 
 werp school; which had not ceased to reign from Brabant to Fries- 
 land, a pupil of Rubens painting for cathedrals, decorating palaces, 
 and pensioned by archdukes? 
 
 In order that the Dutch people might come into the world, and 
 that Dutch art might be born on the same day with it, it was neces- 
 sary and this is why their two histories are so united that there 
 should be a revolution that should be profound and successful. It 
 was necessary, besides, and*this was the most marked claim of Hol- 
 land to the favors of fortune, that this revolution should have for
 
 128 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 itself right, reason, and necessity, and that the people should deserve 
 what they wished to obtain ; that they should be resolute, convinced, 
 laborious, patient, heroic, wise, and without useless turbulence ; and 
 that in every respect they should show that they were worthy to own 
 themselves. 
 
 It might be said that Providence had its eye upon this little nation, 
 that it examined its complaints, weighed its claims, became persuaded 
 of its force, judged that all was according to its design, and performed, 
 when the day came, in its favor a unique miracle. War, instead of 
 impoverishing it, enriched it ; struggles, instead of enervating, forti- 
 fied, exalted, and tempered it. That which it had accomplished 
 against so many physical obstacles, the sea, the inundated land, 
 the climate, it did against the enemy. It succeeded. That which 
 ought to have destroyed it, aided it. It had anxiety on but one 
 point, the certainty of its existence, and it signed, thirty years apart, 
 two treaties which first set it free and then consolidated it. There only 
 remained, to confirm its own existence and to give to it the lustre of 
 other prosperous civilizations, the instantaneous production of an art 
 which consecrates it, honors and intimately represents it, and this 
 was found to be the result of the twelve years' armistice. This 
 result is so prompt, so decidedly the issue of the political incident to 
 which it corresponds, that the right of having a free and national 
 school of painting, and the certainty of having it on the morrow of 
 the peace, seem to form a part of the stipulations of the treaty 
 of 1609. 
 
 At that very moment a lull is felt. A breath of more propitious
 
 ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THE DUTCH SCHOOL. 129 
 
 temperature has passed over men's minds, revived the soil, found 
 germs ready to burst, and made them sprout. As always happens 
 in spring at the North, with its sudden vegetation, and quick ex- 
 pansion after the mortal cold of its long winter, it is truly an un- 
 looked for spectacle to see appear, in so little time, hardly thirty 
 years, in such a small space, upon this ungrateful and desert soil, 
 in this dreary spot, amid the rigor of all things, such a growth of 
 painters, and great painters. 
 
 They were born everywhere at once, at Amsterdam, at Dordrecht, 
 at Leyden, Delft, Utrecht, Rotterdam, Enkhuysen, Haarlem, some- 
 times even beyond the frontiers, like a seed that has fallen outside 
 the field. Two alone preceded the hour, Van Goyen, born in 1596, 
 and Wynants in 1600. rCuyjD came in 1605. The year 1608, one of 
 the most fruitful, saw the birth of Terburg, Brouwer, and Rembrandt, 
 within a few months. Adrian van Ostade, the two Boths, and 
 Ferdinand Bol were born in 1610 ; Van der Heist and Gerhard 
 Douw, in 1613 ; Metzu, in 1615 ; Aart van der Neer, from 1613 to 
 1619; Wouvermans, in 1620; Weenix, Everdingen, and Pynaker, in 
 1621 ; Berghem, in 1624; Paul Potter illustrates the year 1625 ; Jan 
 Steen, the year 1626 ; and the year 1630 became forever memorable 
 for having produced, next to Claude Lorraine, the greatest landscape 
 painter in the world, Jacob Ruysdael. 
 
 Is the stem exhausted ? Not yet. Pieter de Hoogh!s birth is un- 
 certain, but it can be placed between 1630 and 1635 ; Hobbema is 
 a contemporary of Ruysdael ; Van der Heyden was born in 1637 ; 
 and, finally, Adrian van de Velde, the last of all the great ones, 
 
 9
 
 130 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 was born in 1639. The verv y ear that this late shoot sprouted, 
 Rembrandt was thirty years old ; and, taking for a central date the 
 year in which appeared his Lesson in Anatomy, 1632, you can state 
 that twenty-three years after the official recognition of the United 
 Provinces, with the exception of a few tardy members, the Dutch 
 School attained its first blossoming. Taking history from this mo- 
 ment, we know what to expect from the aims, character, and future 
 destiny of the school ; but before Van Goyen and Wynants had 
 opened the way, before Terburg, Metzu, Cuyp, Ostade, and Rem- 
 brandt had shown what they meant to do, it might well be asked 
 what painters were going to paint at such a time, in such a country. 
 
 The revolution which had just rendered the Dutch people free, 
 rich, and prompt for all undertakings, had despoiled them of what 
 elsewhere formed the vital element of the great schools. It changed 
 beliefs, suppressed needs, reduced habits, stripped walls, abolished 
 the representation of antique fables as well as the gospel ; cut short 
 those vast enterprises of mind and hand, church pictures, decorative 
 pictures, and large pictures. Never did a country set before artists 
 so singular an alternative by constraining them expressly to be 
 original, under penalty of not existing. 
 
 This was the problem: Given a .nation of burghers, practical, un- 
 imaginative, busy, not in the least mystical, of anti-Latin mind, with 
 traditions destroyed, with a worship without images, and parsi- 
 monious habits, to find an art which should please it, that should 
 seize its conventionalities, and represent it. A writer of our time, 
 very enlightened in such matters, has wittily replied that such a
 
 ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THE DUTCH SCHOOL. 131 
 
 people had but one thing to propose, a very simple and very bold 
 thing, and moreover the only one in which their artists had con- 
 stantly succeeded for fifty years, and that was to require that they 
 should paint its portrait. 
 
 This phrase says everything. Dutch painting, it is quickly per- 
 ceived, was and could be only the portrait of Holland, its exterior 
 image, faithful, exact, complete, and like, with no embellishment. 
 Portraits of men and places, citizen habits, squares, streets, country 
 places, the sea and sky, such was to be, reduced to its primitive 
 elements, the programme followed by the Dutch School, and such 
 it was from its first day to the day of its decline. In appearance 
 nothing can be more simple than the discovery of this art of earthly 
 aim ; but until they tried to paint it, nothing had been imagined 
 equally vast and more novel. 
 
 At a blow everything was changed in the manner of conceiving, 
 seeing, and rendering, point of view, ideal, poetry, choice of subject, 
 style, and method. Italian painting in its finest moments, Flemish 
 painting in its noblest efforts, were not a sealed letter, for they were 
 still enjoyed ; but they were a dead letter because they were to be 
 no longer consulted. 
 
 There existed a habit of high thinking, of thinking grandly, an 
 art that consisted in the choice of things, and in embellishing and 
 rectifying them, which lived in the absolute rather than in the rela- 
 tive, perceiving nature as it is, but preferring to exhibit it as it is 
 not. Everything related more or less to the human being, depended 
 upon it, was subordinate to it, or imitated from it, because, in fact,
 
 132 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 certain laws of proportion and certain attributes, such as grace, 
 force, nobility, and beauty, intelligently studied in man and reduced 
 into a body of doctrines, could be applied equally to what was not 
 man. Thence resulted a sort of universal humanity, or humanized 
 universe, of which the human body, in its ideal proportions, was the 
 prototype. In history, visions, beliefs, dogmas, myths, symbols, and 
 emblems, the human form almost alone expressed everything that 
 could be expressed by itself. Nature existed vaguely around this 
 absorbing being. It was barely considered as a frame which would 
 diminish and disappear of itself when man should take his place in 
 it. Everything was elimination and synthesis. As it was necessary 
 that each object should borrow its plastic form from the same ideal, 
 nothing modified it. Then, by virtue of these laws of the historical 
 style, it was agreed that planes should be reduced, horizons abridged ; 
 that trees should be expressed broadly ; that the sky should be less 
 changeable, the atmosphere more limpid and equable ; and that man 
 should be more like himself, oftener naked than clothed, more habitu- 
 ally of lofty stature and fair countenance, to play his r61e in the most 
 sovereign manner. 
 
 Now the theme had become more simple. It was necessary to 
 give everything its own interest, to restore man to his proper place, 
 and at need to dispense with him altogether. The moment had 
 come for thinking less, for aiming less high, for more closely examin- 
 ing, for observing better, and for painting as well, but differently. It 
 was painting for the crowd, consisting of the citizen, the working-man, 
 the upstart, and the first comer, entirely made for them and made
 
 ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THE DUTCH SCHOOL. 133 
 
 of them. It was necessary to become humble for humble things, 
 little for little things, subtle for subtleties ; to welcome all without 
 omission or disdain ; to enter into their intimacy familiarly, and 
 affectionately into their habits ; it was to be a matter of sympathy, 
 of attentive curiosity, and patience. Henceforth genius was to con- 
 sist of lack of prejudice, of not knowing what one knows, of letting 
 the model be a surprise, and only asking him how he wished to be 
 represented. As to embellishing, never ; ennobling, never ; cor- 
 recting, never ; they would but be so many lies or so much useless 
 labor. Was there not, in every artist worthy of the name, an in- 
 describable something which would undertake this care naturally 
 and without effort ? 
 
 Even within the boundaries of the Seven Provinces the field of 
 observation is unlimited. A corner of land in the North, with its 
 waters, woods, and maritime horizon, may be called an abridgment 
 of the universe. In its relations to the tastes and the instincts of 
 the observer, the smallest country, scrupulously studied, becomes an 
 inexhaustible repertory, as crowded as life, as fertile in sensations as 
 the heart of man is fertile in ways of feeling. The Dutch School 
 might grow and work for a hundred years, and Holland would still 
 have enough to satisfy the indefatigable curiosity of her painters, so 
 long as their love for her was unextinguished. 
 
 There is enough there, without going out of the pastures and 
 polders, to gratify all inclinations. There are things made for the 
 delicate as well as the coarse, for the melancholy, the ardent, for 
 those who love laughing and those who care to dream. There are
 
 134 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 dark days and joyous sunshine, level and shining seas, and black and 
 stormy ones ; there are pastures and farms, seacoasts with their ships, / 
 and almost always the visible movement of the air through space, 
 and ever the great winds of the Zuyder Zee, piling up clouds, bending 
 trees, driving before them lights and shadows, and turning windmills.^ 
 Add to these the towns and their exteriors, existence within doors 
 and without, the fairs, intemperance and debauchery, good-breeding 
 and elegance ; the distresses of poverty, the horrors of winter, the 
 disarray of taverns with tobacco, pots of beer, and laughing waiting- 
 maids, trades and suspicious places on every floor, on one side 
 the security of home, the benefits of labor, abundance in fertile fields, 
 the charm of living out of doors, with business affairs, cavalcades, 
 siestas, and hunts. Add to these public life, civic ceremonies, and 
 civic banquets, and you will have the elements of a wholly new art 
 with subjects as old as the world. 
 
 Thence comes a most harmonious unity in the spirit of the school, 
 and the most surprising diversity yet produced in the same spirit. 
 
 The school in its entirety is called the school of genre painting. 
 Dissect it, and you will find painters of conversations, of landscapes, 
 animals, marines, official pictures, still life, flowers ; and in each cate- 
 gory, almost as many subgenera as temperaments, from the pictu- 
 resque to the ideal painters, from the copyists to the arrangers, from 
 travellers to sedentaries, from the humorists who are amused and 
 captivated by the human comedy, to those who flee from it ; from 
 Brouwer and Van Ostade to Ruysdael ; from the impassive Paul 
 Potter to the turbulent and riotous Jan Steen; from the gay and
 
 ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THE DUTCH SCHOOL. 135 
 
 witty Van de Velde, to that morose and mighty dreamer, who with- 
 out living apart had no relations with any of them, repeated none 
 of them, but was the summing up of them all ; who seemed to be 
 painting his epoch, his country, his friends and himself, but who 
 at bottom painted only one of the unknown recesses of the human 
 soul. I speak, as you must know, of Rembrandt. 
 
 From such a point of view, such a style ; and from such a style, 
 such a method. If you omit Rembrandt, who is an exception at 
 home as elsewhere, in his own time as in all times, you perceive but 
 one style and one method in all the studios in Holland. The aim 
 is to imitate what is, to make what is imitated charming, to clearly 
 express simple, lively, and true sensations. Thus the style has the 
 simplicity and clearness of the principle. It has for law, sincerity ; 
 for obligation, truth. Its first condition is to be familiar, natural, and 
 characteristic, whence results a whole of moral qualities, innocent 
 simplicity, patient will, and directness. It might be called the trans- 
 portation of domestic virtues from private life into the practice of 
 art, serving equally well for good conduct and good painting. 
 
 Remove from Dutch art what might be called probity, and you 
 would no longer comprehend its vital element ; it would be im- 
 possible afterwards to define either its morality or its style. But, 
 even as in the most practical life there are springs of action which 
 elevate behavior, thus in this art, reputed so positive, among these 
 painters considered for the most part as near-sighted copyists, you 
 feel a loftiness and goodness of soul, a tenderness for the true, a 
 cordiality for the real, which give to their works a value that the
 
 136 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 things themselves do not seem to have. Hence their ideality, an 
 ideal a little misunderstood, rather despised, but indisputable for him 
 who can seize it, and very attractive to him who knows how to relish 
 it At times a grain of warmer sensibility makes of them thinkers, 
 even poets, on occasion, and I will tell you in what rank in our 
 history of art I place the style and inspiration of Ruysdael. 
 
 The basis of this sincere style and the first effect of this probity 
 is the drawing, the perfect drawing. Every Dutch painter who does 
 not draw faultlessly is to be despised. There are some, like Paul 
 Potter, whose genius consists in taking measures, in following a 
 feature. Elsewhere, and in his own manner, Holbein did nothing 
 else, which constitutes for him, within and outside of all the schools, 
 an almost unique glory, entirely his own. Every object, thanks to 
 the interest it offers, must be examined in its form, and drawn before 
 it is painted. Nothing is secondary in this connection. A bit of 
 ground with its vanishing points, a cloud with its movement, archi- 
 tecture with its laws of perspective, a face with its expression, dis- 
 tinctive features, passing changes, a hand with its gesture, a garment 
 with its habitual look, an animal, with its bearing, its frame, the 
 intimate character of its race and instincts, all these, with equal 
 rights, form a part of this levelling art, and play, so to speak, the 
 same part in the design. 
 
 For ages it was believed, and it is still believed in many schools, 
 that it is sufficient to extend aerial tints, to shade them sometimes 
 with azure and sometimes with gray, to express the grandeur of 
 spaces, the height of the zenith, and the ordinary changes of the
 
 ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THE DUTCH SCHOOL. 137 
 
 atmosphere. Now, consider that in Holland the sky is often half, 
 and sometimes the whole picture, and that here the interest must 
 be divided or misplaced. The sky must move and transport us, lift 
 and excite us ; the sun must set, the moon must rise ; it must be 
 actually day, or evening, or night ; it must be warm or cold ; one must 
 shiver, or rejoice, or meditate in it. If the drawing applied to such 
 problems be not the noblest of all, at least we can easily be con- 
 vinced that it is neither without depth nor without merit. 
 
 And if the science and the genius of Ruysdael and Van de Veer 
 were doubted, the whole world might be searched in vain for a 
 painter who could paint a sky as they did, or express so many things, 
 and express them so well. Everywhere we find the same drawing, 
 strict, concise, precise, natural, and simple, seemingly the fruit of 
 daily observation, which, as I have made you understand, is skilled 
 labor, not known to all the world. 
 
 The particular charm of this ingenuous knowledge, of this experi- 
 ence without self-conscious airs, the ordinary merit and the true 
 style of these kindly souls, may be summed up in a word. More 
 or less skilful they may be, but there is not one pedant among 
 them. 
 
 As to their palette, it is as good as their drawing ; it is worth 
 neither more nor less, whence results the perfect unity of their 
 method. All the Dutch painters paint in the same way, and no- 
 body has painted or can paint as they did. If you examine closely 
 a Teniers, a Breughel, or a Paul Bril, it can be seen, in spite of a 
 certain analogy of character and aim which are nearly similar, that
 
 138 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 neither Paul Bril, nor Breughel, nor even Teniers, the most Dutch 
 of all the Flemings, had the Dutch education. 
 
 It is a painting made with application, with order, which denotes 
 a well-poised hand, and labor executed while sitting, which presup- 
 poses perfect composure, and inspires it in those who study it. The 
 mind meditated to conceive it ; the mind meditates to comprehend 
 it. There is a certain action, easy to follow, of exterior objects upon 
 the painter's eye, and through it upon his brain. No painting gives 
 a clearer idea of the triple and silent operation of feeling, reflecting, 
 and expressing. Nor is any other more condensed, because none 
 contains more things in so little space, nor is obliged to express so 
 much in so small a frame. 
 
 From that, everything takes a more precise, more concise form, 
 and a greater density. The color is stronger, the drawing more 
 intimate, the effect more central, the interest better circumscribed. 
 Never do these pictures spread out, nor do they risk being con- 
 founded with the frame or escaping from it. The ignorance or the 
 perfect ingenuousness of Paul Potter must be possessed, to take so 
 little care about the organization of a picture by effect, which seems 
 to be a fundamental law in the art of his country. 
 
 All Dutch painting is concave ; that is, it is composed of curves 
 described around a point determined by the interest, circular shad- 
 ows around a dominant light. It is drawn, colored, and lighted like 
 an orb with a heavy base, a tapering summit, and rounded corners 
 converging to the centre, whence result its depth and the dis- 
 tance from the eye of the objects reproduced in it. No painting
 
 ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THE DUTCH SCHOOL. 139 
 
 leads with greater certainty from the foreground to the distance, 
 from the frame to the horizon. It can be dwelt in, moved about 
 in ; you look into its depths, and lift your eyes to measure its sky. 
 Everything contributes to this illusion, the severity of the aerial 
 perspective, the perfect relation of color and values to the plane 
 occupied by the object. All painting foreign to this school of open 
 sky, of aerial surroundings, of distant effects, produces pictures 
 which seem flat upon the canvas. With rare exceptions, Teniers, 
 in his open-air pictures with bright scales of color, derives his style 
 from Rubens ; he has his spirit and ardor, his rather superficial 
 touch, his work, more elaborate than intimate ; or, to force the ex- 
 pression, it might be said that he decorates, and does not paint 
 profoundly. 
 
 I have not said all, but I must stop. To be complete, every one 
 of the elements of this art, so simple and so complex, should be ex- 
 amined one after the other. The Dutch palette should be studied, 
 and an examination made of its basis, its resources, extent, and use, 
 to know and say why it is so reduced, almost monochromatic, and 
 yet so rich in its results, common to all and yet varied ; why its 
 lights are so rare and narrow, the shadows dominant ; what is the 
 most ordinary law of that lighting which is so contrary to natural 
 laws, especially out of doors. And it would be interesting to de- 
 termine how much this conscientious painting contains of art, of 
 combinations, of necessary measures, of systems almost always in- 
 genious. 
 
 Finally would come the handiwork, the skill with .tools, the care,
 
 140 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 the extraordinary care ; the use of smooth surfaces, the thinnesf of 
 the paints, their radiant quality, the gleam of metal and precivus 
 stones. It would be necessary to seek out how these excellent 
 masters divided their labor, if they painted on light or dark under- 
 tints, or if, according to the example of the primitive schools, they 
 colored solidly or glazed. 
 
 All these questions, especially the last, have been the subject of 
 many conjectures, and have never been elucidated nor solved. 
 
 But these running notes are neither a profound study, nor a 
 treatise, nor a course of lectures. The idea that is commonly held 
 of Dutch painting, and that I have tried to sum up, suffices to wholly 
 distinguish it from others, and the idea of the Dutch painter at his 
 easel is equally true and expressive in ail points. One imagines an 
 attentive man, a little bent, with a fresh palette, clear oil, brushes 
 clean and fine, a reflective air, and a prudent hand, painting in a 
 half-light, and this man is an especial enemy of dust. If they may 
 all be judged by Gerhard Douw and Mieris, that is about what they 
 were; the picture is like. They were possibly less fastidious than 
 is believed, and laughed more freely than is supposed. Genius did 
 not radiate otherwise in the professional order of their good habits. 
 Van Goyen and Wynants, from the beginning of the century, had 
 fixed certain laws. These lessons were transmitted from masters 
 to pupils, and for a hundred years, with no variation, they lived on 
 this fund.
 
 III. 
 
 THE VIJVER. 
 
 THIS evening, weary of reviewing so many painted canvases, of 
 admiring and disputing with myself, I took a walk along the edge 
 of the Vijver, or Pond. 
 
 Reaching it towards the end of the day, I remained until a late 
 hour. It is a peculiar place, very solitary, and not without melancholy 
 at such an hour, when one is a stranger abandoned by the escort of 
 joyous years. Imagine a great basin between straight quays and 
 black palaces, on the right, a deserted promenade shaded with 
 trees ; beyond, closed houses ; on the left, the Binnenhof, with its 
 foundation in the water, its brick facade, slate roof, morose aspect, 
 its physiognomy of another age and yet of all ages, its tragic memo- 
 ries, and, finally, I know not what, something that belongs to 
 certain places inhabited by history. Far away is the spire of the 
 cathedral, hidden towards the north, already chilled by night, and 
 drawn like a light wash of colorless tint ; in the pond a green 
 island, and two swans swimming softly in the shadow of the banks, 
 and tracing only very slight ripples in it ; above are swallows flying 
 high and swiftly in the evening air. There is perfect silence, pro-
 
 142 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND, 
 
 found repose, a total forgetfulness of things present or past. Exact, 
 but colorless reflections sink to the very bottom of the slumbering 
 water, like the half-dead immobility of reminiscence that a far re- 
 moved life has fixed in a memory three quarters extinct. 
 
 I looked at the Museum, the Mauritshuis, which forms the southern 
 angle of the Vijver, and terminates at this point the taciturn line 
 of the Binnenhof, whose purple brickwork is this evening full of 
 gloom. The same silence, the same shadow, the same desolation, 
 envelop all the phantoms shut up in the Palace of the Stadtholders, 
 or in the Museum. I thought of what the Mauritshuis contained, 
 I thought of what had passed in the Binnenhof. In the first were 
 Rembrandt and Paul Potter ; but here abode William of Orange, 
 Barneveldt, the brothers De Witt, Maurice of Nassau, Heinsius, 
 all memorable names. Add to them the memory of the States 
 General, that assembly chosen by the country, within the country, 
 from those citizens who were most enlightened, most vigilant, most 
 resisting, most heroic ; that living part, that soul of the Dutch 
 people which lived within these walls, and there renewed itself, ever 
 equable and constant, holding its sittings there during the stormiest 
 fifty years that Holland ever knew, holding its own against Spain 
 and England, dictating conditions to Louis XIV., and without which 
 neither William nor Maurice nor the grand Pensionaries would have 
 been aught. 
 
 To-morrow, at ten o'clock, a few pilgrims will knock at the door 
 of the Museum. At the same hour there will be no one in the 
 Binnenhof nor in the Buitenhof, and no one, I fancy, will visit the
 
 THE VIJVER. 143 
 
 Knights' Hall, where there are so many spiders, showing how great 
 is its ordinary solitude. 
 
 Admitting that Fame, who, it is said, watches night and day over 
 all glory, descends here, and rests somewhere, where do you think that 
 she arrests her flight ? Over which palace does she fold her golden 
 wings, her weary pinions ? Over the palace of the States General, or 
 over the house of Potter and of Rembrandt ? What a singular distri- 
 bution of favor and forgetfulness ! Why such curiosity to see a pic- 
 ture, and so little interest in a great public life ? Here were mighty 
 statesmen, great citizens, revolutions, coups-d'etat, tortures, martyr- 
 doms, controversies, intestine commotions, all those things which 
 combine at the birth of a people, when this people belongs to another 
 people from which it tears itself away, to a religion that it transforms, 
 to an European political state from which it separates, and which it 
 seems to condemn by the very fact of separation. All this history 
 recounts ; does the country remember it ? Where do you find living 
 echoes of these extraordinary emotions ? 
 
 At the same moment a very young man was painting a bull in 
 a pasture ; and another, to make himself agreeable to a physician, 
 one of his friends, was representing him in a dissecting-room sur- 
 rounded by his pupils with the scalpel in the arm of a corpse. By 
 so doing they gave immortality to their name, their school, their 
 century, and their country. 
 
 To whom then belongs our gratitude ? To what is worthiest, 
 to what is truest? No. To what is greatest? Sometimes. To 
 what is most beautiful? Always. What then is the beautiful,
 
 144 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 this great lever, this powerful moving spring, this mighty magnet, 
 that may almost be called the sole attraction of history ? Is it 
 nearer than any ideal on which in spite of himself man has cast 
 his eyes ? Is the great so seductive only because it is more easy 
 to confound it with the beautiful ? It is necessary to be very ad- 
 vanced in morals, or very learned in metaphysics, to say of a good 
 action or of a truth that it is beautiful. The most simple man says 
 it of a grand deed. At bottom, we naturally love only what is 
 beautiful. Imagination turns thither, sensibility is excited by it, 
 all hearts precipitate themselves towards it. If we seek carefully 
 for what the mass of mankind loves most voluntarily, it may be 
 seen that it is not what touches, nor what convinces, nor what 
 edifies it ; it is what charms it, and excites its wonder. 
 
 Thus, when an historical personage has not in his life this element 
 of powerful attraction, we say that he lacks something. He is 
 understood by moralists and learned men, unknown to others. If 
 the contrary happens, his memory is safe. A people disappears, 
 with its laws, morals, its policy, and its conquests ; there remains 
 of its history but one piece of marble or bronze, and that witness 
 survives. There was a man, a very great man by his lights, his 
 courage, his political judgment, by his public acts ; but perhaps 
 his name might not have been known if he had not been embalmed 
 in literature, and if some sculptor friend had not been employed by 
 him to adorn the pediment of a temple. Another was a coxcomb, 
 light, dissipated, witty, a libertine, valiant at times ; but he is spoken 
 of oftener and more universally than Solon or Plato, Socrates or
 
 THE VIJVER. 145 
 
 Themistocles. Was he wiser or braver ? Did he better serve truth, 
 justice, and the interests of his country ? He had, above all, the 
 charm of having passionately loved the beautiful, women, books, 
 pictures, and statues. Another was an unfortunate general, a me- 
 diocre statesman, a heedless chief of an empire ; but he had the good 
 luck to love one of the most seductive women in history, a woman 
 
 who was, it is said, beauty itself. 
 
 
 
 About ten o'clock the rain fell. It was night ; the pond gleamed 
 almost imperceptibly, like a remnant of aerial twilight forgotten in 
 a corner of the town. Fame did not appear. I know what may be 
 the objections to her preferences, and it is not my purpose to judge 
 them.
 
 IV. 
 
 THE SUBJECT IN DUTCH PAINTING. 
 
 ONE thing strikes you in studying the moral foundation of Dutch 
 art, and that is the total absence of what we call now a subject. 
 
 From the day when painting ceased to borrow from Italy its style, 
 its poetry, its taste for history, for mythology and Christian legends, 
 up to the moment of decadence, when it returned thither, from 
 Bloemaert and De Poelemburg to Lairesse, Philippe Vandyck, and 
 later Troost, more than a century elapsed, during which the great 
 Dutch School appeared to think of nothing but painting well. It 
 was content to look around it, and to dispense with imagination. 
 Nudities, which were out of place in this representation of real life, 
 disappeared. Ancient history was forgotten, and contemporaneous 
 history too, which is the most singular phenomenon. There is 
 hardly to be perceived, drowned in this vast sea of genre scenes, 
 one picture like Terburg's Peace of Munster, or some few deeds 
 of the maritime wars, represented by vessels cannonading each 
 other, for instance, an Arrival of Maurice of Nassau at Scheve- 
 ningen (Cuyp, Six Museum) ; a Departure of Charles II., from
 
 THE SUBJECT IN DUTCH PAINTING. 147 
 
 Scheveningen (June 2, 1660), by Lingelbach, and this Lingelbach 
 is a sorry painter. The great artists hardly treated such subjects. 
 And apart from the painters of marines, or of exclusively military 
 pictures, not even one of them seemed to have any aptitude for 
 treating them. Van der Meulen, that fine painter, issue by Snayers 
 of the School of Antwerp, a thorough Fleming, though adopted by 
 France, pensioned by Louis XIV., and the historiographer of our 
 French glories, gave to the Dutch anecdote painters a very seductive 
 example, followed by nobody. The great civic representations of 
 Ravesteyn, Hals, Van der Heist, Flinck, Karel Dujardin, and others, 
 are, as is well known, portrait pictures, where the action is unim- 
 portant, and which, although historical documents of great interest, 
 take no place in the history of the time. 
 
 In thinking of the events contained in the history of the seven- 
 teenth century in Holland, the gravity of the military deeds, the 
 energy of this people of soldiers and sailors in their fights, and 
 what they suffered, in imagining the spectacle that the country 
 must have offered in those terrible times, one is filled with surprise 
 to see their painting thus indifferent to what was the very life of 
 the people. 
 
 There was fighting abroad by land and by sea, on the frontiers 
 and in the heart of the country ; at home they were tearing each 
 other to pieces. Barneveldt was decapitated in 1619 ; the brothers 
 De Witt were beheaded in 1672 ; fifty-three years apart, the strug- 
 gle between the Republicans and the Orangemen was complicated 
 with the same religious or philosophical discords, here Arminians
 
 148 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 against Gomarites, there Voetians against Cocceians,* bringing about 
 the same tragedies. There was a permanent war with Spain, with 
 England, with Louis XIV. Holland was invaded ; how she defended 
 herself is known : the peace of Munster was signed in 1648 ; the 
 peace of Nimeguen, in 1678 ; the peace of Ryswick, in 1698. The 
 war of the Spanish Succession opened with the new century, and 
 it can be said that all the painters of the grand and pacific school 
 of which I treat, died, having hardly ceased for a single day to hear 
 the cannon. What they were doing at that time, their works show. 
 The portrait painters painted their great warriors, their princes, their 
 most illustrious citizens, their poets, their writers, themselves or their 
 friends. The landscape painters inhabited the fields, dreaming, draw- 
 ing animals, copying huts, living a farm-life, painting trees, canals, 
 and skies, or they travelled ; they went to Italy and established a 
 colony there, met Claude Lorraine, forgot themselves at Rome, for- 
 got their country, and died like Karel, without recrossing the Alps. 
 Others scarcely came out of their studios but to frequent tav- 
 erns, to prowl about places of ill-fame, to study their manners 
 when they did not enter into them on their own account, which 
 rarely happened. 
 
 The war did not prevent peaceful life somewhere, and into that 
 tranquil and as it were indifferent corner they bore their easels, and 
 pursued, with a placidity that may well surprise, their meditations, 
 
 * F. Gomar, a celebrated Protestant minister of Bruges, 1563-1609, founded this sect. 
 J. Cocceius, an Orientalist and theologian of Bremen, 1603-1669, invented a very singular 
 system for the interpretation of the Bible. Gilbert Voet, Dutch theologian and controver- 
 sialist, 1593-1680, rendered himself odious by his persecutions of Descartes. TR.
 
 THE SUBJECT IN DUTCH PAINTING. 149 
 
 their studies, and their charming, smiling industry. And as every- 
 day life went on all the same, it was domestic habits, private, rustic, 
 or urban, that they undertook to paint in spite of everything, through 
 everything, to the exclusion of everything that caused the emotion, 
 anguish, patriotic effort, and grandeur of their country. Not a 
 trouble, not an anxiety, existed in this world so strangely sheltered, 
 that this might be taken for the golden age of Holland, if history 
 did not inform us to the contrary. 
 
 Their woods are tranquil, the highways secure, boats come and go 
 along the course of the canals ; rustic festivities have not ceased ; 
 on the threshold of beer-shops men smoke, while dancing goes on 
 within. There is hunting and fishing and promenading. A faint 
 still smoke issues from the roof of the little farmhouses, where 
 nothing savors of danger. Children go to school, and within the 
 dwellings there are the order, peace, and imperturbable security of 
 happy days. The seasons succeed each other ; there is skating on 
 the waters that were navigated, fire on the hearth ; doors are closed, 
 curtains drawn ; the asperities come from the climate and not from 
 man. It is always the regular course of things that nothing deranges, 
 and a permanent foundation of little daily facts with which they take 
 so much delight in composing their excellent pictures. 
 
 When a skilful painter of equestrian scenes shows us by chance 
 a canvas where horses are charging, men fighting with pistols and 
 swords, where they are stamping, struggling, and exterminating each 
 other quite fiercely, all this takes place in spots where war is out of 
 place, and danger not at home. These murders savor of fantastic
 
 150 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 anecdote, and it is perceived that the painter was not greatly moved 
 by them himself. It was the Italians, Berghem, Wouvermans, Lingel- 
 bach, the not over truthful painters of the picturesque, who perchance 
 amused themselves by painting these things. Where did they see 
 these fights ? on this side of, or beyond the mountains ? 
 
 There is something of Salvator Rosa, minus the style, in these 
 simulated skirmishes or grand battles, whose cause, moment, and 
 theatre are unknown ; nor is it very clear who are the parties en- 
 gaged. The titles of the pictures themselves indicate sufficiently 
 the part played by the imagination of the painters. The Hague 
 Museum possesses two great pages, very fine and very bloody, where 
 the blows fall thick, and wounds are not spared. One, by Berghem, 
 a very rare picture, astonishingly well executed, a tour de force 
 in action, tumult, the admirable order of the effect, and the per- 
 fection of the details, a canvas not at all historical, bears for 
 title, A Convoy Attacked in a Mountain Pass. The other, one 
 of the largest pictures that Wouvermans has signed, is entitled 
 A Great Battle. It recalls the picture at the Munich Pinacothek, 
 known as the Battle of Nordlingen ; but there is nothing more de- 
 cided in this, and the historically national value of this very remark- 
 able work is no better established than the veracity of Berghem's 
 picture. 
 
 Everywhere, besides, there are episodes of brigandage or anony- 
 mous fights which certainly were not lacking among them, and yet 
 they all have the appearance of being painted from hearsay, during 
 or after their journeys in the Apennines.
 
 THE SUBJECT IN DUTCH PAINTING. 151 
 
 Dutch history has not marked at all or so little that it amounts to 
 nothing the painting of those troubled times, and seems not to have 
 agitated the mind of the painters for a single moment. Note, more- 
 over, that even in such of their painting as is properly picturesque 
 and anecdotic, there is not the slightest anecdote to be perceived. 
 
 There is no well-determined subject, not one action that requires 
 reflection upon the composition or is expressive or particularly signifi- 
 cant. No invention, no scene which trenches upon the uniformity of 
 this existence of the fields or the town, commonplace, vulgar, devoid 
 of pursuits, of passions, one might almost say of sentiment. Drinking, 
 smoking, dancing, and kissing maids cannot be called very rare or 
 attractive incidents. Nor are milking cows, taking them to water, 
 and loading haycarts, notable accidents in a life of husbandry. 
 
 One is forever tempted to question these indifferent and phlegmatic 
 painters, and to ask them, Is there then nothing new ? nothing 
 in your barns and farms, nothing in your houses ? There has been 
 a high wind ; has it destroyed nothing ? There has been a thunder- 
 storm; has the lightning struck nothing, neither your fields, nor 
 roofs, nor laborers ? Children are born ; are there no birthdays ? 
 They die ; is there no mourning ? You marry ; are there no decent 
 rejoicings ? Do they never weep among you ? You have all been 
 lovers, but how do we know it ? You have suffered, you have pitied 
 the misery of others, you have had before your eyes all the wounds, 
 the pains, the calamities of human life ; where can it be discovered 
 that you have had one day of 'tenderness, of sorrow, or true pity? 
 Your time, like all others, has seen quarrels, passions, jealousies, gal-
 
 152 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 lant intrigues, and duels ; what do you show us of all those ? Plenty 
 of libertine behavior, drunkenness, coarseness, sordid idleness ; people 
 who embrace as if they were fighting, and here and there fisticuffs and 
 kicks exchanged in the exasperation of wine and love. You love chil- 
 dren, you flog them, they do mischief in a corner, and such are your 
 family pictures. 
 
 Compare epochs and countries. I do not speak of the contem- 
 porary German School, nor of the English School, where everything 
 was subject, art, intention, as in their dramas, comedies, and farces, 
 where painting is too impregnated with literature, since it lives but 
 for that and in the eyes of certain people dies of it, but take a 
 catalogue of a French exhibition, read the titles of the pictures, and 
 then look over those of the museums at Amsterdam and the Hague. 
 
 In France every picture which has not a title, and consequently 
 contains no subject, runs a great risk of being reckoned as a work 
 neither considered nor serious ; and that is not only for to-day, it has 
 been so for a hundred years. Since the day when Greuze imagined 
 the picture of sentiment, and with the great applause of Diderot 
 conceived a picture as a scene in a theatre is conceived, and put 
 into painting the homely dramas of the family, since that day what 
 do we see ? Has genre painting in France done anything but invent 
 scenes, compel history, illustrate literature, paint the past, paint the 
 present but little, contemporary France very little indeed, and give 
 us a great many curiosities of foreign manners and climates ? 
 
 It suffices to cite names to revive a long series of piquant and 
 beautiful works, ephemeral or ever celebrated, all signifying some-
 
 THE SUBJECT IN DUTCH PAINTING. 153 
 
 thing, representing all sorts of facts and sentiments, expressing pas- 
 sions or relating anecdotes, all having their principal person and 
 their hero, Granet, Bonington, Leopold Robert, Delaroche, Ary 
 Scheffer, Roqueplan, Decamps, Delacroix, I stop with the dead 
 artists. Do you remember the Francis I., Charles V., the Due de 
 Guise, Mignon, Margaret, The Lion Lover, the Vandyck at Lon- 
 don ; all the pages borrowed from Goethe, Shakespeare, Byron, and 
 Walter Scott, and from the history of Venice ; the Hamlets, Yoricks, 
 Macbeths, Mephistopheles, Polonius, The Giaour, Lara, Goetz de 
 Berlichingen, The Prisoner of Chillon, Ivanhoe, Quentin Durward, 
 The Bishop of Liege, and then The Foscari, Marino Faliero and The 
 Boat of Don Juan, and yet again The History of Samson, The Cimbri, 
 preceding the oriental curiosities ? And since, if we prepare a list 
 of the genre pictures that have year by year charmed, moved, and 
 impressed us, from the Scenes of the Inquisition, and the Colloquy 
 of Poissy, to Charles V. at St. Just, if we recall, I say, in these 
 last thirty years, whatever the French School has produced most 
 striking and honorable in genre painting, we shall find that the 
 dramatic, pathetic, romantic, historical, or sentimental element has 
 contributed almost as much as the painters' talent to the success 
 of their works. 
 
 Do you perceive anything like this in Holland ? The catalogues 
 are desperately insignificant and vague. The Spinner with Cattle at 
 the Hague, of Dujardin ; of Wouvermans, The Arrival at the Inn, 
 The Halt of the Hunters, The Country Riding School, The Hay 
 Wagon (a celebrated picture), A Camp, The Hunters' Rest, etc. ;
 
 154 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 of Berghem, A Boar Hunt, An Italian Ford, A Pastoral, etc. ; of 
 Metzu, we have The Hunter, The Lovers of Music ; of Terburg, 
 The Despatch ; and so on with Gerhard Douw, Ostade, Mieris, even 
 with Jan Steen, the most wide-awake of all, and the only one who, 
 by the profound or gross meaning of his anecdotes, is an inventor, 
 an ingenious caricaturist, a humorist of the family of Hogarth, and 
 a literary painter, almost a comic author in his facetiousness. The 
 finest works are concealed under titles of the same platitude. The 
 fine Metzu of the Van der Hoop Museum is called The Hunter's 
 Gift, and no one would suspect that the Rest by the Farm desig- 
 nates an incomparable Paul Potter, the pearl of the d'Aremberg 
 Gallery. We know what is meant by the Bull of Paul Potter, and 
 the still more celebrated Cow Admiring Herself, or the Cow of 
 St. Petersburg. As to the Anatomical Lecture, and the Night 
 Watch, I may be permitted to think that the significance of the 
 subject is not what assures to these two works the immortality 
 which they have acquired. 
 
 It seems, then, that everywhere but in the Dutch School are to 
 be found gifts of the heart and mind, sensibility, tenderness, gener- 
 ous sympathy for the dramas of history, extreme experience of those 
 of life, pathos, power to move, interest, unexpectedness, and in- 
 struction. And the school which has most exclusively occupied 
 itself with the real world seems the one of all that has most de- 
 spised moral interest, and while it is also the one which has most 
 passionately devoted itself to the study of the picturesque, it seems 
 less than any other to have discovered its living springs.
 
 THE SUBJECT IN DUTCH PAINTING. 1 55 
 
 What reason had a Dutch painter to make a picture ? None ; 
 and observe that no one ever asked him to do it. A peasant with 
 a nose swollen with wine looks at you with his big eye, and laughs 
 with all his teeth showing, while he lifts his jug ; if the thing is 
 well painted, it has its price. With us, if a subject is lacking, 
 there must be at least a true and lively sentiment and a percepti- 
 ble emotion in the painter to take its place. A landscape not 
 strongly tinted with the colors of a man is a failure. We do not 
 know, as Ruysdael did, how to make a picture of the rarest beauty, 
 of a stream of foaming water falling between brown rocks. An 
 animal in the pasture which has not its idea, as peasants say of the 
 instinct of brutes, is a thing not to be painted. 
 
 A very original painter of our time, an elevated soul, a sorrowful 
 spirit, a good heart, and a truly rural nature, has spoken of the 
 country and its country folk, of the asperity, the melancholy, and 
 the nobility of their labor, things that no Hollander would ever 
 have thought of finding.* He has said them in a slightly barbar- 
 ous language, and in formulas where the thought has more vigor 
 and clearness than the hand. We have been infinitely grateful to 
 him for his tendencies ; we have seen in him in French painting 
 something like the sensibility of a Burns less skilful in making him- 
 self understood. To sum up the account, has he, or has he not 
 made and left fine pictures ? Have his form and his language, I 
 mean the exterior envelope without which the works of the spirit 
 neither are nor live, have they the qualities necessary to consecrate 
 
 * Jean Franjois Millet. TR.
 
 156 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 him as a fine painter, and assure his living for a long time ? He is 
 a profound thinker beside Paul Potter and Cuyp, he is an attractive 
 dreamer compared to Terburg and Metzu ; he has something in- 
 contestably noble when we think of the trivialities of Steen, of 
 Ostade, and of Brouwer ; as a man he can put them all to the 
 blush, but as a painter does he equal them ? 
 
 What is the conclusion ? you ask. 
 
 First, is it necessary to conclude ? France has shown much in- 
 ventive genius, but few of the truly pictorial faculties. Holland has 
 imagined nothing, but she has painted miraculously well. This is 
 certainly a great difference. Does it follow that we must absolutely 
 choose between the qualities which are opposite in two peoples, as 
 if there were between them a certain contradiction which would 
 render them irreconcilable? I really do not know exactly. Till 
 now the thought has truly sustained only great plastic works. In 
 reducing itself to enter into works of medium order, it seems to 
 have lost its virtue. 
 
 Sensibility has saved some of them ; curiousness has destroyed a 
 great number ; mind has ruined them all. 
 
 Is this the conclusion to be drawn from the preceding observa- 
 tions ? Certainly another might be found, but to-day I do not per- 
 ceive it
 
 V. 
 
 PAUL POTTER. 
 
 WITH the Anatomical Lecture and the Night Watch, Paul Potter's 
 Bull is the most celebrated thing in Holland. The Hague Museum 
 owes to it a large part of the curiosity of which it is the object. It 
 is not the largest of Paul Potter's canvases, but it is at least the only 
 one of his large pictures which merits serious attention. The Bear 
 Hunt in the Amsterdam Museum, supposing it to be authentic, and 
 separating it from the repainting which disfigures it, was never any- 
 thing but the extravagance of a youth, the grossest error he ever 
 committed. The Bull is priceless. Estimating it according to the 
 actual value of the works of Paul Potter, no one doubts that if it were 
 put up for sale it would attain in the markets of Europe a fabulous price. 
 Is it, then, a fine picture ? Not at all. Does it deserve the impor- 
 tance attached to it ? Unquestionably. Is Paul Potter, then, a very 
 great painter ? Very great. Does it follow that he paints as well 
 as is supposed ? Not precisely. There is in this a misunderstanding 
 that it would be well to dispel. 
 
 On the day when the fictitious markets of which I speak shall be 
 opened, and consequently one will have the right to discuss without
 
 158 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 regard to merits this famous work, if any one dared to express the 
 truth, he would say about what follows : 
 
 " The reputation of the picture is at once very much exaggerated 
 and very legitimate ; it results from an ambiguity. It is considered 
 as an exceptional page of painting, which is an error. It is thought 
 to be an example to be followed, a model to copy, in which ignorant 
 generations can learn the technical secrets of their art. In that there 
 is also a mistake, the greatest mistake of all. The work is ugly, and 
 unconsidered ; the painting is monotonous, thick, heavy, pale, and 
 dry. The arrangement is of the utmost poverty. Unity is wanting 
 in this picture which begins nobody knows where, has no end, re- 
 ceives the light without being illuminated, distributes it at random, 
 escapes everywhere, and comes out of the frame, so entirely does 
 it seem to be painted flat upon the canvas. It is too full without 
 being entirely occupied. Neither lines, nor color, nor distribution 
 of effect give it those first conditions of existence indispensable to 
 every well-regulated work. The animals are ridiculous in form. The 
 dun cow with a white head is built of some hard substance. The 
 sheep and the ram are modelled in plaster. As to the shepherd, 
 no one defends him. Two parts only of the picture seem made to 
 be understood, the wide sky and the huge bull. The cloud is in its 
 true place ; it is lighted and colored as it should be, where it is ap- 
 propriate to the needs of the principal object, which it is made to 
 accompany, to give value to its relief. By a wise understanding 
 of the law of contrasts, the painter has greatly lowered the tone of 
 the light colors and the dark shadows of the animal. The darkest
 
 PAUL POTTER. 159 
 
 part is opposed to the light part of the sky, and that which is most 
 energetic and most trenchant in the brute to what is most limpid 
 in the atmosphere ; but this is hardly a merit, given the simplicity 
 of the problem. The rest is an accompaniment that might be cut 
 out without regret, greatly to the advantage of the picture." 
 
 This may seem a rough criticism, but it is exact. And yet public 
 opinion, less punctilious or more clairvoyant, would say that the sig- 
 nature was well worth the price. 
 
 Public opinion is never wholly mistaken. By uncertain roads, 
 often by the best selected ones, it arrives finally at the expression 
 of a true sentiment. When it is given to some one, the motives, 
 by virtue of which it is given, are not always the best, but there 
 are always other good reasons found, by virtue of which it has 
 been given wisely. It makes mistakes in titles, sometimes it takes 
 faults for merits ; it prizes a man for his way of working, which is 
 the least of his merits ; it may believe that a painter paints well 
 when he paints badly, because he paints minutely. What amazes 
 in Paul Potter is the imitation of objects pushed to an extreme. 
 It is ignored or it is not noticed in such a case that the painter's 
 soul is worth more than the work, and his manner of feeling infi- 
 nitely superior to the result. 
 
 When he painted the Bull in 1647, Paul Potter was only twenty- 
 three years old. He was a very young man, and according to what 
 is common among men of twenty-three, he was a mere child. To 
 what school did he belong ? To none. Had he had masters ? No 
 other teachers of his are known but his father, Pieter Simonsz
 
 160 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 Potter, an obscure painter, and Jacob de Weth, of Haarlem, who also 
 had not knowledge enough to act upon a pupil either for good or 
 evil Paul Potter found then, either around his cradle or in the 
 studio of his second master, nothing but simple advice and no doc- 
 trines ; but, strange to say, the pupil asked nothing further. Till 
 1647 Paul Potter lived between Amsterdam and Haarlem, that is 
 between Frans Hals and Rembrandt, in the heart of the most active, 
 the most stirring art, the richest in celebrated masters, that the world 
 has ever known, except in Italy in the preceding century. Teach- 
 ers were not wanting ; there was only the embarrassment of choice. 
 Wynants was forty-six years old ; Cuyp forty-two ; ferburg thirty- 
 nine ; Ostade thirty-seven ; Metzu thirty-two ; Wouvermans twenty- 
 seven ; Berghem, who was about his own age, was twenty-three. 
 Many of them, even the youngest, were members of the brotherhood 
 of St. Luke. Finally, the greatest of all, and the most illustrious, 
 Rembrandt, had already produced the Night Watch, and he was a 
 master who might have been a temptation. But what did Paul 
 Potter do? How did he isolate himself in the heart of this rich 
 and crowded school, where practical skill was extreme, talent uni- 
 versal, the manner of rendering rather similar, and yet, an exqui- 
 site thing in those beautiful days, the manner of feeling so very 
 individual? Had he co-disciples? None are seen. His friends 
 are unknown. He was born, but we hardly know the year with 
 exactitude. He awoke early ; at fourteen years signed a charming 
 etching ; at twenty-two, though ignorant on many points, he was 
 of unexampled maturity in others. He labored, and produced work
 
 PAUL POTTER. l6l 
 
 upon work, and some of them were admirable. He accumulated 
 them in a few years with haste and abundance, as if death was at 
 his heels, and yet with an application and a patience which make 
 this prodigious labor seem a miracle. He was married at an age 
 young for another, very late for him, for it was on July 3, 1650, and 
 on August 4, 1654, four years after, death took him, possessing all 
 his glory, but before he had learned his trade. What could be 
 simpler, briefer, more complete ? Take genius and no lessons, brave 
 study, an ingenuous and learned production resulting from attentive 
 observation and reflection, add to this a great natural charm, the 
 gentleness of a meditative mind, the application of a conscience 
 burdened with scruples, the melancholy inseparable from solitary 
 labor, and possibly the sadness of a man out of health, and you have 
 nearly imagined Paul Potter. 
 
 With the exception of the charm, in this respect the Bull at the 
 Hague represents him wonderfully. It is a great study, too great 
 from the point of view of good sense, but not too great for the re- 
 search which was its object, and for the instruction the painter 
 derived from it. 
 
 Remember that Paul Potter, when compared with his brilliant 
 contemporaries, was ignorant of all the cleverness of his trade. I 
 do not speak of the tricks which his candor never suspected. He 
 studied especially forms and their aspects, in their absolute sim- 
 plicity. The least artifice was an embarrassment that would have 
 disturbed him because it would have altered the clear sight of 
 things. A great bull in a vast plain, a wide sky, and, so to speak, 
 
 ii
 
 162 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 no horizon, what could be a better occasion for a student to learn 
 once for all a crowd of very difficult things, and to know them, as 
 they say, "by rule and measure ? The movement is simple, none 
 was necessary, the gesture true, the head admirably living. The 
 animal shows its age, its type, its character, temperament, length, 
 height, joints, bones, muscles, its hide rough or smooth, tangled or 
 curled, its loose or tight skin, all in perfection. The head, the eye, 
 the shoulders, the fore quarters, are from the point of view of a very 
 simple and powerful observer, and are a very rare piece of work, 
 perhaps unequalled. I do not say that the subject is beautiful, or 
 the color well chosen ; but matter and color are here too visibly 
 subordinate to the preoccupation of form, for much to be expected 
 in this regard, when the draughtsman has given us almost every- 
 thing in another. There is more ; the very tone, and the work upon 
 those parts that are violently observed, result in rendering nature 
 as it really is, in its relief, its shadows, its power, almost its mys- 
 teries themselves. It is not possible to have a more circumscribed 
 but most decided aim, or to attain it with more success. It is called 
 Paul Potter's Bull, but I affirm that that is not enough ; it might 
 be called trie Bull, and in my idea that would be the greatest eulo- 
 gium that could be pronounced upon this work so commonplace in 
 its weak parts, and yet so conclusive. 
 
 Almost all the pictures of Paul Potter have the same quality. 
 In most of them he proposes to himself to study some characteristic 
 accident of nature, or some new part of his art, and you can be cer- 
 tain that on that day he succeeded in knowing, and instantaneously
 
 PAUL POTTER. 163 
 
 rendering what he had learned. The Field, in the Louvre, of which 
 the principal object, the rusty gray ox, is the reproduction of a study 
 which was often to serve him, is also a very weak or a very strong" 
 picture, according as it is taken for a page from a master or for a 
 magnificent exercise by a scholar. The Field with Cattle, of the 
 Hague Museum, Shepherds and their Flock, and Orpheus charm- 
 ing the Animals, of the Amsterdam Museum, are, each in its own 
 kind, an occasion of study, a pretext for study, and not, as one might 
 be tempted to believe, one of those conceptions in which imagi- 
 nation plays the least rdle. They are animals closely examined, 
 grouped without much art, drawn in simple attitudes, or in diffi- 
 cult foreshortening, never in a very complicated or very striking 
 effect. 
 
 The labor is thin, hesitating, sometimes painful. The touch is a 
 little infantine. Paul Potter's eye, of a singular exactness, and a 
 penetration that nothing wearies, details, scrutinizes, expresses to 
 excess, never is fatigued, and never stops. Paul Potter ignores the 
 art of sacrifices, and he has not yet learned that things must be 
 sometimes understood and but half expressed. You recognize the ur- 
 gency of his brush, and the distracting embroidery which he employs 
 to render the compact foliage and thick grass of the fields. His 
 talent as a painter is the result of his talent as an engraver. To the 
 end of his life, in his most perfect works, he never ceased to paint 
 as one works with a burin. The tool becomes more supple, and 
 lends itself to other uses, but under the thickest paint one continues 
 to feel the fine point, the sharp-edged notches, and the biting touch.
 
 1 64 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND, 
 
 It is only gradually, with effort, by a progressive and entirely personal 
 education, that he learns to manage his palette like other people ; but 
 
 p 
 
 as soon as he succeeds he is superior. 
 
 By choosing certain pictures, of dates comprised between 1647 and 
 1652, the movement of his mind can be followed, as well as the mean- 
 ing of his studies and the nature of his investigations, and nearly 
 to a moment the almost exclusive preoccupation in which he was 
 plunged. 
 
 Thus the painter may be seen separating himself little by little 
 from the draughtsman, his color becoming more decided, his pal- 
 ette taking on a more learned arrangement ; finally, chiaroscuro is 
 born of itself in it, like a discovery for which this innocent spirit is 
 indebted to no one. 
 
 The extensive menagerie collected around a charmer in doublet 
 and boots, who is playing the lute, and is called Orpheus, is the 
 ingenious effort of a young man who is a stranger to all the secrets 
 of his school, but who is studying the varied effects of half-tint upon 
 the hair of animals. It is weak, but learned ; the observation is just, 
 the workmanship timid, the design charming. 
 
 In the Field with Cattle the result is still better ; the atmosphere 
 is excellent, the method alone has persisted in its infantine equality. 
 
 The Cow Admiring Herself is a study of light, of full light, made 
 about noon of a summer day. It is a very celebrated picture, and, 
 believe me, extremely weak, disconnected, complicated with a yel- 
 lowish light, which, although studied with unheard-of patience, has 
 on that account neither more interest nor more truth. It is full
 
 PAUL POTTER. 165 
 
 of uncertainty in its effect, and executed with an application which 
 betrays difficulty. I would omit this student's exercise, one of the 
 least successful he has attempted, if even in this unfruitful effort 
 one did not recognize the admirable sincerity of a mind which is 
 seeking something, which does not know everything, but wants to 
 know everything, and becomes all the more fierce in the pursuit 
 because his days are numbered. 
 
 On the other hand, without leaving the Louvre and the Nether- 
 lands, I will mention two of Paul Potter's pictures that are by a con- 
 summate painter, and which are also decidedly works in the highest 
 and rarest acceptation of the word ; and, what is remarkable, one 
 of them is dated 1647, the very year in which he signed the Bull. 
 
 I mean the Little Inn at the Louvre, catalogued under the title, 
 Horses at the Door of a Cottage, No. 399. It is an evening effect. 
 Two horses loosened from the vehicle, but harnessed, have stopped 
 before a trough ; one is bay, the other white ; the white one is ex- 
 hausted. The carter has just drawn water from the river ; he climbs 
 the bank with one arm lifted, while the other is holding a bucket, 
 and he is relieved in soft outline against a sky whence gleams are 
 cast by the setting sun. It is unique in sentiment and design, in 
 the mystery of the effect, in the beauty of the tone, in the delicious 
 and spiritual intimacy of the work. 
 
 The other, painted in 1653, the year that preceded Paul Potter's 
 death, is a wonderful masterpiece from every point of view, ar- 
 rangement, picturesque touches, acquired knowledge, persistent sim- 
 plicity, firmness of drawing, force in workmanship, clearness of eye,
 
 166 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 and charm of hand. The d'Aremberg Gallery, which owns this 
 precious jewel, contains nothing more valuable. These two incom- 
 parable works prove, if they alone are regarded, what Paul Potter 
 intended to do, and what he certainly would have done with more 
 breadth if he had had the time. 
 
 This, then, is what may be said, that what experience Paul Potter 
 acquired, he owed only to himself. He learned from day to day, 
 every day ; let us not forget that the end came before he had done 
 learning. As he had no master he had no pupils. His life was too 
 short to permit any teaching. Moreover, what would he have 
 taught ? His way of drawing ? That is an art which recommends 
 itself, but which can hardly be taught. Arrangement and the knowl- 
 edge of effect ? He was hardly sure of them in his last days. Chiaro- 
 scuro ? It was taught in all the studios of Amsterdam much better 
 than he practised it himself, for it was the one thing, as I have said, 
 that the sight of Dutch fields had revealed to him only after a long 
 time, and very rarely. The art of composing a palette ? It can be 
 seen how much trouble it caused him to become master of his own. 
 And as to practical skill, he was no better able to recommend it 
 than his works were made to give a proof of it. 
 
 Paul Potter painted fine pictures which were not all fine models ; 
 or rather he gave good examples, and his whole life was but a piece 
 of excellent advice. 
 
 More than any painter of that honest school, he spoke of simplicity, 
 patience, circumspection, persevering love for truth. His precepts 
 were perhaps the only ones that he had received, certainly they were
 
 PAUL POTTER. l6/ 
 
 the only ones that he could transmit. All his originality came from 
 them, and his grandeur also. 
 
 With a lively taste for country life, a soul very frank, tranquil, 
 and unbeset by storms, no nerves, a profound and healthy sensibility, 
 an admirable eye, a feeling for proportion, a taste for things clearly 
 defined and well established, he was learned in the equilibrium of 
 forms, understanding the exact relation between quantities, and pos- 
 sessing the instinct of anatomy ; finally, he was a constructor of the 
 first order ; in everything he showed that virtue which one of the 
 masters of our day calls the probity of talent. He had a native 
 preference for drawing, but such an appetite for perfection, that 
 later he meant to paint well, and had already succeeded in painting 
 excellently ; he showed an astonishing division in his labor, an im- 
 perturbable coolness in effort, and was of an exquisite nature, to 
 judge from his sad and suffering countenance, such was this 
 young man, unique in his time, always unique whatever may hap- 
 pen ; and thus he appeared from his gropings till he reached his 
 masterpieces. 
 
 How rare it is to surprise a genius, sometimes without talent ; 
 and what happiness to thus admire an ingenuous being who had 
 only one good fortune at his birth, the love of the true and a pas- 
 sion for the best !
 
 VI. 
 
 TERBURG, METZU, AND PIETER DE HOOGH AT THE LOUVRE. 
 
 WHEN Holland has not been visited, but the Louvre is well known, 
 is it possible to form a just idea of Dutch art ? Certainly it is. With 
 here and there a rare hiatus, a painter almost wholly wanting, and 
 another whose best works are not present (and this list would be a 
 short one), the Louvre offers us, concerning the school as a whole, 
 its spirit, its character, its perfections, the diversity of its styles, with 
 one exception, the Corporation or Regent pictures, an historical 
 compendium nearly complete, and consequently an inexhaustible 
 fund of study. 
 
 Haarlem possesses for its own a painter whom we knew only by 
 name before he was revealed to us, quite recently, by a hearty and 
 very merited favor. This man is Frans Hals ; and the tardy en- 
 thusiasm of which he is the object would hardly be understood out- 
 side of Haarlem and Amsterdam. 
 
 Jan Steen is hardly more familiar to us. He is an unattrac- 
 tive spirit who must be visited at home, cultivated near at hand, 
 with whom one must converse often not to be too shocked by his 
 rough sallies and by his licenses. He is, however, less rash than he
 
 TERBURG, METZU, AND DE HOOGH AT THE LOUVRE. 169 
 
 seems, less coarse than one would believe ; very unequal, because he 
 paints at random, after drinking as well as before. In short, it is well 
 to know the value of Jan Steen when he is sober, and the Louvre 
 gives but a very imperfect idea of his temperance and his great 
 talent. 
 
 Van de Meer is almost unrepresented in France ; and as he has 
 phases of observation strange even in his own country, the journey 
 would not be useless if one desired to be well informed upon this 
 individuality in Dutch art. Apart from these discoveries, and several 
 others of not much importance, there are no very notable ones to be 
 made outside of the Louvre and its annexes, I mean by that, certain 
 French collections which have the value of a museum in their choice- 
 ness of names and in the beauty of their specimens. It might be 
 said that Ruysdael has painted for France, so numerous are his 
 works in that country, and so evident is it that he is enjoyed and 
 respected. To divine the native genius of Paul Potter or the broad 
 power of Cuyp, some effort of induction would be necessary, but it ' 
 might be accomplished. Hobbema might have confined himself to 
 painting the Mill at the Louvre ; and he would certainly gain if he 
 were only known by this masterly page. As to Metzu, Terburg, the 
 two Ostades, and especially Pieter de Hoogh, one might well be con- 
 tent to see them at Paris, and nowhere else. 
 
 I have also long believed and it is an opinion here confirmed 
 that some one of us would render a great service in writing a Journey 
 through the Louvre, or even less, a Journey through the Salon Carre", 
 or still less, a simple Journey through several pictures, among which
 
 I/O THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 would be chosen, I suppose, Metzu's Visit, Terburg's Soldier and 
 Young Woman, and Pieter de Hoogh's Dutch Interior. 
 
 Assuredly this would be, without going very far, a curious explora- 
 tion, and for our day important in instruction. I believe that an en- 
 lightened critic who would undertake to reveal all that these three 
 pictures contain would astonish us greatly by the abundance and nov- 
 elty of his observations. We should be convinced that the most mod- 
 est work of art might serve as a text for a long analysis, that study is 
 a labor rather in depth than extent, that it is not necessary to enlarge 
 its boundaries to increase its penetrating force, and that very great 
 laws exist in a very little object. 
 
 Who has ever defined, in its intimate character, the manner of 
 these three painters, the best, the most learned draughtsmen of their 
 school, at least as regards figures ? The German Foot- Soldier of 
 Terburg, for instance, this stout man in his harness, with his cui- 
 rass, his doublet of buff, his great sword, his funnel-shaped boots, 
 his felt hat thrown on the ground, his fat face illumined, ill-shaved, 
 and sweaty, with his sleek hair, his little moist eyes, and his large 
 hand dimpled and sensual, offering some pieces of gold, the gesture 
 of which enlightens us sufficiently upon the sentiments of this per- 
 sonage and the object of his visit, this figure, one of the finest 
 Dutch works that the Louvre owns, what do we know about it ? 
 Certainly it has been said that it was lifelike, that the expression 
 was most true, and that the painting was excellent. Excellent 
 is not very conclusive, we must admit, when we want to know 
 the why and wherefore of things. Why excellent? Is it because
 
 TERBURG, METZU, AND DE HOOCH AT THE LOUVRE. 1 71 
 
 Nature is imitated in it in such a way that one seems to surprise her 
 in the very act ? Is it because no detail is omitted ? Is it because the 
 painting is smooth, simple, clean, limpid, charming to see, easy to 
 understand, and that it is faulty neither from minuteness nor by negli- 
 gence ? How does it happen that since the beginning of the practice 
 of painting figures costumed in their ordinary way, in a fixed attitude, 
 and certainly posing before the painter, no one has ever drawn, 
 modelled, or painted like this ? 
 
 Where do you perceive the drawing, if not in the result, which is 
 quite extraordinary in its naturalness, truth, breadth, and reality 
 without excess ? Can you find a feature, a contour, an accent, a 
 single mark, which denotes the rule or measure ? Those shoulders, 
 diminishing in their perspective and curve ; that long arm, poised on 
 the thigh, so perfectly within its sleeve ; that stout round body, belted 
 high, so exact in its thickness, so vague in its exterior limits ; those 
 two supple hands, which, increased to the natural size, would have 
 the astonishing appearance of being modelled, do you not find that 
 all this is poured at once into a mould which does not at all resemble 
 the angular accents, timid or presumptuous, uncertain or geometrical, 
 in which modern design is ordinarily enclosed ? 
 
 Our time is rightly honored for possessing observers of merit who 
 draw strongly, delicately, and well. I could cite one who character- 
 istically draws an attitude, a movement, a gesture, a hand with its 
 planes, its bones, its action and contraction, so that for this merit 
 alone and he has greater ones he would be incontestably a mas- 
 ter in our present school. Compare his sharp, clever, expressive,
 
 1/2 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 energetic point to the almost impersonal drawing of Terburg. In the 
 former you perceive formulas, a science thoroughly possessed, an 
 acquired knowledge that comes to the aid of study, supports it, if 
 necessary could supply its place, and which, so to speak, dictates to 
 the eye what it should see and to the mind what it ought to feel. 
 In the latter there is nothing of the kind, but an art which bends 
 itself to the character of things, a knowledge which forgets itself 
 before the individualities of life, nothing preconceived, nothing which 
 takes precedence of the simple, powerful, and sensitive observation 
 of what exists, so that it might be said that the eminent painter * of 
 whom I speak has a design, while it is impossible to perceive at a 
 glance what is that of Terburg, Metzu, or Pieter de Hoogh. 
 
 Go from one to the other. After having examined the gallant soldier 
 of Terburg, pass on to this thin personage, a trifle affected in his 
 gravity, of another society, and already of another age, who presents 
 himself with some ceremony, standing and saluting like a person of 
 quality this delicate woman with the thin arms and nervous hands, 
 who receives him in her house without thought of offence. Then 
 stop before the Interior, by Pieter de Hoogh ; enter into this deep, 
 stifled picture, so shut up, where the light sifts through, where there 
 is fire, silence, a charming comfort, a lovely mystery ; and examine 
 closely the woman with the shining eyes, red lips, dainty teeth, and 
 this great boy, a sort of blockhead, who makes you think of Moli^re, 
 an emancipated son of M. Diaforus, standing straight upon his spindle 
 legs, awkward in his fine stiff clothes, quite unused to his rapier, 
 
 * Meissonier (?). TR.
 
 TERBURG, METZU, AND DE HOOGH AT THE LOUVRE. 1/3 
 
 maladroit in his false perpendicular, occupied entirely with what he 
 is doing, so marvellously created that he can never be forgotten. 
 Here, too, is the same hidden knowledge, the same anonymous design, 
 the same incomprehensible mixture of nature and art. Not a shade 
 of preconceived ideas in this expression of things so ingenuously sin- 
 cere that the formula cannot be grasped, no "chic" at all, which 
 means, in studio phrase, no bad habits, no ignorance affecting 
 knowing airs, and not one mania. 
 
 Make an attempt if you know how to hold a pencil ; copy the 
 features of these three figures, try to put them in their place, set 
 yourself the difficult task of making from this indecipherable picture 
 an extract which shall contain its drawing. Try to do the same with 
 modern designers, and perhaps, without other information, you will 
 yourself discover, as you succeed with the moderns and fail with the 
 old masters, that there is a whole abyss of art between them. 
 
 The same astonishment seizes you when the other parts of this 
 model art are studied. The color, the chiaroscuro, the modelling of 
 the well-filled surfaces, the play of the surrounding air, finally, the 
 workmanship, that is to say, the operations of the hand, all are 
 perfection and mystery. 
 
 Taking the execution superficially alone, do you find that it resem- 
 bles what has been done since ? and do you think that our way of 
 painting has advanced or is behind that ? In our days and should 
 I be the one to say it ? we have one of two things : either a man 
 paints with care, and does not always paint very well ; or he puts 
 more cleverness into it, and scarcely paints at all. The work is
 
 174 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 either heavy and abridged, clever and careless, sensitive and very 
 much shirked, or it is conscientious, thoroughly explained, rendered 
 according to the laws of imitation ; and no one, not even those who 
 practise it, would venture to declare that this painting is more perfect 
 on account of its scrupulosity. Each one plies his trade according 
 to his own taste, degree of ignorance or education, the heaviness 
 or subtlety of his nature, according to his moral and physical com- 
 plexion, his blood, and his nerves. We have execution that is lym- 
 phatic, nervous, robust, weak, fiery or orderly, impertinent or timid, 
 simply good, which is called tiresome, ^or exclusively sensitive, which 
 is called without depth. In short, there are as many styles and 
 formulas as there are individuals, as to drawing, color, and the ex- 
 pression of everything else by the action of the hand. 
 
 There are discussions of some vivacity to know which of these so 
 diverse executions is correct. Conscientiously speaking, no one is 
 exactly wrong, but the facts testify that no one is fully right. 
 
 The truth which would harmonize us all remains to be demon- 
 strated, and would consist in establishing that painting is a craft 
 to be learned, and consequently can be and ought to be taught, an 
 elementary method which also can and ought to be transmitted ; 
 that this craft and method are as necessary in painting as the art 
 of good expression or good writing is necessary to those who use 
 speech or the pen ; that there is no reason why these elements 
 should not be common to us all ; that to pretend to be distinguished 
 by the garment, when in person people are undistinguished, is a poor 
 and vain fashion of proving that one is somebody. Formerly it was
 
 TERBURG, METZU, AND DE HOOCH AT THE LOUVRE. 175 
 
 quite the contrary ; and the proof of it is in the perfect unity of the 
 schools, where the same family air belonged to such distinct and 
 lofty personalities. This family air resulted from an education, sim- 
 ple, uniform, well understood, and, as can be seen, extremely salutary. 
 Now, what was this education of which we have not preserved a 
 single trace? 
 
 This is what I would wish should be taught, and this I have never 
 heard said from the rostrum, nor in a book, nor in lectures on aes- 
 thetics, nor in oral lessons. It would be one way of professional 
 teaching in an epoch when almost all professional teachings are 
 given except this particular one. 
 
 Let us not weary of studying together these beautiful models. 
 Look at this flesh, these heads, these hands, these bare throats ; 
 remark their suppleness, their amplitude, their truth of coloring 
 almost without color, their compact thin tissue so dense and yet so 
 little loaded. Examine in the same way their appointments, the 
 satins, furs, cloths, velvets, silks, felts, plumes, swords, the gold, the 
 embroideries, the carpets, backgrounds, beds with hangings, the 
 floors so perfectly smooth and so perfectly solid. See how alike 
 all this is in Terburg and Pieter de Hoogh, and yet how everything 
 differs, how the hand works in the same way, how the coloring has 
 the same elements, and yet how the subject of the latter is enveloped, 
 receding, veiled, profound ; how the half-tint transforms, darkens, and 
 makes distant all the parts of this admirable canvas ; how it gives 
 to objects their mystery, their spirit, a sense still more moving, a 
 warmer and more inviting intimacy ; while in Terburg, things pass
 
 1/6 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 with less concealment, true daylight is everywhere ; the bed is 
 hardly hidden by the sombre color of the hangings ; the modelling 
 is like nature, firm, full, shaded with simple tones, but slightly trans- 
 formed, only selected, so that color, execution, evidence of tone, evi- 
 dence of fact, are all in accord to express that with such people as 
 these there were necessary neither roundabout ways, nor circum- 
 locutions, nor half-tints. And observe that in Pieter de Hoogh as in 
 Metzu, in the most reserved as in the most communicative of these 
 three famous painters, you can always distinguish one part of senti- 
 ment, which is their own and is their secret, and another part of 
 method and education received, which is common to them and is 
 the secret of the school 
 
 Do you find that they color well, though one colors principally in 
 gray and the other in brown or dark gold ? and do you not decide 
 that their color has more brilliancy than ours, at the same time that 
 it is duller in hue ; that it has more richness, though it is more neu- 
 tral ; that it has far more power, while containing much less visible 
 force ? 
 
 When by chance you perceive in an ancient collection a modern 
 genre picture, even one of the best, and in every relation the most 
 strongly conceived, answer me, is it not something like an image, 
 that is to say, a painting which makes an effort to be colored and is not 
 sufficiently so, to be painted and yet is airy and empty, to have con- 
 sistency and yet does not attain it always, either by its heaviness 
 when it is thick, or by the enamel of its surfaces when by chance 
 it is thin ? On what does this depend ? for it is enough to fill with
 
 TERBURG, METZU, AND DE HOOGH AT THE LOUVRE. I// 
 
 consternation the men of instinct, sense, and talent, who may be 
 struck with these differences. 
 
 Are we much less gifted ? Perhaps. Less faithful seekers ? Quite 
 the contrary. We are, above all, less well educated. 
 
 Suppose that by a miracle which is not sufficiently prayed for, 
 and which, even if it were implored as it should be, will probably 
 not happen in France, a Metzu or a Pieter de Hoogh should be re- 
 suscitated among us, what a seed he would cast into the studios, and 
 what rich and generous soil he would find to raise fine painters and 
 good works ! Our ignorance then is extreme. It may be said that 
 the art of painting has for a long time been a lost secret, and that 
 the last masters who were at all expert in its practice carried off the 
 key with them. We want it ; it is asked for, but no one has it ; we 
 seek it, but it is not to be found. Hence it results that individuality 
 of method is, to speak truly, but the effort of each to imagine what 
 he has not learned ; that in a certain practical skill we feel the labo- 
 rious expedients of a mind in difficulties ; and that almost always the 
 so-called originality of modern processes conceals at bottom an in- 
 curable uneasiness. Do you want me to give you an idea of the 
 investigations of those who are seeking, and the truths which are 
 brought to light after long efforts ? I will give but one example. 
 
 Our picturesque art, whether historical, genre, landscape, or still-life, 
 has been for some time complicated with a question much in fashion, 
 which merits in fact our attention, for it aims to restore to painting 
 one of its most delicate and most necessary means of expression. 
 I mean to speak of what we have agreed to call values.
 
 178 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 By this word, of rather vague origin and obscure meaning, is 
 understood the quantity of light or dark which is found contained 
 in a tone. Expressed by drawing and engraving, the shade is easy 
 to seize ; such a black will have, in relation to the paper which 
 represents the unity of the light, more value than such a gray. 
 Expressed by color it is not less positively an abstraction, but it is 
 less easy to define. Thanks to a series of observations, of no great 
 profundity, and by an analytical observation familiar to chemists, 
 we separate from any given color that element of light or dark 
 which is combined with its coloring principle, and arrive scientifi- 
 cally at considering a tone under the double aspect of color and 
 value, so that in a violet, for instance, we have not only to estimate 
 the quantity of red or blue which can multiply its shades infinitely, 
 but to keep an account also of the quantity of light or strength 
 which approaches it to the unit of light or the unit of dark. 
 
 The interest of the examination is this : a color does not exist in 
 itself, since it is, as is known, modified by the influence of a neigh- 
 boring color. For still better reasons, it has in itself neither virtue 
 nor beauty. Its quality comes from its surrounding, or what are 
 also called its complementary colors. Thus by contrast or by favor- 
 able association very diverse acceptations may be given to it. To 
 color well I shall say this more particularly elsewhere is either to 
 know or to feel thoroughly by instinct the necessity of these asso- 
 ciations ; but to color well is especially and beyond all things to 
 know how to skilfully bring into connection the values of tones. 
 If you take from a Veronese, a Titian, or a Rubens this just relation
 
 TERBURG, METZU, AND DE HOOGH AT THE LOUVRE. 
 
 of values in their colors, you would have only a discordant coloring 
 without force, delicacy, or preciousness. In proportion as the color- 
 ing principle diminishes in a tone, the element of values predomi- 
 nates. If it happens, as in the half-tints, where all color grows pale, 
 or as in the pictures of extravagant chiaroscuro, where all shading 
 vanishes, like Rembrandt's for instance, or sometimes where every- 
 thing is monochromatic, if it happens, I say, that the coloring 
 element disappears almost entirely, there remains upon the palette 
 a neutral principle, subtle and yet real, the abstract value, it may 
 be called, of the vanished things ; and it is with this negative, color- 
 less principle of an infinite delicacy that the rarest pictures are 
 sometimes made. 
 
 These things, terrible to announce in French, and the explana- 
 tion of which is really only permissible in a studio with closed 
 doors, I have been forced to say, because without that I should 
 not have been understood. Now, this law, which we are trying to- 
 day to put in practice, you must not imagine that we have in- 
 vented ; it has been rediscovered, among the much forgotten por- 
 tions, in the archives of the art of painting. Few painters in France 
 have had a very marked feeling for it. There were whole schools 
 who never thought of it, did without it, and were none the better 
 for that, as has now been discovered. If I were writing the history 
 of French art in the nineteenth century, I would tell you how this 
 law was in turn observed and misunderstood, what painter used it, 
 and who ignored it, and you would find no difficulty in agreeing 
 that he was wrong to ignore it
 
 ISO THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 An eminent painter, too much admired for his technicalities, who 
 will live, if he does live, by the depth of his sentiment, his very 
 original impulses, a rare instinct for the picturesque, and especially 
 by the tenacity of his efforts, Decamps, never took the trouble to 
 find out there were values on a palette. This is an infirmity which 
 begins to strike people who are well informed, and from which deli- 
 cate spirits suffer greatly. I will tell you, too, to what sagacious 
 observer contemporaneous landscape painters owe the best lessons 
 that they have received, how by a charming state of grace Corot, 
 that sincere spirit, a simplifier in his essence, had a natural senti- 
 ment for the values in all things, studied them better than any one, 
 established their rules, formulated them in his works, and day by 
 day gave of them more successful demonstrations. 
 
 Henceforth this is the principal care of all who are seeking, from 
 those who seek in silence to those who seek most noisily and under 
 eccentric names. The so-called realistic doctrine has no other 
 serious foundation than a more healthy observation of the law of 
 coloring. We must yield to evidence, and recognize that there is 
 something good in these aims, and that if the realists knew more 
 and painted better, there are some of them who would paint ex- 
 ceedingly well. Their eye in general has very just perceptions, 
 their sensations are particularly delicate, and, what is singular, the 
 other parts of their craft are no longer so at all. They have one of 
 the rarest faculties, but they lack what should be the most common, 
 so that their merits, which are great, lose their worth by not being 
 employed as they should be ; they seem to be revolutionary because
 
 TERBURG, METZU, AND DE HOOGH AT THE LOUVRE. l8l 
 
 they affect to admit only half of the necessary truths, and they 
 lack at the same time very little and very much of being perfectly 
 right. All that was the A B C of Dutch art, and ought to be the 
 A B C of ours. I do not know, doctrinally speaking, what was the 
 opinion of Pieter de Hoogh, of Terburg, and of Metzu upon values, 
 nor how they called them, nor even if they had a name to express 
 what colors should have of shade, relativeness, sweetness, suavity, 
 or subtlety in their relations. Perhaps coloring as a whole allows all 
 these qualities, whether positive or impalpable. But always the life 
 of their works and the beauty of their art result precisely from 
 the learned use of this principle. 
 
 The difference which separates them from modern attempts is 
 this : in their time great value was attached to chiaroscuro, and 
 there was a great feeling for it only because it appeared to be the 
 vital element of all well-conceived art. Without this artifice, in 
 which imagination plays the first part, there was, so to speak, no 
 more fiction in the reproduction of things, and hence the man was 
 absent from his work, or at least participated in it no longer at 
 that moment of the labor when his sensibility should especially 
 intervene. The delicacy of a Metzu, the mystery of a Pieter de 
 Hoogh result, as I have told you, from much atmosphere around 
 the objects, much shadow around the lights, much quietness in the 
 receding colors, many transpositions of tones, many purely imaginary 
 transformations in the aspect of things, in a word, the most mar- 
 vellous use that ever was made of chiaroscuro, and also, in other 
 terms, the most judicious application of the law of values.
 
 1 82 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 To-day it is the other way. Every value a little rare, every color 
 delicately observed, seems to have for an aim the abolition of chiaro- 
 scuro, and the suppression of the atmosphere. What served to 
 bind now serves to loosen. Every painting called original is a 
 veneering, a mosaic. The abuse of useless roundness has driven 
 into excess flat surfaces, and bodies without thickness. Modelling 
 disappeared the very day when the means of expression seemed 
 best, and ought to have rendered it more intelligent, so that what 
 was a progress among the Hollanders is for us a step backward ; 
 and after issuing from archaic art, under pretext of a new innova- 
 tion, we return thither. 
 
 * 
 
 What shall be said about that ? Who is there to demonstrate the 
 error into which we are falling ? Who shall give us clear and 
 striking lessons ? There would be one sure expedient, the con- 
 struction of a new work which should contain all the old art with 
 the modern spirit, which, while belonging to the nineteenth century 
 and France, should resemble a Metzu, feature by feature, and yet 
 never permit one to see that he had been remembered.
 
 VII. 
 
 RUYSDAEL. 
 
 OF all the Dutch painters, Ruysdael is the one who most nobly 
 resembles his country. He has its breadth, its sadness, its rather 
 dreary placidity, and its monotonous and tranquil charm. 
 
 With vanishing lines, a severe palette, in two grand traits expressly 
 belonging to its physiognomy, gray and limitless horizons, and a 
 gray heaven by which the infinite is measured, he has left us of 
 Holland a portrait which I will not call familiar, but intimate, lovable, 
 admirably faithful, which never grows old. By still other claims 
 Ruysdael is, as I fully believe, the most distinguished figure in the 
 school after Rembrandt, and this is no small glory for a painter who 
 has painted only so-called inanimate landscapes, and not one living 
 being, at least without the aid of some one. 
 
 Remember that, taking him in detail, Ruysdael would perhaps be 
 inferior to many of his compatriots. In the first place he is not adroit 
 at a moment and in a style where address was the current money 
 of talent ; and perhaps it was owing to this lack of dexterity that he 
 owes the character and the ordinary weight of his thought. Neither 
 is he precisely skilful. He paints well, and affects no singularity
 
 1 84 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 in his craft What he wants to say he says clearly with truth, but 
 as if slowly, without hidden meaning, vivacity or archness. His 
 drawing has not certainly the incisive, sharp character, and the ec- 
 centric accent belonging to certain pictures by Hobbema. 
 
 I do not forget that at the Louvre, before the Watermill, the flood- 
 gate of Hobbema, a superior work which has not, as I have told you, 
 its equal in Holland, it has sometimes happened that I have cooled 
 towards Ruysdael. This Mill is so charming a work, it is so pre- 
 cise, so firm in its construction, so resolute in its method from one end 
 to the other ; of such strong, fine coloring ; its sky is df so rare a qual- 
 ity ; and everything in it seems so delicately engraved before being 
 painted, and so well painted over this severe engraving ; finally, to use 
 an expression which will be understood in the studios, it is framed 
 in so piquant a fashion, and suits the gold so well, that sometimes, 
 seeing two paces off the little Bush by Ruysdael, and finding jt 
 yellowish, woolly, a little round in treatment, I have almost decided 
 in favor of Hobbema, and thus nearly committed an error which 
 would not have lasted, but which would be unpardonable if it had 
 existed but for an instant. 
 
 Ruysdael never knew how to put a figure in his pictures, and in 
 that respect the aptitude of Adrian van de Velde would be very 
 different ; nor an animal, and in this Paul Potter would have had 
 great advantage over him, as soon as Paul Potter succeeded in being 
 perfect. He has not the pale golden atmosphere of Cuyp, and the 
 ingenious habit of placing in a bath of light, boats, towns, horses, and 
 riders, all well drawn, as we know, for Cuyp is excellent in all points.
 
 RUYSDAEL. 185 
 
 His modelling, although most learned when applied either to vegeta- 
 tion or to aerial surfaces, does not offer the extreme difficulties of 
 the human modelling of Terburg and Metzu. However trained is 
 the sagacity of his eye, it is less so on account of the subjects which 
 he treats. Whatever may be the value of moving water, of a flying 
 cloud, a bushy tree tormented by the wind, a cascade rolling between 
 rocks, all these things, when one thinks of the complicated character 
 of the undertakings, of the number of the problems, and of their sub- 
 tlety, are not equal in difficulty of solution to the Inte'rieur Galant 
 of Terburg, the Visit of Metzu, the Dutch Interior of Pieter de Hoogh, 
 the School and the Family of Van Ostade, that are seen at the 
 Louvre, or the marvellous Metzu of the Van der Hoop Museum, at 
 Amsterdam. Ruysdael shows no liveliness, and also in that respect 
 the sprightly masters of Holland make him appear a little morose. 
 
 Considered in his normal habits, he is simple, serious, and robust, 
 very calm and grave, almost habitually the same, to such a degree 
 that his merits end by ceasing to impress, they are so sustained ; and 
 before this mask which seldom is without a frown, before these pic- 
 tures of almost equal merit, one is sometimes confounded by the 
 beauty of the work, but rarely surprised. Certain marines by Cuyp, 
 for instance the Moonlight in the Six Museum, are works of sudden 
 impulse, absolutely unforeseen, and make us regret that there are 
 not in Ruysdael some outbursts of the same kind. Finally, his color 
 is monotonous, strong, harmonious, and not very rich. It varies from 
 green to brown, and an undertone of bitumen is its basis. It has 
 slight brilliancy, is not always pleasing, and in its first essence is not
 
 1 86 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 of very exquisite quality. A painter of refined interiors would not 
 find it difficult to reprove him for the parsimony of his means, and 
 would judge his palette sometimes too limited. 
 
 With all that, in spite of everything, Ruysdael is unique ; it is easy 
 to be convinced of it at the Louvre, from his Gleam of Sunshine, 
 the Bush, the Tempest, the Little Landscape (No. 474). I except the 
 Forest, which was never very beautiful, and which he compromised 
 by getting Berghem to paint the figures. 
 
 At the Retrospective Exhibition held for the benefit of the in- 
 habitants of Alsace-Lorraine, it may be said that Ruysdael reigned 
 manifestly supreme, although the exhibition was most rich in Dutch 
 and Flemish masters ; for in it there were specimens of Van Goyen, 
 Wynants, Paul Potter, Cuyp, Van de Velde, Van der Neer, Van der 
 Meer, Hals, Teniers, Bol, Solomon Ruysdael, and two priceless 
 works of Van der Heyden. I appeal to the memory of all those 
 for whom that exhibition of excellent works was a gleam of light, 
 if Jacob Ruysdael was not there remarked as a master, and what 
 is more estimable still, as a great mind. At Brussels, at Antwerp, 
 at the Hague, and Amsterdam, the effect is the same ; everywhere 
 that Ruysdael appears, he maintains himself by a manner of his own ; 
 he is imposing, he impresses us with respect and attracts attention, 
 which warns us that before us is a man's soul, that this man is of 
 grand race, and that he always has something important to say. 
 Such is the sole cause of Ruysdael's superiority, and this cause 
 suffices ; there is in the painter a man who thinks, and in each one 
 of his works a conception. As learned in his way as the most
 
 RUYSDAEL. 187 
 
 learned of his compatriots, as highly endowed by nature, more 
 thoughtful and more feeling, more than any other he adds to his gifts 
 an equilibrium which makes the unity of the work and the perfection 
 of work. You perceive in his pictures an air of plenitude, certainty, 
 and profound peace, which is his distinctive characteristic, and which 
 proves that not for a single moment has harmony ceased to reign 
 among his fine native faculties, his great experience, his always lively 
 sensibility, and ever present reflectiveness. Ruysdael paints as he 
 thinks, healthily, strongly, largely. The exterior quality of the labor 
 indicates quite plainly the ordinary condition of his mind. There 
 is in this sober, careful, rather proud painting an inexpressible, sad 
 haughtiness, which is recognized from far, and at hand captivates 
 by a charm of natural simplicity and noble familiarity wholly his own. 
 A canvas by Ruysdael is a whole, wherein are felt an arrangement, 
 a comprehensive view, and a master-intention, the determination to 
 paint once for all one of the features of his country, perhaps also 
 the desire to fix the memory of a moment of his life. A solid founda- 
 tion ; a need of constructing and organizing, of subordinating details 
 to the whole, color 'to effect, interest in objects to the plane that 
 they occupy ; a perfect knowledge of natural and technical laws, 
 and with all that a certain disdain for the useless, the too agreeable, 
 or the superfluous ; great taste combined with great good sense ; a 
 strong hand calm with the calmly beating heart, such is nearly 
 what one discovers in analyzing a picture by Ruysdael. 
 
 I do not say that everything pales beside this painting of medi- 
 ocre brilliancy, of discreet coloring, of methods constantly veiled;
 
 1 88 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 but everything becomes disorganized, unconnected, and empty. 
 Place one of Ruysdael's canvases beside the best landscapes of the 
 school, and you will at once see appear, in the neighboring works, 
 gaps, weaknesses, digressions, an absence of design where it is ne- 
 cessary, flashes of cleverness when none are necessary, ill-disguised 
 ignorance, and a fading away which foretells oblivion. Beside 
 Ruysdael a fine Adrian van de Velde is thin, pretty, studied, never 
 very virile nor very mature ; a Willem van de Velde is dry, cold, and 
 thin, almost always well drawn, rarely well painted, quickly observed 
 but little meditated. Isaac van Ostade is too red, his skies too in- 
 significant. Van Goyen is too uncertain, volatile, airy, and woolly ; 
 one feels in him the light and rapid trace of a fine intention ; the 
 sketch is charming ; the work did not succeed because it was not 
 substantially nourished by preparatory studies, patience, and labor. 
 Cuyp himself, so strong and so healthy, suffers sensibly from this 
 severe neighbor. His perpetual gold has a gayety of which one 
 tires beside the sombre and bluish verdure of his great rival, and 
 as to that luxury of atmosphere which seems a reflection taken from 
 the South to embellish the pictures of the North, one ceases to 
 believe in it if he knows ever so little the shores of the Meuse 
 and the Zuyder Zee. It can generally be remarked in Dutch pic- 
 tures I mean open-air pictures that there is a determined force 
 in the lights which gives them much relief, and, in painters' language, 
 a particular authority. The sky plays the aerial part, that which is 
 colorless, infinite, impalpable. Practically it serves to measure the 
 powerful values of the ground, and consequently to designate more
 
 RUYSDAEL. 189 
 
 sharply and firmly the outline of the subject. Whether this sky be 
 golden, as in Cuyp ; silver, as in Van de Velde and Solomon Ruys- 
 dael ; or fleecy, gray, melting in light washes, as in Isaac van Ostade, 
 Van Goyen, or Wynants, it makes an opening in the picture, rarely 
 preserves a general value which is its own, and almost always fails 
 to have a decided relation to the gold of the frame. Estimate the 
 strength of the ground, and it is extreme. Try to estimate the 
 value of the sky, and the sky will surprise you by the exceeding 
 light which is its basis. 
 
 I could cite to you certain pictures in which the atmosphere is 
 forgotten, and some aerial backgrounds that might be repainted as 
 an afterthought, without the picture, which is otherwise finished, 
 losing anything by the change. Many modern works are in this 
 condition. It can even be remarked, that with some exceptions, 
 which I do not need to signalize if I am well understood, our 
 modern school, as a whole, appears to have adopted for principle 
 that, the atmosphere being the emptiest and most unseizable part 
 of the picture, there is no objection to its being the most colorless 
 and negative. 
 
 Ruysdael felt things differently, and fixed once for all a very 
 different principle, both audacious and truthful. He considered the 
 immense vault which arches over the country or the sea as the real, 
 compact, and dense ceiling of his pictures. He curves it, unfolds 
 it, measures it, determines its value by its relation to the acci- 
 dents of light sown in the terrestrial horizon ; he shades its great 
 surfaces, models them, and executes them, in a word, as a work of
 
 190 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 the greatest interest He discovers lines in it which continue those 
 of the subject, arranges the masses of color in it, makes the light 
 descend from it, and only puts it there in case of necessity. 
 
 His great eye, well opened to observe everything living, that 
 eye accustomed to the height of objects as^well as their extent, 
 travels constantly from the soil to the zenith, never looks upon an 
 object without observing the corresponding point in the atmosphere, 
 and thus, omitting nothing, makes the circuit of the round field of 
 vision. Far from losing himself in analysis, he constantly employs 
 synthesis and makes abstracts. What nature disseminates, he con- 
 centrates into a total of lines, colors, values, and effects. He frames 
 all that in his thought, as he means it to be framed in the four 
 angles of his canvas. His eye has the properties of a camera-obscura ; 
 it reduces, diminishes the light, and preserves things in the exact 
 proportion of their forms and colors. A picture by Ruysdael, 
 whatever it may be, the finest are, of course, the most significant, 
 is an entire painting, full and strong, in its principle grayish 
 above, brown or greenish below, which rests solidly with its four 
 corners upon the shining flutings of the frame; it seems dark at a 
 distance, but is penetrated with light when approached ; it is beau- 
 tiful in itself, with no vacancy, with few digressions, like a lofty and 
 sustained thought which has for language a tongue of the most 
 powerful kind. 
 
 I have heard it said that nothing was more difficult to copy than 
 a picture by Ruysdael, and I believe it, just as nothing is more 
 difficult to imitate than the manner of expression of the great writers
 
 RUYSDAEL. 191 
 
 of our seventeenth century in France. Here we have the same 
 turns, the same styles, something of the same spirit, I had almost 
 said the same genius. I do not know why I imagine that if Ruys- 
 dael had not been a Hollander and a Protestant, he would have 
 been a Port-Royalist. 
 
 You will notice at the Hague and Amsterdam two landscapes 
 which are the repetition of the same subject, one large, the other 
 small. Is the little canvas the study which served for a text for the 
 larger one ? Did Ruysdael draw or paint from nature ? Was he 
 inspired, or did he copy directly ? That is his secret, as it is of 
 most of the Dutch masters, except perhaps Van de Velde, who cer- 
 tainly painted out of doors, excelled in direct studies, and in the 
 studio lost much of his skill, whatever people may say. But it is 
 certain that these two works are charming, and demonstrate what 
 I have been saying about Ruysdael's habits. It is a view taken 
 at some distance from Amsterdam, with the little city of Haarlem, 
 dark and bluish, visible through the trees, under the vast rolling 
 waves of a cloudy sky, in the rainy dimness of a low horizon ; in front, 
 for the foreground, is a laundry with red roofs, and the bleaching 
 linen spread out flat over the fields. Nothing could be simpler or 
 poorer than this point of departure, but nothing either could be 
 more true. This canvas, one foot eight inches high, ought to be 
 seen to learn, from a master who never feared to degrade himself 
 because he was not a man to stoop, how a subject can be elevated 
 when a man is himself a lofty spirit, to learn that there is nothing 
 ugly for an eye which sees beauty, no littleness for a great sensi-
 
 192 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 tiveness, to learn, in a word, what the art of painting becomes 
 when practised by a noble mind. 
 
 The River View, in the Van der Hoop Museum, is the highest 
 expression of this haughty and magnificent manner. This picture 
 would be better named the Windmill, and under this title no one 
 would be able to treat without disadvantage a subject which in the 
 hands of Ruysdael has found its incomparable typical expression. 
 
 Briefly, this is the rendering. A part of the Meuse probably; 
 on the right, terraced ground with trees and houses, and on the 
 summit the black mill with wide-spread arms, rising high in the 
 canvas ; a palisade against which the water of the river softly un- 
 dulates, a sluggish water, soft and admirable ; a little corner of a 
 vague horizon, very slight and very firm, very pale and very dis- 
 tinct, on which rises the white sail of a boat, a flat sail with no 
 wind in its canvas, of a soft and perfectly exquisite value. Above 
 it a wide sky loaded with clouds, with openings of pale blue, gray 
 clouds scaling to the top of the canvas, no light, so to speak, any- 
 where in this powerful tone, composed of dark browns and dark- 
 slate colors, but a single gleam in the middle of the picture, which 
 comes from the far distance, like a smile, to illumine the disk of a 
 cloud. It is a great square picture, grave (we need not fear to make 
 too great use of this word with Ruysdael), of extreme sonorousness 
 in the lowest register, and, as my notes add, marvellous in the gold. 
 In fact, I describe it and insist upon it only to arrive at this con- 
 clusion, beyond the value of the details, the beauty of form, the 
 grandeur of expression, the intimate nature of its sentiment, it
 
 RUYSDAEL. 193 
 
 is a task singularly impressive to consider it as a simple deco- 
 ration. 
 
 All Ruysdael is here, his noble way of working, little charm, 
 except by chance, a great attractiveness, an inwardness which is 
 revealed little by little, accomplished science, very simple means. 
 Imagine him in conformity with his painting, try to represent him 
 to yourself beside his picture, and if I am not mistaken you will have 
 the double and very harmonious image of an austere dreamer, of 
 warm heart, and laconic and taciturn spirit. 
 
 I have read somewhere, so evident is it that a poet reveals himself 
 through all the restraints of form and in spite of the conciseness of 
 his language, that his work had the character of an elegiac poem in 
 an infinity of songs. This is much to say when we think how little 
 relation literature bears to this art, in .which technicalities have so 
 much importance, and where matter has such weight and value. 
 
 Elegiac or not, but surely a poet, if Ruysdael had written instead 
 of painted, I think he would have written in prose instead of verse. 
 Verse admits of too much fancy and stratagem, prose compels too 
 great sincerity, for this clear mind not to have preferred its language 
 to the other. As to the depths of his nature, he was a dreamer, one 
 of those men of whom there are many in our time, though they were 
 rare at the epoch in which Ruysdael was born, one of those solitary 
 ramblers who fly from towns, frequent the suburbs, sincerely love the 
 country, feel it without emphasis, relate it without phrasing, who are 
 made restless by far-off horizons, charmed by level expanses, affected 
 by a shadow, and enchanted by a gleam of sunshine. 
 
 13
 
 194 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 We imagine Ruysdael neither very young nor very old ; we do 
 not see that he had a period of youth, nor do we feel in him the en- 
 feebling weight of advancing years. If we did not know that he died 
 before the age of fifty-two years, we should imagine him between two 
 ages, as a mature man or one of precocious maturity, very serious, 
 master of himself early, with sad memories, regrets, and the reveries 
 of a mind which looks back, whose youth has not known the over- 
 whelming unrest of hope. I believe he had no heart to cry, " Rise ! 
 longed-for storms ! " His melancholy, of which he is full, has some- 
 thing manly and reasonable, in which appears neither the tumultuous 
 childishness of early years nor the nervous tearfulness of later ones ; 
 it only tinges his painting with a sombre hue, as it would have tinged 
 the thought of a Jansenist. 
 
 What has life done for him that he should have for it a sentiment 
 so bitter and disdainful ? What have men done to him that he 
 should retire into deep solitude, and so avoid meeting them, even 
 in his painting ? Nothing or almost nothing is known of his exist- 
 ence except that he was born about 1630, that he died in 1681 ; 
 that he was the friend of Berghem ; that he had Solomon Ruysdael 
 for an elder brother, and probably for his first adviser. As to his 
 journeys, they are supposed and they are doubted ; his cascades, 
 mountain regions well wooded, with rocky declivities, would lead 
 one to believe either that he must have studied in Germany, Swit- 
 zerland, or Norway, or that he utilized the studies of Everdingen,* 
 and was inspired by them. His great labor did not enrich him, and 
 
 * A fine painter of Norwegian scenery. Alkmaar, 1621-1675.
 
 RUYSDAEL. 195 
 
 his title of burgher of Haarlem did not prevent him, it appears, from 
 being almost forgotten. 
 
 Of this we should have a truly harrowing proof, if it is true that, 
 in commiseration of his distress, more than from respect to his genius, 
 which was hardly suspected by any one, they were obliged to admit 
 him to the hospital at Haarlem, His native town, and that there he 
 died. But before reaching this point what happened to him ? Had 
 he joys as he certainly had bitterness ? Did his destiny give him 
 an opportunity to love anything but clouds ; and from what did he 
 suffer most, if he did suffer, from the torment of painting well or of 
 living ? All these questions remain without answer, and yet pos- 
 terity would be glad to know. 
 
 Would you ever think of asking as much about Berghem, Karel 
 Dujardin, Wouvermans, Goyen, Terburg, Metzu, Pieter de Hoogh 
 himself? All these brilliant or charming painters painted, and it 
 seems as if that was enough. Ruysdael painted ; but he lived, and 
 this is why it would be of so much importance to know how he 
 lived. In the Dutch School I know but three or four men whose 
 personality is thus interesting, Rembrandt, Ruysdael, Paul Potter, 
 perhaps Cuyp, and this is already more than is necessary to class 
 them.
 
 VIII. 
 
 CUYP. 
 
 CUYP also was not much recognized during his life, which did not 
 prevent him from painting as he understood the business, applying 
 himself or being negligent quite at his ease, and following his free 
 career according to the inspiration of the moment. Besides, he 
 shared this disfavor, natural enough when one thinks of the taste 
 which reigned at that time for extreme finish, with Ruysdael ; he 
 shared it even with Rembrandt, when about 1650 Rembrandt sud- 
 denly ceased to be understood. He was, as may be seen, in good 
 company. Since then he has been avenged, first by the English, 
 afterwards by all Europe. In any case, Cuyp is a very beautiful 
 painter. 
 
 In the first place, he has the merit of universality. His work is 
 so complete a repertory of Dutch life, especially in its rural surround- 
 ings, that its extent and variety would suffice to give it considerable 
 interest. Landscapes, marines, horses, cattle, people of every con- 
 dition, from men of fortune and leisure to shepherds, small and large 
 figures, portraits, and pictures of poultry yards, such are the curi- 
 osities and aptitudes of his talent that he more than any other has
 
 CUYP. 197 
 
 contributed to enlarge the list of local observations in which the art 
 of his country was displayed. Born, one of the first in 1605, belong- 
 ing to his age in every respect, by the diversity of his investiga- 
 tions, by the vigor and independence of his way of proceeding, he 
 must have been one of the most active promoters of the school. 
 
 A painter who on one side touches Hondekoeter, and on the other 
 Ferdinand Bol, and who without imitating Rembrandt paints animals 
 as easily as Van de Velde, skies better than Both, horses, and great 
 horses, more severely than Wouvermans or Berghem painted their 
 little ones ; who feels the sea keenly, as well as rivers and their banks ; 
 who paints cities, boats at anchor, and great maritime scenes, with a 
 breadth and authority that William Van de Velde did not possess, 
 a painter who, moreover, had a manner of his own of seeing, an ap- 
 propriate and very beautiful coloring, an easy, powerful hand, a taste 
 for rich, thick, abundant stuffs, a man who expands, grows, renews 
 himself, and is fortified by age, such a person is a very great man. 
 If it is remembered, beside, that he lived until 1691 ; that he thus 
 survived the greater part of those whom he had seen born ; and that 
 during that long career of eighty-six years, with the exception of a 
 trace of his father very strongly marked in his works, and afterwards 
 a reflection of the Italian sky which came to him perhaps from the 
 Boths and his friends the travellers, he remains himself, without alloy, 
 without admixture, moreover without signs of weakness, we must 
 admit that he had a very powerful brain. 
 
 If our Louvre gives a tolerably complete idea of the diverse forms 
 of his talent, his manner, and his coloring, it does not give his full
 
 198 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 measure, and does not mark the point of perfection that he could 
 attain, and which he sometimes did attain. 
 
 His great landscape is a beautiful work, which is more valuable as a 
 whole than in its details. No one could go farther in the art of paint- 
 ing light, of rendering the pleasing and restful sensations with which 
 a warm atmosphere envelops and penetrates one. It is a picture. 
 It is true without being too true ; it shows observation without being 
 a copy. The air that bathes it, the amber warmth with which it is 
 soaked, that gold which is but a veil, those colors which are only 
 the result of the light which inundates them, of the air which circu- 
 lates around, and of the sentiment of the painter which transforms 
 them, those values so tender in a whole which is so strong, all 
 these things come both from nature and from a conception ; it would 
 be a masterpiece if there had not slipped into it some insufficiencies 
 which seem the work of a young man or of an absent-minded 
 designer. 
 
 His Depart pour la Promenade, and the Promenade, two equestrian 
 pictures of beautiful form and noble workmanship, are also full of 
 his finest qualities, all bathed in sunlight, and steeped in those 
 golden waves which are, as it were, the ordinary color of his mind. 
 
 However, he has done better, and we are indebted to him for even 
 rarer things. I do not speak of those little pictures, too much 
 boasted of, which have been shown at different times in our French 
 Retrospective exhibitions. Without leaving France, there may have 
 been seen, in sales of private collections, works of Cuyp, not more 
 delicate, but more powerful and profound. A true, fine Cuyp is a
 
 CUYP. 199 
 
 painting at once subtile and gross, tender and robust, aerial and 
 massive. That which belongs to the impalpable, as the background, 
 the surroundings, the shadows, the effect of the air upon the dis- 
 tances, and broad daylight upon the colors, all corresponds to the 
 lighter parts of his mind ; and to render it his palette becomes 
 volatile, and his art grows supple. As to the objects of more solid 
 substance, of more defined contours, of more evident and consistent 
 color, he does not fear to enlarge planes, to fill out forms, to insist 
 upon robust features, and to be a little heavy, in order never to be 
 weak in touch, tone, or execution. In such a case he is no longer 
 refined, and, like all the good masters at the beginning of strong 
 schools, it costs him nothing to be wanting in charm when the charm 
 is not the essential character of the object he represents. This is 
 why the Cavalcades at the Louvre are not, to my idea, the highest 
 expression of his fine sober manner, a little gross and abundant, 
 but wholly masculine. There is in them an excess of gilding, of 
 sun, and of all that follows, redness, gleams, reflections, shadows 
 cast. Add to these an inexpressible mingling of open air and studio 
 light, of textual truth and of combinations, finally, something improb- 
 able in the costumes and suspicious in the elegance, and it results 
 that in spite of exceptional merits these two pictures are not abso- 
 lutely satisfactory. 
 
 The Hague Museum has a Portrait of the Sire de Roover, directing 
 the salmon-fishing in the neighborhood of Dordrecht, which repro- 
 duces with less brilliancy and still more manifest defects the manner- 
 ism of the two celebrated pictures of which I speak The figure
 
 200 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 is one of those we know. He is in a deep scarlet gown embroidered 
 with gold, bordered with fur, wearing a black cap with red plumes, 
 and a short sword with a gilded handle. He bestrides one of those 
 great brown bay horses, whose arching head, rather heavy body, 
 stiff legs, and mule hoofs we know of old. There is the same golden 
 tint in the sky, in the background, on the waters, on the faces ; the 
 same too distinct reflections, that are seen in a vivid light when the 
 atmosphere modifies neither the color nor the exterior edge of objects. 
 The picture is simple and well set, ingeniously planned, original, per- 
 sonal, full of conviction ; but, from the force of truth, the excess of 
 light makes one believe in errors of knowledge and taste. 
 
 Now see Cuyp at Amsterdam in the Six Museum, and consult 
 the two great canvases which figure in this unique collection. 
 
 One represents the Arrival of Maurice of Nassau at Scheveningen. 
 It is an important marine work with boats loaded with figures. 
 Neither Backhuysen, do I need to say ? nor Van de Velde, nor any 
 one, would have had the power to construct, conceive, or color in this 
 way a showy picture of this kind and of such insignificance. The 
 first boat, on the left, opposite the light, is an admirable bit. 
 
 As to the second picture, the very famous effect of moonlight on 
 the sea, I copy from my notes the succinctly formulated trace of the 
 surprise and pleasure that it caused me. " A wonder and a marvel ; 
 large, square ; the sea, a rugged coast, a boat on the right, in front 
 a fishing-boat with a figure spotted with red, on the left two sail-boats, 
 no wind, a tranquil serene night, the water quite calm, the full moon 
 half-way up the picture a little to the left, absolutely clear in a large
 
 CUYP. 201 
 
 opening of cloudless sky ; the whole incomparably true and fine in 
 color, force, transparency, and limpidity. A night Claude Lorraine, 
 graver, simpler, fuller, more naturally executed from a true sensation, 
 a veritable deceit of the eye (trompe r<ztf) by the most cultivated art. 
 
 As may be seen, Cuyp succeeds in each new enterprise ; and if one 
 undertook to follow him, I do not say in his variations, but in the 
 variety of his attempts, it would be perceived that in every kind of 
 art he has excelled at times, if only for once, all those of his con- 
 temporaries who shared around him the so singularly extended do- 
 main of his art. It would have needed great lack of comprehension, 
 or very little self-knowledge, to paint after him a Moonlight, a Dis- 
 embarkation of a Prince in grand naval array, or Dordrecht and its 
 Environs. What he has said is said, because he has expressed it in 
 his own manner, and his manner upon a given subject is worth all 
 the others. He has the method of a master, and a master's eye. He 
 has created and that suffices in art a wholly personal, fictitious for- 
 mula of light and its effects. He has had the very uncommon power 
 of imagining, first, an atmosphere, and then making of it not only 
 the flying, fluid element that can be breathed, but the law, and, as 
 it were, the regulating principle of his pictures. It is by this sign 
 that he is recognizable. If it is not perceived that he has influenced 
 his school, with still more reason one can be assured that he 
 has undergone the influence of no one. He is alone ; various, but 
 himself. 
 
 However, for, according to my idea, there is an however with 
 this fine painter, he is wanting in that something which makes
 
 202 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 the indispensable masters. He has practised all kinds of art in a 
 superior manner, but he has created neither a kind nor an art ; he 
 does not personify in his name a complete way of seeing, feeling, and 
 painting, as we say, " It is like Rembrandt, Paul Potter, Ruys- 
 dael." He reaches a very high rank, but certainly in the fourth line, 
 in that just classing of talents where Rembrandt is throned apart, 
 where Ruysdael is first. If Cuyp were absent, the Dutch School 
 would lose superb works, but perhaps there would be no great void 
 to fill in the inventions of the art of Holland.
 
 IX. 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF HOLLAND UPON FRENCH LANDSCAPE. 
 
 ONE question presents itself, among many others, when Dutch 
 landscape is studied, and the corresponding movement that took 
 place in France about forty-five years ago is remembered. One 
 asks himself, what was the influence of Holland upon this novelty ; 
 if it acted upon us, how, in what measure, and at what moment; 
 what it could teach us ; finally, for what reason, without ceasing to 
 please, it has ceased to instruct us. This very interesting question 
 never has been, so far as I know, studied to the purpose, and I shall 
 not attempt to treat it. It touches matters too near us, our contem- 
 poraries, living artists. It may easily be understood that I should 
 not be at my ease ; but I would like simply to express its terms. 
 
 It is clear that for two centuries we had in France but one 
 landscape painter, Claude Lorraine. This very great painter very 
 French, though very Roman ; a true poet, but with much of that 
 clear good sense which for a long time has produced doubts as to 
 whether we were a race of poets ; good-natured enough at bottom, 
 though solemn is, with more naturalness and less purpose, the match, 
 in his style, to Poussin in historical painting. His painting is an
 
 204 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 art which marvellously well represents the value of our mind, the 
 aptitudes of our eye ; it does us honor, and will one day become 
 one of the classic arts. It is consulted, admired, but not used ; we 
 especially do not confine ourselves to it, nor return to it, any more 
 than we return to the art of Esther and BMnice. 
 
 The eighteenth century occupied itself very little with landscape, 
 except to introduce into it gallantries, masquerades, festivals, so- 
 called rural or amusing mythologies. The whole school of David 
 visibly disdained it, and neither Valenciennes,* nor Bertin,f nor 
 their successors in our time, were of a humor to make it attractive. 
 They sincerely adored Virgil, and also nature ; but in truth it may be 
 said that they had a delicate sense of neither one nor the other. 
 They were Latin scholars who nobly scanned hexameters, painters 
 who saw things in an amphitheatre, rounded a tree pompously, and 
 gave the detail of a leaf. At bottom they perhaps enjoyed Delille \ 
 better than Virgil, made some good studies, and painted badly. 
 With much more mind than they, with fancy and real gifts, the 
 elder Vernet, whom I had nearly forgotten, is not what I should 
 call a very penetrating landscape painter, and I will class him, before 
 Hubert Robert, || but with him, among the good decorators of mu- 
 
 * A French landscape painter, pupil of Doyen. Toulouse, 1750-1819. TR. 
 
 t The painter employed by Louis XIV. at the Trianon. Member of the Academy at 
 Paris, 1667-1736. TR. 
 
 \ Jacques Delille, a didactic poet, member of the French Academy, 1738-1813, who 
 enjoyed an immense reputation at the end of the last century, and under the Empire. TR. 
 
 Claude Joseph Vernet, an eminent French marine painter, 1714-1789. He was 
 commissioned by Louis XV. to paint the seaports of France, and fifteen of these pictures 
 are now in the Louvre. He was the grandfather of Horace Vernet. TR. 
 
 || Hubert Robert, architectural and landscape painter. Paris, 1733-1808. TR.
 
 INFLUENCE OF HOLLAND UPON FRENCH LANDSCAPE. 2O$ 
 
 seums and royal vestibules. I do not speak of Demarne,* half 
 Frenchman, half Fleming, about whom Belgium and France have 
 no desire to warmly dispute ; and I think I could omit Lantara f 
 without great harm to French painting. 
 
 It was necessary for the school of David to be at the end of its 
 credit, for everything to have run short, and for people to be ready 
 to reverse everything as a nation does when it changes its taste, in 
 order to see appear at the same time, in letters and the arts, a sin- 
 cere passion for rural things. 
 
 The awakening began with the prose writers ; from 1816 to 1825 
 it passed into verse ; finally, from 1824 to 1830, the painters became 
 aware of it and began to follow. The first impulse came to us from 
 English painting, and consequently, when Ge"ricault and Bonington 
 acclimated in France the painting of Constable and Gainsborough, 
 it was at first an Anglo-Flemish influence that prevailed. The 
 coloring of Vandyck in the backgrounds of portraits, the audacity 
 and the fantastic palette of Rubens, are what served to release us 
 from the coldness and conventionalities of the preceding school. 
 The palette gained much thereby, poetry lost nothing, but truth 
 was but half satisfied with the result. 
 
 Remark that at the same time, in consequence of a love of the 
 marvellous which corresponded to the literary fashion of ballads and 
 legends, and to the rather rosy color of the imaginations of those 
 
 * J. L. Demarne, a Flemish painter, pupil of Nicasius. Brussels, 1752; Paris, 1829. 
 t Simon Mathurin Lantara, a celebrated landscape painter, born near Montargis, 1745; 
 died 1778. He excelled in moonlights and sunsets.
 
 206 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 days, the first Hollander who whispered in the ear of the painters 
 was Rembrandt. In a visible state or in a latent state, a little of 
 the Rembrandt of warm mists is everywhere, at the beginning of 
 our modern school ; and it is precisely because Rubens and Rem- 
 brandt were vaguely felt to be hidden behind the scenes, that what 
 was called the Romantic School was received with doubtful enthu- 
 siasm when it came upon the stage. 
 
 About 1828 there was a new life. Some very young men there 
 were even children among them exhibited one day some very small 
 pictures that were at once found eccentric and charming. Of those 
 eminent painters I will name only two who are dead ; or rather I 
 will name them all, saving my right to speak only of those who can 
 no longer hear me. The masters of French contemporary landscape 
 presented themselves together; they were Messieurs Flers, Cabat, 
 Dupr6, Rousseau, . and Corot 
 
 Where were they formed ? Whence did they come ? What drove 
 them to the Louvre rather than elsewhere? Who led them, some 
 to Italy, and others to Normandy ? One might really think, so un- 
 certain is their origin, their talents being to all appearance fortuitous, 
 that we find in them the painters who disappeared two centuries 
 before, whose history has never been well known. 
 
 However it may be with the education of those children of Paris, 
 born upon the quays of the Seine, formed in the suburbs, learning 
 one can hardly say how ; two things appeared at the same time in 
 them, landscapes simply and truly rustic, and Dutch formulas. This 
 time Holland found the right hearers ; she taught us to see, to feel,
 
 INFLUENCE OF HOLLAND UPON FRENCH LANDSCAPE. 207 
 
 and to paint. Such was the surprise, that the intimate originality 
 of the discoveries was not too closely examined. The invention 
 seemed as new in all points as fortunate. People admired ; and the 
 same day Ruysdael entered France, a little hidden for the time 
 being behind the glory of these young men. At the same moment 
 it was discovered that there was a French country, a French landscape 
 art, and museums with old pictures that could teach us something. 
 
 Two of the men of whom I speak remained nearly faithful to their 
 first affections, or if they wandered from them for a moment, it 
 was but to return at last. Corot detached himself from them from 
 the beginning. The road he followed is known. He cultivated 
 Italy early, and brought back from it something that was indelible. 
 He was more lyrical, equally rural, less rustic. He loved woods and 
 waters, but differently. He invented a style ; he employed less ex- 
 actitude in seeing things than subtlety in seizing what he could 
 extract from them, and what might be separated from them. Hence 
 his quite individual mythology and his paganism so ingeniously nat- 
 ural, which was in its rather vapory form only the personification of 
 the very spirit of things. Nothing can be less Dutch. 
 
 As to Rousseau, a complex artist, much reviled and much re- 
 nowned, very difficult to be defined with propriety, the most truth- 
 ful thing that can be said is that he represents, in his beautiful 
 and exemplary career, the efforts of the French mind to create in 
 France a new Dutch art ; I mean an art as perfect while being 
 national, as precise while more various, and as dogmatic while more 
 modern.
 
 208 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 From his date and his rank in the history of our school, Rous- 
 seau is an intermediary man, a transition between Holland and the 
 painters to come. He derives something from the Dutch painters, 
 and separates from them. He admires them, and forgets them. In 
 the past he gives them one hand, but with the other he excites and 
 calls to himself a whole current of ardor and good-will. In nature 
 he discovers a thousand unwritten things. The repertory of his 
 sensations is immense. Every season, every hour of the day, the 
 evening and the dawn ; all the varieties of weather, from the winter 
 frosts to the dog-day heats ; every altitude, from the beaches to the 
 hills, from the plains to Mont Blanc ; villages, fields, copses, forests, 
 the naked land and all its cover of foliage, there is nothing which 
 has not tempted him, arrested him, convinced him of its interest, 
 persuaded him to paint it. It might be said that the Dutch painters 
 had only revolved around themselves, when they are compared to 
 the ardent explorations of this seeker of new impressions. All of 
 them could have had their careers, with an abridgment of the draw- 
 ings of Rousseau. In this point of view he is absolutely original, 
 and in that very thing he belongs to his own time. Once plunged 
 into the study of the relative, the accidental, and the true, one must 
 go to the very end. Not wholly, but almost entirely alone, he con- 
 tributed to create a school that might be called the School of Sen- 
 sations. 
 
 If I were studying intimately our school of contemporary land- 
 scape, instead of sketching some of its wholly characteristic traits, 
 I should have other names to join to the preceding. In this, as
 
 INFLUENCE OF HOLLAND UPON FRENCH LANDSCAPE. 209 
 
 in all schools, would be seen contradictions, countercurrents, aca- 
 demic traditions, which continue to filter through the vast movement 
 which is leading us to the truly natural ; the memories of Poussin, 
 the influences of Claude, the Spirit of Synthesis pursuing its work 
 among the multitude of analytical works and artless observations. 
 There might be noticed, also, salient individualities, which, although 
 held in subjection, repeat the great men without resembling them 
 too closely, and make side discoveries without appearing to dis- 
 cover. Finally, I could cite names which are an infinite honor to 
 us ; and I should take care not to except an ingenious, brilliant, 
 multiform painter,* who has treated a thousand things, fancy, my- 
 thology, landscape, who has loved the country and old paintings, 
 Rembrandt and Watteau, who has particularly loved Correggio, 
 and passionately the coppices of Fontainebleau, and above all, per- 
 haps, the combinations of a slightly chimerical palette, the one 
 who, among all contemporary painters (and this is indeed an honor), 
 first divined Rousseau, understood him, caused him to be understood, 
 proclaimed him a master and his master, and placed at the service 
 of this inflexible originality his more supple talent, his better under- 
 stood originality, his accepted influence, and his well- won renown. 
 
 What I desire to show, and that will suffice here, is that from the 
 first day the impulse given by the Dutch School and Ruysdael, the 
 direct impulse, stopped short, or was turned aside ; and that two men 
 especially contributed to substitute the exclusive study of nature for 
 the study of the masters of the North, Corot, who had no union 
 
 Diaz. TR.
 
 210 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 with them, and Rousseau, who had a livelier affection for their works, 
 a more exact remembrance of their methods, but had also an imperi- 
 ous desire to see more, to see differently, and to express everything 
 which had escaped them. The result was two consequent and par- 
 allel facts, studies subtler if not better made, and methods more 
 complicated if not more learned. 
 
 What Jean Jacques Rousseau, Bernardin de Saint Pierre, Chateau- 
 briand, and Se"nancour, our first landscape masters in literature, ob- 
 served at a glance, expressed in brief formulas, will be only a very 
 incomplete abridgment, and a very limited survey on the day when 
 literature shall become purely descriptive. In the same way the 
 needs of travelling, analytical, and imitative painting found them- 
 selves greatly straitened in foreign styles and methods. The eye 
 became more curious and precise ; sensitiveness, without being more 
 lively, became more nervous ; drawing penetrated farther ; obser- 
 vations were multiplied ; nature, more closely studied, swarmed with 
 details, incidents, effects, and shades ; a thousand secrets were de- 
 manded of her, that she had kept to herself either because no one 
 had known how or because no one had wished to interrogate her 
 profoundly on all these points. A language was necessary to ex- 
 press this multitude of new sensations ; and it was Rousseau almost 
 alone who invented the vocabulary we employ to-day. In his 
 sketches and rough draughts and in his finished works you will 
 perceive trials, efforts, inventions, successful or unsuccessful, excel- 
 lent neologisms, or phrases hazarded, with which this profound 
 seeker of formulas sought to enrich the ancient language and the
 
 INFLUENCE OF HOLLAND UPON FRENCH LANDSCAPE. 211 
 
 ancient grammar of the painters. If you take one of his pictures, 
 the best, and place it beside a picture by Ruysdael, Hobbema, or Wy- 
 nants, of the same order and the same acceptation, you will be struck 
 by the differences, almost as much as if you read, one after the other, 
 a page of a modern descriptive writer, after having read a page of 
 the Confessions or of Obermann. There is the same effort, the same 
 increase of studies, and the same result in the work. The terms 
 are more characteristic, the observation more uncommon, the palette 
 infinitely more rich, the color more expressive, even the construction 
 more scrupulous. All seems to be more felt, everything is more 
 thoughtful, more scientifically reasoned and calculated. A Hollander 
 would gape with wonder at such scrupulousness, and be stupefied 
 by such analytical faculties. And yet are these works better, more 
 powerfully inspired ? Are they more living ? When Rousseau 
 represents a White Frost on the Plain, is he nearer the truth 
 than are Ostade and Van de Velde with their Skaters ? When 
 Rousseau paints a Trout-Fishing, is he graver, moister, more 
 shady, than is Ruysdael with his sleeping waters and his sombre 
 cascades ? 
 
 A thousand times there have been described, in voyages, ro- 
 mances, or in poems, the waters of a lake beating upon a deserted 
 beach, at night when the moon is rising, while a nightingale is sing- 
 ing afar off. Did not Senancour sketch this picture once for all in a 
 few grave, brief, and ardent lines ? A new art was born then on 
 the same day under the double form of book and picture, with the 
 same tendencies, with artists endowed with the same spirit, and with
 
 212 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 the same audience to enjoy them. Was it a progress, or the con- 
 trary ? Posterity will decide upon it better than we can. 
 
 What is positive is, that in twenty or twenty-five years, from 1830 
 to 1855, the French School had made great attempts, had produced 
 enormously, and had greatly advanced matters, since, starting from 
 Ruysdael with his Windmills, Flood Gates, and Bushes, that is 
 to say, from a very Dutch sentiment expressed in wholly Dutch 
 formulas, it had reached the point on one side of creating an ex- 
 clusively French style with Corot, and on the other side of prepar- 
 ing through Rousseau the future of an art still more universal Did 
 it stop there ? Not entirely. 
 
 Love of home has never been, even in Holland, anything but an 
 exceptional sentiment and a slightly singular habit. In all epochs 
 have been found people whose feet burned to go to some new place. 
 The tradition of journeys to Italy is perhaps the sole one common to 
 all the schools, whether Flemish, Dutch, English, French, German, or 
 Spanish. From Both, Berghem, Claude, and Poussin to the painters 
 of our day, there have been no landscape painters who have not 
 longed to see the Apennines and the Roman Campagna, and there 
 never has been a school local enough to prevent Italian landscape 
 from introducing into it that foreign flower which has never borne 
 anything but hybrid fruit. In the last thirty years people have gone 
 much farther. Distant journeys have tempted the painters, and 
 changed many things in painting. The motive for these adventurous 
 excursions was at first that need of new ground proper to all popula- 
 tions grown to excess in one spot, a curiosity for discoveries, and a
 
 INFLUENCE OF HOLLAND UPON FRENCH LANDSCAPE. 213 
 
 sort of necessity of changing place in order to invent. It was also 
 the consequence of certain scientific studies whose progress was ob- 
 tained only by travels around the globe, among climates and races. 
 The result was the style you are familiar with, a cosmopolitan 
 painting, rather novel than original, very slightly French, which will 
 represent in our history (if history remarks upon it at all) but a 
 moment of curiosity, uncertainty, and unrest, which is really only a 
 change of air tried by people in not very good health. 
 
 However, without leaving France, we continue to seek for land- 
 scape a more decided form. It would be a curious work to record 
 this latent elaboration, so slow and confused, of a new fashion which 
 has not been discovered, which is even very far from being found ; 
 and I am astonished that criticism has not more closely studied this 
 fact at the very time when it was being accomplished under our 
 eyes. 
 
 A certain unclassing seems to be operating to-day among painters. 
 There are fewer categories, I would willingly say castes, than there 
 were formerly. History borders on genre, which itself borders on 
 landscape and even on still life. Many boundaries have disappeared. 
 How many new relations the picturesque has brought about ! Less 
 stiffness on one side, more boldness on the other, less huge canvases, 
 the need of pleasing, and pleasing one's self, country life which opens 
 so many eyes, all this has mingled styles and transformed methods. 
 It would be impossible to say up to what point the broad daylight 
 of the fields, entering the most austere studios, has there produced 
 conversions and confusions.
 
 214 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 Landscape makes every day more proselytes than progress. Those 
 who practise it exclusively are not more skilful on that account, but 
 there are more painters who try it. Open air, diffused light, the real 
 sunlight, take to-day in painting, and in all paintings, an importance 
 which has never before been recognized, and which, let us say it 
 frankly, they do not deserve. 
 
 All the fancies of the imagination, and what were called the myste- 
 ries of the palette at a time when mystery was one of the attractions of 
 painting, give place to the love of the absolute textual truth. Photo- 
 graphic studies as to the effects of light have changed the greater 
 proportion of ways of seeing, feeling, and painting. At this present 
 time painting is never sufficiently clear, sharp, formal, and crude. It 
 seems as if the mechanical reproduction of what is, becomes to-day 
 the highest expression of experience and knowledge, and that talent 
 consists in struggling for exactitude, precision, and imitative force 
 with an instrument. All personal interference of sensibility is out 
 of place. What the mind has imagined, is considered an artifice ; 
 and all artifice, that is, all conventionality, is proscribed by an art 
 which can be nothing but conventional. Hence the controversies 
 in which the pupils of nature have numbers on their side. There 
 are even scornful appellations to designate contrary practices. They 
 are called the old game, as much as to say, an antiquated, doting, and 
 superannuated fashion of comprehending nature by introducing one's 
 own into it. Choice of subject, drawing, palette, everything partici- 
 pates in this impersonal manner of seeing and treating things. We 
 are far from the ancient customs ; I mean, the customs of forty years
 
 INFLUENCE OF HOLLAND UPON FRENCH LANDSCAPE. 215 
 
 ago, when bitumen rippled in streams upon the palettes of the Ro- 
 mantic painters, and passed for the auxiliary color of the ideal. 
 
 Every year there is a time and a place where these new fashions 
 proclaim themselves with boldness, that is, at our spring exhibition. 
 If you keep yourself at all familiar with the novelties there produced, 
 you will remark that the most recent painting aims at striking the eye 
 by salient, textual pictures, easily recognizable by their truth and ab- 
 sence of artifice, and also giving us exactly the sensations produced 
 by what we could see in the street, while the public is quite disposed 
 to applaud an art which represents with so much fidelity its habits, 
 its face, its clothes, its taste, its inclination, and its mind. But, you 
 will say, the historical painter ? In the first place, in the way things 
 are going, is it quite certain that an historical school still exists ? 
 Finally, if this appellation of old fashion is applied still to traditions 
 brilliantly defended, but very little followed, do not imagine that the 
 historical painters escape the fusion of styles and resist the tempta- 
 tion of entering themselves into the current. They hesitate, they 
 have some scruples, but finally they launch themselves in it. Look 
 from year to year at the conversions that occur, and without examin- 
 ing profoundly, consider the color of the pictures alone ; if from dark 
 they become light, if from black they become white, if from deep they 
 become superficial, if from supple they become stiff, if oily matter 
 turns to thick impasto, and chiaroscuro into Japanese paper, you 
 have seen enough to learn that there is a spirit which has changed 
 its surroundings, and a studio which is open to light from the street. 
 If I did not conduct this analysis with extreme caution, I would be
 
 216 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 more explicit and would make you touch with your finger undeniable 
 truths. 
 
 The conclusion I wish to draw is that in the latent state, as in the 
 state of professional studies, landscape has invaded everything, and, 
 what is singular, while waiting for its own formula, it has overthrown 
 all formulas, troubled many clear minds, and compromised some 
 talents. It is none the less true that it is labored for ; that the 
 attempts undertaken are for its profit ; and that to excuse the harm 
 that it has done to painting in general, it would be desirable at least 
 that it should gain something itself. 
 
 In the midst of changing fashions there is, however, a sort of con- 
 tinuous thread of art. You can, in passing through the rooms at 
 our exhibitions, perceive here and there pictures which impress by a 
 breadth, a gravity, a powerful gamut, an interpretation of effects and 
 things, where are felt almost the palette of a master. There are in 
 them neither figures nor ornaments of any sort. Grace is wholly 
 absent from them, but the rendering is strong, the color deep and 
 grave, the material thick and rich, and sometimes a great subtlety 
 of eye and hand is concealed under the wilful negligences or the 
 slightly displeasing brutalities of the art. The painter* of whom I 
 speak, whom I would be glad to name, joins to true love of the 
 country a not less evident love of old painting and the old masters. 
 His pictures prove it ; his etchings and drawings are also of a nature 
 to testify to it. Is not this the hyphen which attaches us still to 
 the schools of the Netherlands ? In any case it is the sole corner 
 
 * Jules Dupr^. TR.
 
 INFLUENCE OF HOLLAND UPON FRENCH LANDSCAPE. 21? 
 
 of French painting of the present day where their influence is still 
 suspected. 
 
 I know not which of the Dutch painters is most valued in the labo- 
 rious studio that I indicate. And I am not very certain that at pres- 
 ent Van dr Meer, of Delft, is not more heeded there than Ruysdael. 
 One would think so from a certain disdain for drawing, for delicate 
 and difficult constructions, and for care in rendering, that the Am- 
 sterdam master would neither have counselled nor approved. But 
 it is certain that there is present the living and present remembrance 
 of an art everywhere else forgotten. 
 
 This ardent and powerful touch is of good augury. There is no 
 well-informed mind that does not feel that it comes in a quite direct 
 line from the country where above all others they knew how to paint, 
 and that, by following it with some persistency, modern painting will 
 have a chance of finding its lost way. I should not be surprised if 
 Holland rendered us still another service, and after having restored 
 to us the literature of nature, some day or other, after long circuits, 
 she should bring back nature to our painting. To this we must come 
 sooner or later. Our school knows a great deal ; it is exhausted with 
 wandering ; its store of studies is considerable ; it is even so rich that 
 it is satisfied with them, forgets itself in them, and spends in collect- 
 ing documents the forces that it would better employ by making use 
 of them in production. 
 
 There is a time for everything, and the day when painters and 
 men of taste shall be persuaded that the best studies in the world 
 are not worth one good picture, the public mind will have made one 
 more revolution, which is the surest way of making progress.
 
 X. 
 
 THE ANATOMICAL LECTURE. 
 
 I AM very much tempted to be silent about the Anatomical 
 Lecture. It is a picture that one ought to find very fine, abso- 
 lutely original, almost perfect, under penalty of committing in the 
 eyes of many sincere admirers an error in propriety and good sense. 
 I regret to make the avowal that it has left me unmoved. And 
 having said that, it is necessary that I should explain myself, or, if 
 you will, that I should justify myself. 
 
 Historically, the Anatomical Lecture is of great interest, for it is 
 known that it is derived from analogous pictures, lost or preserved, 
 and thus bears witness of the way in which a man with a great 
 destiny appropriates the attempts of his predecessors. In this 
 regard it is an example, not less celebrated than many others, of 
 the law that a man has a right to take his own wherever he may 
 find it, when that man is Shakespeare, Rotrou, Corneille, Calderon, 
 Moliere, or Rembrandt. Note that in this list of inventors for whom 
 the past labors, I cite but one painter, and I might cite them all. 
 Finally, by its date in the work of Rembrandt, by its spirit, and by 
 its merits, it shows the road that he had passed over since the un-
 
 THE ANATOMICAL LECTURE. 219 
 
 certain gropings that are revealed by the two overestimated can- 
 vases at the Hague Museum. I speak of the St. Simeon and a 
 Portrait of a Young Man, which appears to me to be evidently his, 
 and which in any case is the portrait of a child made with some 
 timidity by a child. 
 
 When it is remembered that Rembrandt was a pupil of Pinas 
 and of Lastman, if one has seen a work or two of the latter, it seems 
 to me that the novelties that Rembrandt showed in the beginning 
 become less surprising. To tell the truth, and to speak wisely, neither 
 in inventions, nor subjects, nor in the picturesque marriage of small 
 figures with grand architecture, nor even in the Israelitish type and 
 rags of his figures, nor in the rather greenish mist, and the slightly 
 sulphurous light which bathes his canvases, is there anything very 
 unexpected, or consequently entirely his own. We must come to 
 1632, that is, to the Anatomical Lecture, to finally perceive some- 
 thing like the revelation of an original career. Finally, it is right 
 to be just not only to Rembrandt, but to every one. We must re- 
 member that in 1632 Ravesteyn was fifty or sixty years old, Frans 
 Hals forty-eight, and that from 1627 to 1633 this marvellous work- 
 man had produced the most important and also the most perfect 
 of his fine works. 
 
 It is true that both of them, Hals especially, were what is called 
 painters of the outside ; I mean by this, that the exterior of things 
 struck them more than the interior, that they used their eyes more than 
 their imagination, and that the sole transfiguration that Nature was 
 made to undergo was that they saw her elegantly colored and posed,
 
 220 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 true in all her features, and reproduced her with the best of palettes 
 and ablest of hands. It is also true that the mystery of form, light, 
 and tone had not exclusively preoccupied them ; that in painting with- 
 out much analysis, and according to prompt sensations, they painted 
 only what they saw, added neither much shade to the shadows nor 
 much light to the light ; and that in this way the grand invention of 
 Rembrandt in chiaroscuro remained with them in the condition of a 
 current medium, but not in the condition of a medium rare and even 
 poetical. It is none the less true that if Rembrandt be placed in this 
 year 1632, between the professors who had greatly enlightened him 
 and the masters who were extremely superior to him in practical 
 ability and in experience, the Lesson of Anatomy cannot fail to lose 
 a good part of its absolute value. 
 
 The real merit of the work is, then, to mark a stage in the career 
 of the painter ; it indicates a great step, reveals with distinctness 
 what it undertakes, and if it does not yet permit us to measure all 
 that he would become in a few years, it gives the first warning of it. 
 It is the germ of Rembrandt ; there would be reason for regret if it 
 were already himself, and it would be to misunderstand him to judge 
 him from this first witness. The subject having been already treated 
 in the same manner, with a dissecting table, a foreshortened corpse, 
 and the light acting in the same way upon the central object which 
 it is important to show, it should have been Rembrandt's business to 
 have treated the subject better perhaps, and certainly to have felt it 
 more delicately. I will not go so far as to seek the metaphysical 
 meaning of a scene where the picturesque effect and the cordial sensi-
 
 THE ANATOMICAL LECTURE. 221 
 
 bility of the painter suffice to explain everything ; for I have never 
 well understood all the philosophy supposed to be contained in these 
 grave and simple heads, and in these personages without gesture, 
 posing (which is a mistake) quite symmetrically for their portraits. 
 The most living figure in the picture, the most real, the one that 
 most stands out, as one might say in thinking of the limbos that a 
 painted figure must successively traverse to enter into the realities 
 of art, and also the best likeness, is that of Dr. Sulp. Among the 
 others there are some rather dead ones that Rembrandt left on the 
 way, which are neither well seen nor well felt nor well painted. Two, 
 on the other hand, I might count three by including the accessory 
 figure in the middle distance, are, if carefully examined, those in 
 which this distant point of view is most clearly revealed. In them 
 there is that inexpressible something, alive and floating, undecided 
 and ardent, which is the whole genius of Rembrandt. They are gray, 
 executed with the stump ; perfectly constructed without visible out- 
 lines, modelled from within, wholly alive with a life of their own, in- 
 finitely rare, that Rembrandt alone discovers under the surfaces of 
 real life. This is a great deal, since in this relation the art of Rem- 
 brandt already could be spoken of, and his methods considered as a 
 finished fact, but it is too little when one thinks of what a com- 
 plete work of Rembrandt contains, and the extraordinary celebrity 
 of this one is considered. 
 
 The general tone is neither cold nor warm ; it is yellowish. The 
 execution is thin and has but little warmth. The effect is salient 
 without being powerful, and in no part of the stuffs, the .background,
 
 222 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 or the atmosphere where the scene is placed, is the work or the 
 tone very rich. 
 
 As to the corpse, it is pretty generally agreed that it is bloated, 
 slightly constructed, and lacks study. I might add to these reproaches 
 two others of a graver nature, first, that apart from the soft and 
 so to speak liquid whiteness of the tissues, it is not a dead body ; it 
 has neither the beauty, the hideousness, the characteristic accidents, 
 nor the terrible accents of a corpse ; it has been viewed with an in- 
 different eye, beheld by an absent soul. In the second place, and 
 this fault results from the first, this corpse is (let us not be deceived) 
 simply an effect of pale light in a dark picture ; and as I shall say to 
 you later, this preoccupation with the light on its own account, in- 
 dependent of the object illuminated, I might say without pity for the 
 illuminated object, during Rembrandt's whole life was to serve him 
 or injure him according to circumstances. This is the first memo- 
 rable circumstance when his fixed idea manifestly deceived him by 
 making him say a different thing from what he had to say. He had 
 a man to paint, but he did not take enough care about this human 
 form ; he had death to paint, and he forgot it in seeking upon his 
 palette a whitish tone that should be his light. I wish to believe 
 that a genius like Rembrandt has frequently been more attentive, 
 more deeply moved, and more nobly inspired by the subject he 
 wished to render. 
 
 As to the chiaroscuro, of which the Anatomical Lecture offers 
 almost the first formal example, as we shall see it elsewhere applied 
 in a masterly way to those diverse expressions either of intimate
 
 THE ANATOMICAL LECTURE. 223 
 
 poetry or of novel modelling, I shall have other and better occa- 
 sions to speak of it. 
 
 To sum up my conclusions, I think I can say that fortunately for 
 his glory, Rembrandt has given, even in this same style, decisive 
 notes which singularly diminish the interest of this first picture. I 
 will add that if the picture were of small dimensions, it would be 
 judged a feeble work, and that if the size of this canvas gives it a 
 particular value, it cannot be called a masterpiece, as too often has 
 been repeated.
 
 XL 
 
 FRANS HALS AT HAARLEM. 
 
 As I have told you, it is at Haarlem that a painter in search of 
 fine, strong lessons ought to give himself the pleasure of seeing 
 Frans Hals. Everywhere else, in our French cabinets or museums, 
 in the Dutch galleries or collections, the idea that one forms of this 
 brilliant master, so very unequal in his manner, is seductive, agree- 
 able, clever, rather frivolous ; but it is neither true nor equitable. 
 The man loses in it as much as the artist is belittled. He astonishes 
 and amuses. With his unexampled celerity, the prodigious good-humor 
 and the eccentricities of his method, he seems to stand out in relief, 
 by the jocoseness of his mind and hand, from the severe background 
 of the paintings of his time. Sometimes he is striking ; he makes 
 you think that he is as learned as he is gifted, and that his irresist- 
 ible fire is only the happy grace of a profound talent ; but almost 
 immediately he compromises himself, does himself discredit, and dis- 
 courages you. His portrait, which figures at the Amsterdam Mu- 
 seum, in which he is reproduced life size, standing upon a sylvan 
 slope beside his wife, represents him to us quite well, as we should 
 imagine him in his moments of impertinence, when he is jesting and
 
 FRANS HALS AT HAARLEM. 22$ 
 
 lightly mocking us. Painting and gesture, execution and counte- 
 nance, everything in this portrait, which is altogether too unceremo- 
 nious, is in keeping. Hals laughs in our faces, the wife of this gay 
 jester does the same, and, skilful as the painting is, it is not much 
 more serious than they. 
 
 Such, to judge him only by his light side, is the famous painter 
 whose renown was great in Holland during the first half of the 
 seventeenth century. To-day the name of Hals reappears in our 
 school at the moment when the love of the natural re-enters it with 
 some clamor and no little excess. His method serves as a programme 
 to certain doctrines by virtue of which the most word-for-word exact- 
 ness is wrongly taken for truth, and the most perfectly indifferent 
 execution taken for the last word of knowledge and taste. By in- 
 voking his testimony for the support of a thesis to which he never 
 gave anything but contradictions in his fine works, a mistake is 
 made, and in so doing, an injury is done to him. Among so many 
 high qualities, are only his faults to be seen and extravagantly ex- 
 tolled ? I fear so, and I will tell you what makes me dread it. It 
 would be, I assure you, a new error and an injustice. 
 
 In the great hall of the Academy at Haarlem, which contains many 
 pages analogous to his, but where he compels you to look only at 
 him, Frans Hals has eight great canvases, whose dimensions vary 
 from two and a half metres to over four metres. They are, first, 
 Repasts or Reunions of officers of the Corps of Archers of St. 
 George, of the Corps of Archers of St. Adrian ; finally, and later, 
 the Regents or Hospital Regents. The figures in them are of life 
 
 '5
 
 226 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 size, and very numerous. These paintings are very imposing. The 
 pictures appertain to all the periods of his life, and the series em- 
 braces his long career. The first, of 1616, shows him to us at thirty- 
 two years of age. The last, painted in 1664, shows him to us only 
 two years before his death, at the extreme age of eighty years. He 
 is taken, so to speak, at the outset, and is seen to grow and grope.' 
 His blossoming came late, about the middle of his life, even a little 
 beyond it ; he fortifies himself, and develops himself in the midst of old 
 age ; finally, we are present at his decline, and are greatly surprised 
 to see what self-possession this indefatigable master still maintained 
 when his hand first failed, and then life. 
 
 There are few, if any, painters concerning whom we possess such 
 complete information, so well graded and precise. The spectacle is 
 rarely given to us to embrace at a glance fifty years of an artist's 
 labor, to be present at his researches, behold him in his successes, 
 and judge him from himself, in his most important and best work. 
 Moreover, all his canvases are placed at a convenient height, they 
 can be examined without effort ; they yield to you all their secrets, 
 even supposing Hals was a mysterious painter, which he was not. 
 If you saw him paint, you would know no more. Consequently the 
 mind is not slow in deciding, nor the judgment in forming. 
 
 Hals was only a workman. I warn you of that at once ; but as a 
 workman he is certainly one of the most clever and expert masters 
 who has ever existed anywhere, even in Flanders in spite of Rubens 
 and Vandyck, even in Spain in spite of Velasquez. Permit me to 
 copy my notes ; they have the merit of brevity, of being taken on the
 
 FRANS HALS A T HAARLEM. 22? 
 
 spot, and of measuring and analyzing things according to their in- 
 terest. With such an artist one is easily tempted to say too much or 
 too little. With the thinker we could soon finish, but with the 
 painter we could go far ; we must restrain ourselves and give him 
 his due proportion. 
 
 " No. 54, 1616. His first great picture. He is thirty-two ; he is 
 seeking his way ; he has before him Ravesteyn, Pieter de Grebber, 
 Cornelis van Haarlem, who enlighten him, but do not tempt him. 
 Is his master, Karel van Mander, more capable of guiding him ? 
 The painting is strong in tone, red in principle ; the modelling is 
 rough and difficult ; the hands are heavy ; the darks ill observed. 
 With all that the work is very characteristic. There are three 
 charming heads to notice. 
 
 "No. 56, 1627. Eleven years later. He is already himself; here 
 he is in full flower. The painting is gray, fresh, natural, a dark har- 
 mony. Scarfs tawny, orange, or blue ; ruffs white. He has found 
 his register, and fixed his elements of coloring. He employs pure 
 white, colors the lights with a few glazings, and adds a little green. 
 The brown and dull backgrounds seem to have inspired Pieter de 
 Hoogh, and remind one of the father of Cuyp. The features are 
 more studied, the types perfect. 
 
 ''No. 55, 1627. Same year; better still. More execution; the 
 hand more skilful and free. The execution has shades, he varies it. 
 Same tone ; the whites are more delicate, the detail of the ruffs in- 
 dicated with more caprice. In all, the ease and grace of a man sure 
 of himself; there is a scarf of tender blue which is all Hals. Heads
 
 228 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 unequally fine as to rendering, but all expressive and astonishingly 
 individual. The face of the standard bearer, standing in the centre, 
 is in a warm, frank value upon the silk of the banner, and he, with 
 his head a little on one side, his eye twinkling, his small mouth deli- 
 cate, and made thinner by a smile, is from head to foot a delicious 
 piece of work. The darks are stronger ; he separates them from 
 the red, composes them, amalgamates them in a fashion more ample 
 and healthy. The modelling is flat, the atmosphere becomes rare, 
 the tones are placed in juxtaposition without prepared transitions. 
 No use of chiaroscuro ; it is the open air of a room well and equally 
 lighted. Hence there are spaces between the tones that nothing 
 unites, a suppleness when the values and the natural colors support 
 each other closely, and hardness when the relation is more distant. 
 A little system. I see very clearly what conclusion our present 
 school draws from it. It is right in thinking that Hals remains ex- 
 cellent, in spite of this accidental intention ; it would be wrong if it 
 thought that his great learning and his merits depend upon this. 
 And what would assure us of it is No. 57, 1633. 
 
 " Hals is forty-seven. This is in his brilliant style, with a rich key- 
 board, his masterwork, absolutely fine, not the most piquant, but 
 the most elevated, the most abundant, the most substantial, and the 
 most learned. Here there is no intention, no affectation of placing 
 his figures outside of, rather than in the air, and of creating a void 
 around them. None of the difficulties of an art which, if it is well 
 understood, accepts and solves them all, are eluded. 
 
 " Perhaps, taken individually, the heads are less perfect than in the
 
 FRANS HALS AT HAARLEM. 229 
 
 preceding number, less spiritually expressive. With this exception, 
 which is an accident that might be the fault of the models as well as 
 the painter, as a whole the picture is superior. The background is 
 dark (noir), and consequently the values are reversed. The black of 
 the velvets, silks, and satins plays with more fancifulness on it ; the 
 colors separate themselves from it with a breadth, certainty, and a 
 harmony that Hals has never exceeded. As beautiful, as faithfully 
 observed in shadow as in light, in strength as in softness, it is charm- 
 ing to see in them such richness and simplicity, to examine their 
 choiceness, their number, their infinite shades, and to admire their 
 perfect union. The right side in full brilliancy is surprising. The 
 material in itself is of the rarest kind ; thick and flowing paint, 
 that is firm and full, thick or thin, according to need ; handling free, 
 intelligent, supple, bold, never foolish, never insignificant ; every- 
 thing is treated according to its interest, its own nature, and its 
 value. In one detail application is felt, another is hardly touched. 
 The guipures are flat, the laces light, the satins shining, the silks 
 lustreless, the velvets absorb more light, all without minuteness or 
 petty observation. A sentiment prevails of the substance of things ; 
 a moderation without the least error ; the art of being precise without 
 too much explanation, of making everything understood with half a 
 word, of omitting nothing but suppressing the useless ; the touch 
 expeditious, prompt, and sharp ; the true phrase, and nothing but the 
 true phrase, found at once, and never oppressed by overloading ; no 
 turbulence and no superfluity ; as much taste as in Vandyck, as 
 much skilful execution as in Velasquez, with the hundredfold diffi-
 
 230 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 culties of a palette infinitely richer, for instead of being reduced 
 to three tones, it is the entire repertory of all the tones known, 
 such are, in the full brilliancy of his experience and fire, the almost 
 unique qualities of this fine painter. The central personage, with his 
 blue satins and his greenish yellow jacket, is a masterpiece. Never 
 was there better painting, never will there be any better painting. 
 It is with these two masterworks, Nos. 55 and 57, that Frans Hals 
 defends himself against the mistaken use they seek to make of his 
 name. Certainly he has more naturalness than any one, but his can- 
 not be called ultra-simplicity. He certainly colors with fulness, he 
 models flatly, he avoids vulgar roundness ; but although he has his 
 own special modelling, he nevertheless observes the reliefs of nature ; 
 his figures have backs, even when you see them in front, and they 
 are not boards. It is also true that his colors are simple, with a cold 
 foundation, and they are broken ; they show the use of as little oil 
 as possible, their substance is homogeneous, the pigment solid ; their 
 deep radiance comes from their first quality as well as from their 
 shading, but of these colors, of such delicate choiceness, such sure and 
 sober taste, he is neither miserly nor even economical. He lavishes 
 them, on the contrary, with a generosity which is hardly imitated by 
 those who take him for an example, and they do not sufficiently ob- 
 serve with what infallible tact he knows how to multiply them with- 
 out their injuring each other. Finally, he assuredly permits himself 
 great liberties of hand, but till then not one moment of negligence 
 can be observed in him. He executes as every one else did, only 
 he shows his art better. His address is incomparable ; he knows
 
 FRANS HALS AT HAARLEM. 231 
 
 it, and is not displeased that it should be observed : in this respect, 
 especially, his imitators scarcely resemble him. Agree also that he 
 draws marvellously, first a head, then the hands, then everything 
 which relates to the body, clothes it, aids it in its gesture, contrib- 
 utes to its attitude, completes its physiognomy. Finally, this painter 
 of fine groups is none the less a consummate portrait painter, much 
 subtler, much more living, much more elegant, than Van der Heist ; 
 neither is this quality one of the habitual merits of the school 
 which attributes to itself the exclusive privilege of understanding 
 him properly." 
 
 Here finishes at Haarlem the flowery manner of this excellent 
 master. I pass over the No. 58, 1639, executed about his fiftieth 
 year, and which, by an unfortunate mischance, rather heavily closes 
 the series. 
 
 With the No. 59, which dates from 1641, two years after, we 
 enter upon a new fashion, the grave method, with a gamut entirely 
 black, gray, and brown, conformed to the subject. This is the 
 picture of the Regents of St. Elizabeth's Hospital. In its strong 
 and simple way of execution, with its heads in light, its costumes 
 of black cloth, the quality of the flesh, the quality of the stuffs, its 
 relief and its seriousness, its richness in these sober tones, this 
 magnificent picture represents Hals differently, but no better. The 
 heads, as fine as possible, have so much the more value that nothing 
 around them struggles with the master interest of the living portions. 
 Is it to this example of rare sobriety, to this absence of coloring, 
 joined to the accomplished science of the colorist, that the neo-
 
 232 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 colorists of whom I speak attach themselves most particularly ? 
 I do not yet see a very evident proof of it ; but if such were, as 
 people like to say, the very noble object of their researches, what 
 torments must be inflicted upon these men of studies by the pro- 
 found scrupulousness, the accomplished drawing, and the edifying 
 conscientiousness which make the strength and beauty of this 
 picture ? 
 
 Far from recalling vain attempts, this masterly picture reminds 
 us, on the contrary, of masterpieces. The first memory it awak- 
 ens is of the Syndics. The scene is the same, the rendering simi- 
 lar ; the conditions to be filled are exactly the same. A central 
 figure, as fine as any that Hals has painted, suggests striking com- 
 parisons. The relations of the two works are most evident ; with 
 them appear the differences between the two painters, not contrary 
 views, but an opposition of two natures ; equal force in execution, 
 superiority of hand in Hals and of mind in Rembrandt, with a dif- 
 ferent result. If, in the hall of the Amsterdam Museum, where the 
 Clothiers figure, Van der Heist were replaced by Frans Hals, and 
 the Arquebusiers by the Regents, what a decisive lesson it would 
 be, and what miscomprehensions would be avoided ! There would 
 be a special study to make of these two Regent pictures. It would* 
 be necessary to remember that in them are not seen all the manifold 
 merits of Hals, nor all the still more manifold faculties of Rembrandt, 
 but upon a common theme, almost as if they were in competition, 
 we are present at a trial of these two workmen. It can be seen at 
 once where each excels and is weak, and the wherefore can be under-
 
 FRANS HALS AT HAARLEM. 233 
 
 stood. There can be learned unhesitatingly that there are still a 
 thousand things to discover under the exterior execution of Rem- 
 brandt, and that there is not much to divine behind the fine exterior 
 execution of the Haarlem painter. I am very much surprised that no 
 one has used this text for the purpose of telling the truth for once 
 upon this point. 
 
 Finally Hals grows old, very old ; he is eighty. It is 1664. This 
 same year, he signs the last two canvases of the series, the last to 
 which he ever put his hand, the Regents' Portraits, and the portraits 
 of the Regents of the Old Men's Hospital. The subject coincided 
 with his age. His hand is no longer here. He displays instead of 
 paints ; he does not execute, he daubs ; the perceptions of his eye 
 are still vivid and just, the colors entirely pure. Perhaps in their 
 first composition they have a simple and masculine quality, which 
 betrays the last effort of an admirable eye, and says the last word 
 of a consummate education. It is impossible to imagine finer blacks 
 or finer grayish whites. The regent on the right with his red stock- 
 ing, that is seen above the garter, is for a painter a priceless morsel, 
 but you find no longer either consistency in design or execution. The 
 heads are an abridgment, the hands of no importance, if the forms and 
 articulations are sought for. The touch, if touch there be, is given 
 without method, rather by chance, and no longer says what it would 
 say. This absence of all rendering, this failing of his brush, he sup- 
 plies by tone, which gives a semblance of being to what no longer 
 exists. Everything is wanting, clearness of sight, surety in the 
 fingers, and he is therefore all the more eager to make things live
 
 234 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND, 
 
 as powerful abstractions. The painter is three quarters dead ; there 
 remain to him, I cannot say thoughts, I can no longer say a tongue, 
 but sensations that are golden. 
 
 You saw Hals at his beginning, I have tried to represent him to 
 you as he was when in full force, this is the way he ends ; and if, 
 taking him at the two extremities of his career alone, I were to 
 choose between the hour when his talent was born and the far more 
 solemn hour in which his extraordinary talent abandoned him, 
 between the pictufe of 1616 and the picture of 1664, I should not 
 hesitate, and it would certainly be the last that I should choose. At 
 this final moment Hals is a man who knows everything because 
 he has successively learned everything in difficult enterprises. There 
 are no practical problems that he has not attempted, disentangled, 
 and solved, and no perilous exercise that he has not made a habit. 
 His rare experience is such that it survives almost intact in this 
 organization which is a wreck. It reveals itself still, and even more 
 strongly because the great virtuoso has disappeared. However, as 
 he is no longer anything but the shadow of himself, do you not think 
 that it is very late to consult him ? 
 
 The error of our young comrades is then really only a mistake of 
 a propos. Whatever may be the surprising presence of mind and the 
 vivacious vigor of this expiring genius, however worthy of respect 
 may be the last efforts of his old age, they must agree that the ex- 
 ample of a master eighty years old is not the best that there is to 
 follow.
 
 XII. 
 
 AMSTERDAM. 
 
 A ZIGZAG of narrow streets and canals led me to the Doelen- 
 straat. Day was done. The evening was soft, gray, and hazy. Fine 
 summer fogs bathed the ends of the canals. Here, still more than 
 in Rotterdam, the air is impregnated with that fine odor of Holland, 
 which tells you where you are, and makes you recognize the turf-pits 
 by a sudden and original sensation. An odor conveys everything, 
 the latitude, the distance that one is from the pole and the equator, 
 from oil or aloes, the climate, seasons, places, and things. Every one 
 who has travelled at all knows that there are no favored countries 
 but those whose smoke is aromatic, and whose firesides speak to 
 the memory. As to those which only recall to mind sensations 
 of the confused exhalations of animal life and of crowds, they have 
 other charms, and I will not say that one forgets them, but they are 
 differently remembered. Thus, drowned in odorous baths, seen at 
 such an hour, while traversing the heart of the town, not muddy but 
 moistened by the falling night, with workmen in the streets, its 
 multitude of children on the steps, its shopmen before their doors, 
 its little houses riddled with windows, its boats of merchandise, its
 
 236 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 distant port, its luxury quite apart in the new quarters, Amsterdam 
 is just what one imagines when one dreams of a Northern Venice, 
 whose Amstel is the Giudecca, the Dam another Piazza. San Marco ; 
 and when beforehand one refers to Van der Heyden and forgets 
 Canaletto. 
 
 It is antiquated, burgher-like, stifled, busy, and swarming, with 
 Jewish airs even outside the Jewish quarter ; less grandly pictu- 
 resque than Rotterdam seen from the Meuse, less nobly picturesque 
 than the Hague, but more picturesque when intimately known than in 
 its exterior. One must know the profound artlessness, the passion for 
 children, the love of little nooks, that distinguishes the Dutch paint- 
 ers, to understand the lovable and lively portraits that they have 
 left us of their native town. The colors there are strong and gloomy, 
 the forms symmetrical, the house fronts kept renewed ; it is destitute 
 of architecture and without art ; the little trees on the quay are puny 
 and ugly, the canals muddy. The feeling prevails that this is a 
 people hurrying to plant itself upon the conquered mud, solely occu- 
 pied with finding a lodging for its business, its commerce, its indus- 
 tries, and its labor, rather than for its comfort, and which never, even 
 in its greatest days, thought of building there a palace for itself. 
 
 Ten minutes passed upon the Grand Canal at Venice, and ten other 
 minutes passed in the Kalverstraat, will tell all that history can teach 
 us about these two cities, the genius of the two peoples, the moral 
 condition of the two republics, and consequently the spirit of the 
 two schools. Only from seeing the lantern-like habitations where 
 glass takes as much room and is as indispensable as stone, the little
 
 AMSTERDAM. 237 
 
 balconies carefully and poorly supplied with flowers, and the mirrors 
 fixed in the windows, it can be understood that in this climate the 
 winter is long, the sun unfaithful, the light sparing, the life sedentary 
 and of necessity curious ; that contemplation out of doors is rare ; 
 that enjoyment with closed shutters is very -keen ; and that the eye, 
 the mind, and the soul there contract that form of patient, atten- 
 tive, minute observation, a little strained, and, so to speak, blinking, 
 common to all the Dutch thinkers from the metaphysicians to the 
 painters. 
 
 I am here in the country of Spinoza and Rembrandt. Of these 
 two great names, which represent the most intense effort of the 
 Dutch brain in the order of abstract speculation or purely ideal in- 
 vention, one only occupies me, the last. Rembrandt has his statue 
 here, the house he inhabited in his fortunate years, and two of his 
 most celebrated works, which is more than is necessary to eclipse 
 many glories. Where is the statue of the national poet Joost van 
 den Vondel, his contemporary, and at his time his equal at least in 
 importance ? They tell me it is in the New Park. Shall I see it ? 
 Who goes to see it ? Where did Spinoza live ? What has become 
 of the house where Descartes sojourned, the one where Voltaire 
 dwelt, and those in which died Admiral Tromp and the great 
 Ruyter? What Rubens is at Antwerp, Rembrandt is here. The 
 type is less heroic, the prestige is the same, the sovereignty equal. 
 Only, instead of being resplendent in the high transepts of basilicas, 
 over sumptuous altars, in votive chapels, upon the radiant walls of a 
 princely museum, Rembrandt is shown here in the little dusty rooms
 
 238 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 of an almost private house. The destiny of his works continues in 
 conformity with his life. From the lodging that I inhabit at the 
 angle of the Kolveniers Burgwal, I perceive on the right, at the edge 
 of the canal, the red and smoky facade of the Trippenhuis Museum ; 
 that is to say, through closed windows, and in the pallor of this soft 
 twilight of Holland, I already see shining, like a sort of cabalistic 
 glory, the sparkling fame of the Night Watch. 
 
 I need not conceal that this work, the most famous in Holland, 
 one of the most celebrated in the world, is the object of my journey. 
 It inspires in me a great attraction and great doubts. I know no 
 picture that has been more discussed, more argued about, and conse- 
 quently has had more nonsense talktd about it Not that it charms 
 equally all those who are excited by it ; but certainly there is no one, 
 at least among the writers on art, whose clear good sense has not 
 been more or less disturbed by the merits and eccentricity of the 
 Night Watch. 
 
 From its title, which is a mistake, to its lighting, whose key can 
 hardly be found, people have pleased themselves, I do not know why, 
 with mingling all sorts of enigmas with technical questions which 
 do not seem to me so very mysterious, though they are rather more 
 complicated than elsewhere. Never, with the exception of the Sistine 
 Chapel, have less simplicity, kindness, and precision been brought to 
 the examination of a painted work ; it has been praised beyond 
 measure, admired without saying very clearly why, a little discussed, 
 but very little, and always with trembling. The boldest, treating 
 it like a piece of unintelligible mechanism, have taken it to pieces,
 
 AMSTERDAM. 239 
 
 examined all the parts, and have not much better revealed the secret 
 of its strength and its evident weaknesses. On a single point are 
 found in accord those whom the work offends and those whom it 
 transports, which point is, that, perfect or not, the Night Watch 
 belongs to that sidereal group in which universal admiration has col- 
 lected, like stars, a few almost celestial works of art ! They have gone 
 so far as to say that the Night Watch is one of the wonders of the 
 world, and that Rembrandt is the most perfect colorist that ever 
 existed, which are so many exaggerations or ironies for which 
 Rembrandt is not responsible, and which certainly would have 
 seemed obscure to this great, reflective, and sincere mind ; for he 
 knew better than any one that he had nothing in common with the 
 colorists of blue blood, to whom he is opposed, and nothing to do 
 with perfection as they understand it. 
 
 In two words, taken as a whole, and even an exceptional picture 
 would not disturb the rigorous economy of this powerful genius, 
 Rembrandt is a master unique in his own country, in all the coun- 
 tries of his time, in all time ; a colorist, if you will, but in his own 
 way ; a draughtsman also, if you will, but like no one else ; better 
 than that, perhaps, but it would be necessary to prove it ; very 
 imperfect if one thinks of perfection in the art of expressing beau- 
 tiful forms, and painting them well with simple means ; admirable, 
 on the contrary, by his hidden sides, independently of his form 
 and his color, in essence ; incomparable, then, in the literal sense 
 that he resembles no one, and thus escapes the mistaken compari- 
 sons he is made to undergo, and in this sense also, that in the
 
 240 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 delicate points where he excels, he has no one analogous to him, 
 and I believe no rival 
 
 A work which represents him as he was in the midst of his 
 career at thirty-four years of age, just ten years after the Ana- 
 tomical Lecture, could not fail to reproduce in all their brilliancy 
 some of his original faculties. Does it follow that it expressed them 
 all ? And is there not in this rather forced attempt something 
 which was opposed to the natural use of what was most profound 
 and rare in him ? 
 
 The enterprise was new. The page was vast and complicated. 
 It contained what is unique in his work movement, gesticula- 
 tion, and commotion. The subject was not his own choice, it was a 
 theme with portraits. 
 
 Twenty-three well-known persons expected that he would paint 
 them all in sight, in some sort of action, and yet in their military 
 clothes. The theme was too common for him not to make some 
 sort of a story out of it, and on the other hand too definite for him 
 to use much invention. It was necessary, whether they pleased him 
 or not, to accept the types and paint the faces. In the first place 
 there was required of him the likeness ; and, great portrait painter 
 as he is called, and as he is in certain respects, formal exactitude 
 in features is not his strong point. Nothing in this studied com- 
 position exactly suited his visionary eye, his soul tending to some- 
 thing beyond truth ; nothing but the fancy he intended to put into 
 it, which the least misstep might change into a phantasmagoria. 
 What Ravesteyn, Van der Heist, and Frans Hals did so freely and
 
 AMSTERDAM. 241 
 
 so excellently, could he do with the same ease, with equal success, 
 he the opposite in everything of those perfect physiognomists, and 
 those fine workmen of impulse ? 
 
 The effort was great. And Rembrandt was not one of those 
 whom tension fortifies, and to whom it gives balance. He inhabited 
 a sort of dark chamber where the true light of things was transformed 
 into strange contrasts, and he lived in the midst of eccentric reveries 
 among which this company of men-at-arms would introduce a good 
 deal of confusion. During the execution of these twenty-three por- 
 traits we behold him constrained to occupy himself for a long time 
 with others, and very little with himself, neither belonging to the 
 others nor to himself, tormented by a demon who scarcely ever left 
 him, restrained by people who were posing, and did not expect to be 
 treated as fictions. For those who know the suspicious and fantas- 
 tic habits of such a mind, it was not in such a work that the inspired 
 Rembrandt of his finest moments could appear. Everywhere that 
 Rembrandt forgets himself, I mean in his compositions, whenever 
 he does not put himself into them wholly, the work is incomplete, 
 and if it be extraordinary, a priori we can affirm that it is defective. 
 This complicated nature has two very distinct faces, one interior, 
 the other exterior ; and the latter is seldom the most beautiful. The 
 error one is tempted to commit in judging him depends on this, 
 that often one is deceived in the aspect, and is looking at the wrong 
 side. 
 
 Is the Night Watch then, could it be, the last word of Rembrandt ? 
 Is it even the most perfect expression of his manner ? Are there 
 
 16
 
 242 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 not in it obstacles that belong to the subject, difficulties of stage 
 arrangement, circumstances new for him, which have never since 
 been reproduced in his career ? This is the point to be examined. 
 Perhaps some light may be thrown upon it. I think Rembrandt 
 will lose nothing by it. There will be only one legend the less in 
 the history of his work, one less prejudice in current opinion, and 
 one superstition the less in criticism. 
 
 With all its rebellious airs, the human mind at bottom is really 
 idolatrous. Sceptical certainly, but credulous, its most imperious 
 need is to believe, and its native habit to be submissive. It changes 
 masters, it changes idols, but its subject nature exists through all 
 these variations. It does not like to be enchained, but it chains 
 itself. It doubts and denies, but it admires, which is one of the 
 forms of faith ; and as soon as it admires there is obtained from it 
 the most complete abandonment of that faculty of free judgment of 
 which it pretends to be so jealous. With regard to political, reli- 
 gious, philosophical beliefs, does one remain which it has respected ? 
 And remark that at the same time, by subtle turns, in which are dis- 
 covered under its revolts the vague need of adoring and the proud 
 consciousness of its greatness, it creates for itself alongside, in the 
 world of art, another ideal and other religions, not suspecting to what 
 contradictions it exposes itself in denying the true, to fall on its 
 knees before the beautiful. It seems as if it did not really see their 
 perfect identity with each other. The things of art appear to it as 
 its own domain, where its reason need fear no surprises, where its 
 adhesion can be given without constraint. It chooses celebrated
 
 AMSTERDAM. 243 
 
 works, makes for them titles of nobility, attaches itself to them, 
 and permits no one henceforward to dispute their claim. There is 
 always some foundation for its choice, not everything, but some- 
 thing. It would be possible, in looking over the work of the great 
 artists for three centuries, to prepare a list of these persistent credu- 
 lities. Without examining too closely whether its preferences are 
 always rigorously exact, one will see that at least the modern spirit 
 has no great aversion for the conventional, and its secret leaning 
 towards dogmas can be discovered by perceiving all those with 
 which it has sown its history for good or ill There are, it would 
 seem, dogmas and dogmas. There are those that imitate, there are 
 others which please and flatter. It costs nobody anything to believe 
 in the sovereignty of a work of art that is known to be the product 
 of a human brain. Every man of the smallest information believes, 
 simply because he judges it and says he understands it, that he 
 holds the secret of this visible and tangible thing that came from 
 the hands of his fellow-man. What is the origin of this thing of 
 human appearance, written in every one's language, painted equally 
 for the mind of learned men and for the eyes of the simple, which 
 so resembles life ? Whence comes it ? What is its inspiration ? Is 
 it a phenomenon of natural order, or a real miracle ? All these 
 questions, which give much occasion for thought, have been sifted 
 to the bottom by no one ; people admire, they cry, " A great man ! 
 a masterpiece ! " and everything is said. No one troubles himself 
 about the inexplicable formation of a work fallen from heaven ; and 
 thanks to this inadvertence, which will reign over the world so long
 
 244 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 as the world shall live, the very man who mocks at the supernatural 
 will bow before the supernatural without seeming to suspect that he 
 does so. 
 
 Such are, I believe, trie causes, the empire, and the effect of super- 
 stitions in the matter of art. More than one example could be cited, 
 
 f 
 
 and the picture of which I wish to speak with you is perhaps the 
 most notable and the most brilliant. I needed some boldness to 
 awaken your doubts, and what I am going to add will probably 
 show still more temerity.
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE NIGHT WATCH. 
 
 You know how the Night Watch is placed. It is opposite the 
 Banquet of Arquebusiers by Van der Heist, and whatever may 
 have been said about it, the two pictures do each other no harm. 
 They are as opposed as day and night, as the transfiguration of 
 things and their literal imitations, slightly vulgar and yet learned. 
 Admit that they are as perfect as they are celebrated, and you will 
 have before your eyes a unique antithesis, which La Bruyere calls 
 " an opposition of two truths which throw light upon each other." 
 I shall not speak to you of Van der Heist to-day, nor probably at 
 any other time. He is a fine painter, that we might envy Holland, 
 for in certain periods of penury he has rendered great service to 
 France as a portrait painter, especially as a painter of great compo- 
 sitions, but in the matter of imitative and purely sociable art, Hol- 
 land has something much better. And when Frans Hals of Haarlem 
 has been seen, one can without difficulty turn his back upon Van 
 der Heist to simply occupy himself with Rembrandt. 
 
 I shall astonish no one by saying that the Night Watch has no 
 charm, and the fact is without example among the fine works of
 
 246 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 picturesque art. It astonishes, it disconcerts, it is imposing, but 
 it is wanting absolutely in that first insinuating attraction which 
 persuades, and it almost always begins by displeasing. In the first 
 place it wounds that logic and habitual rectitude of the eye which 
 loves clear forms, lucid ideas, daring flights distinctly formulated ; 
 something warns you that the imagination, like the reason, will be 
 only half satisfied, and that the mind that is most easy to be per- 
 suaded will submit only after a time, and will not yield without dis- 
 pute. This depends upon divers causes which are not entirely the 
 fault of the picture, upon the light, which is detestable; upon the 
 frame of dark wood, in which the painting is lost, which determines 
 neither its medium values nor its bronze gamut nor its power, 
 and which makes it appear still more smoky than it is ; finally, and 
 above all, it depends upon the contracted nature of the room, which 
 does not permit the canvas to be placed at the proper height, and, 
 contrary to all the most elementary laws of perspective, obliges you 
 to see it on a level, or, so to speak, at swords' point. 
 
 I know that people are generously of opinion that the place is, on 
 the contrary, in perfect keeping with the requirements of the work, 
 and that the force of illusion obtained by thus exhibiting it comes to 
 the help of the painter's efforts. In this there are many mistakes in 
 a few words. I know but one way of well placing a picture, which is 
 to determine what is its spirit, to consult consequently its needs, and 
 to place it according to its needs. 
 
 In speaking of a work of art, especially a picture by Rembrandt, 
 one speaks of a work not untruthful, but imaginative, which is never
 
 THE NIGHT WATCH. 247 
 
 the exact truth, nor is it the contrary, but which in any case is 
 separated from the realities of the exterior life by its profoundly 
 calculated approaches to truth. The personages who move in this 
 special atmosphere, largely fictitious, whom the painter has placed 
 in the distant perspective appropriate to the inventions of the mind, 
 can issue from it, if by some indiscreet arrangement the point of 
 view is misplaced, only at the risk of being no longer either what 
 the painter made them, or what one would wrongly wish they should 
 become. There exists between them and us an inclined plane, to 
 use the expression used in optics and in theatrical arrangements. 
 Here this inclined plane is very contracted. If you examine the 
 Night Watch, you will perceive that, by a rather daring arrangement 
 upon the canvas, the two foremost figures in the picture, placed close 
 to the frame, have hardly the remoteness required by the necessities 
 of the light and shade and the obligations of a well-calculated effect. 
 It shows then a poor understanding of the spirit of Rembrandt, of the 
 character of his work, his aims, his uncertainties, their instability in a 
 certain balance, to make him undergo a proof which Van der Heist 
 resists, it is true, but we know on what conditions. I may add that 
 a painted canvas is a discreet thing, which says only what it wants to 
 say, and says it from afar when it does not suit it to say it near by, 
 and that every painting which attaches importance to its secrets is 
 badly placed when it is forced to acknowledge them. 
 
 You are not ignorant of the fact that the Night Watch passes, 
 rightly or wrongly, for an almost incomprehensible work, and that is 
 one of its great attractions. Perhaps it would have made much less
 
 248 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 noise in the world if for two centuries people had not kept up the 
 habit of seeking its meaning instead of examining its merits, and 
 persisted in the mania of considering it as a picture above all things 
 enigmatic. 
 
 To take it literally, what we know of the subject seems to me to 
 suffice. First we know the names and the quality of the personages, 
 thanks to the care the painter has taken to inscribe them on a car- 
 touche in the background of the picture ; and this proves that if the 
 fancy of the painter has transfigured many things, the first rendering 
 belongs at least to the habits of the local life. We do not know, it is 
 true, with what purpose these men go forth in arms, whether they 
 are going to a shooting-match, to a parade, or elsewhere ; but, as this 
 is not a very mysterious matter, I persuade myself that if Rembrandt 
 has neglected to be more explicit, it was that he did not desire or 
 did not know how to be so, and there are a whole series of hypoth- 
 eses that could be very simply explained by something like either 
 powerlessness or a voluntary reticence. As to the question of the 
 hour, which is the most discussed of all, and also the only one which 
 could be decided the first day, there was no need to fix it to discover 
 that the extended hand of the captain casts a shadow upon the tail 
 of a coat. It sufficed to remember that Rembrandt never treated 
 light otherwise ; that nocturnal obscurity is his habit ; that shadow 
 is his ordinary poetical form, his usual means of dramatic expression ; 
 and that in his portraits, his interiors, his legends, his anecdotes, 
 his landscapes, and in his etchings as well as his paintings, it is 
 usually with darkness that he makes his light. Perhaps reasoning
 
 THE NIGHT WATCH. 249 
 
 thus by analogy, and at least from certain inductions of pure good 
 sense, we may succeed in removing certain other doubts, and in the 
 end there will remain, as irremediable obscurities, only the embarrass- 
 ment of a mind struggling with the impossible, and the almosts of a 
 subject mingled, as this must have been, with insufficient realities 
 and scarcely justifiable fancies. 
 
 I will then try what I wish had been done long ago a little 
 more criticism and a little less exegesis. I will abandon the enigmas 
 of the subject to examine, with the care that it requires, a work 
 painted by a man who has rarely been mistaken. Since this work 
 has been given to us as the highest expression of his genius, and 
 the most perfect expression of his manner, there is reason for 
 examining very closely, and in all senses, an opinion so universally 
 accredited. So I warn you that I shall not escape the technical 
 controversies that the discussion necessitates. I ask your pardon 
 in advance for the rather pedantic terms that I feel already coming 
 from my pen. I shall try to be clear, I shall not promise to be 
 as brief as I ought to be, nor shall I engage not to scandalize at first 
 some of the fanatical spirits. 
 
 It is agreed that the composition does not constitute the principal 
 merit of the picture. The subject was not chosen by the painter, 
 and the way in which he undertook to treat it did not permit the 
 first draught to be either very spontaneous or very lucid. Also the 
 scene is undecided, the action nearly wanting, the interest conse- 
 quently divided. A vice inherent to the first idea, a sort of irreso- 
 lution in the fashion of conceiving, distributing, and posing, is re-
 
 250 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 vealed from the beginning. Some of the people are marching, some 
 stopping, one priming a musket, another loading his gun, another 
 firing ; there is a drummer who sits for his head while he is beating 
 his drum, a standard-bearer who is a little theatrical ; finally, a crowd 
 of figures fixed in the immobility proper to portraits, and these are, 
 if I am not mistaken, the sole picturesque features of the picture. 
 
 Is this enough to give it that characteristic, anecdotic, and local 
 meaning that is expected from Rembrandt painting the places, 
 things, and men of his time ? If Van der Heist, instead of seating 
 his arquebusiers, had represented them moving in any action whatever, 
 there is no doubt that he would have given us about their ways more 
 just if not more subtle indications. And as to Frans Hals, imagine 
 with what clearness, what order, and what naturalness he would have 
 arranged the scene, how keen he would have been, how living, in- 
 genious, abundant, and magnificent. The rendering conceived by 
 Rembrandt is then more ordinary, and I dare say the most of his 
 contemporaries would have judged him poor in resources ; some 
 because his abstract line is uncertain, too narrow, thin, symmetrical, 
 and singularly disconnected ; others, the colorists, because this com- 
 position, full of gaps and of spaces poorly occupied, did not lend itself 
 to the large and generous use of colors which is the ordinary practice 
 of learned palettes. Rembrandt was alone in knowing how with 
 his individual intentions to escape from this dangerous position ; and 
 the composition, good or ill, was to properly suffice for its design, for 
 its design was to resemble in nothing either Frans Hals, Grebber, 
 Ravesteyn, Van der Heist, or any one else.
 
 THE NIGHT WATCH. 2$ I 
 
 Thus there is no merit, and very little picturesque invention, in 
 the general arrangement. Have the individual figures more ? I do 
 not see a single one that can be indicated as a choice piece of work. 
 What is very striking, is that there exist between them dispropor- 
 tions for which there is no reason, and in each of them insufficiencies 
 and, so to speak, an embarrassment in characterizing them, that noth- 
 ing justifies. The captain is too large, and the lieutenant too small, 
 not only beside Captain Kock, whose stature crushes him, but beside 
 the accessory figures, whose length and breadth give to this rather 
 poorly finished young man the appearance of a child who wears 
 mustaches too early. Considering each as a portrait, they are un- 
 successful portraits, of doubtful resemblance, of unpleasant counte- 
 nance, which is surprising in a portrait painter who in 1642 had 
 given proofs of his capacity ; and this rather excuses Captain Kock 
 for having addressed himself afterward to the infallible Van der 
 Heist. Is the guard who is loading his musket better observed ? 
 And what do you think of the musket-bearer at the right, and the 
 drummer ? It may be said that the hands are failures in all these por- 
 traits, so vaguely are they sketched, and so little significant in action. 
 The result is, that what they hold is badly held, muskets, halberds, 
 drumsticks, staves, lances, the banner staff, and that the gesture of 
 an arm is abortive when the hand which should act does not work 
 clearly, and as if alive with either energy, precision, or spirit. I will 
 not speak of the feet, which are mostly hidden by the shadow. Such 
 are effectively the necessities of the system of obscurity adopted by 
 Rembrandt, and such is the imperious intention of his method, that
 
 2$2 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 the same dark cloud envelops the base of the picture, in which the 
 forms float to the great detriment of their point of support. 
 
 Must I add that the costumes are, like the resemblances, almost 
 seen, sometimes odd and unnatural, and again stiff and rebellious 
 to the shape of the body ? They may be said to be badly worn. 
 The casques are put on awkwardly, the felt hats are queer and cover 
 the head ungracefully. The scarfs are in their place, but they are 
 knotted awkwardly. There is nothing of the natural elegance, the 
 unique array, the carelessness taken by surprise and rendered from 
 life, of the costumes with which Frans Hals knows how to clothe 
 all ages, all statures, all corpulences, and certainly also all ranks. 
 We feel no more satisfied upon this point than on many others. We 
 ask ourselves if this is not like a laborious fancy, like an effort to be 
 strange, which is neither agreeable nor striking. 
 
 Some of the heads are very fine ; I have indicated those which are 
 not. The best, the only ones in which the hand and sentiment of a 
 master are recognized, are those which from the depths of the can- 
 vas dart at you, with vague eyes, the delicate spark of their mobile 
 glance. Do not examine severely either their construction, their 
 planes, or their bony structure ; accustom yourself to the grayish 
 pallor of their complexion, interrogate them from afar, as if they 
 were looking at you from a great distance, and if you want to know 
 how they live, look at them as Rembrandt desires his human effigies 
 to be looked at, attentively, for a long time, in the eyes and mouth. 
 
 There remains an episodical figure, which, until now, has foiled 
 all conjectures, because it seems to personify, in its features, its array,
 
 THE NIGHT WATCH. 253 
 
 its singular brilliancy, and its want of appropriateness, the magic, 
 the romantic feeling, or, if you will, the other side of the picture ; I 
 mean that little witch-like woman, childish and antiquated, with her 
 comet of a cap and her pearl-wreathed hair, who slips, no one knows 
 why, in among the feet of the guards, and, which is a not less inex- 
 plicable detail, who wears hanging at her girdle a white cock, that 
 might be taken on a pinch for a large purse. 
 
 Whatever may be her reason for mingling with the procession, 
 this little figure does not pretend to be human at all. She is color- 
 less, almost formless ; her age is doubtful because her features are 
 indefinable. Her figure is the figure of a doll, and her movements 
 are automatic. She^has the gait of a beggar, and something like 
 diamonds all over her body. She has the airs of a little queen, with 
 an array that looks like rags. She looks as if she came from the 
 Jewish quarter, from the region of old clothes, from the theatre or 
 from Bohemia, and she seems the product of a dream, and to have 
 arrayed herself in the most extraordinary of worlds. She has the 
 gleams, waverings, and uncertainties of a pale fire. The more she 
 is examined, the less can be seized the subtle lineaments which serve 
 as an envelope for her incorporeal existence. In the end you see 
 in her only a sort of extraordinarily curious phosphorescence, which 
 is not the natural light of things, nor is it the ordinary brilliancy 
 of a well-regulated palette, and this adds a new sorcery to the inti- 
 mate strangeness of her physiognomy. Note that in the place she 
 occupies, in one of the dark corners of the canvas, rather low down 
 in the middle distance, between a dark red man and the captain
 
 254 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 dressed in black, this eccentric light has the more activity, because 
 the contrast with what is near it is so sudden ; and without extreme 
 precautions, this explosion of accidental light would have been 
 enough to disorganize the whole picture. 
 
 What is the meaning of this little imaginary or real being, who is 
 only a supernumerary, and who has, as it were, taken possession of 
 the first r61e ? I cannot undertake to say ; cleverer men than I have 
 not failed to ask who she was, what she was doing there, and they 
 have imagined nothing that satisfied them. 
 
 One thing only astonishes me, which is that people argue with 
 Rembrandt as if he were himself a reasoner. They go into ecstasies 
 over the novelty, the originality, the absence of all rule, the free 
 range of an entirely personal individuality, which make, as has 
 been very well said, the great attraction of this adventurous work ; 
 and it is precisely the fine flower of these rather unruly imagina- 
 tions that is submitted to the examination of logic and pure reason. 
 But if, to all these rather idle questions upon the why and wherefore 
 of so many things, which probably have none at all, Rembrandt 
 should answer thus, " This child is only a caprice not less singular 
 and quite as plausible as many others in my engraved or painted 
 work. I placed it as a narrow light between great masses of shade, 
 because its minuteness rendered it more vibrating, and it suited me 
 to reveal by a flash one of the obscure corners of my picture. Her 
 array is, moreover, the quite usual costume of my figures of women, 
 large or small, young or old, and you will find a nearly similar type 
 frequently in my works. I like what shines, and so I have clothed
 
 THE NIGHT WATCH. 255 
 
 her with shining stuffs. As to these phosphorescent gleams that 
 astonish you here, while elsewhere they pass unperceived, it is, in 
 its colorless brilliancy and in its supernatural quality, the light I 
 habitually give to my figures when I light them rather vividly," 
 do you not think that such a response would be enough to satisfy 
 the most difficult, and that, finally, the rights of the arranger of the 
 scene being reserved, he will only be obliged to explain to us one 
 point, the way in which he treated the picture ? 
 
 We know what to think about the effect produced by the Night 
 Watch when it appeared in 1642. This memorable effort was 
 neither understood nor liked. It added fame to the glory of Rem- 
 brandt, aggrandized him in the eyes of his faithful admirers, and 
 compromised him in the eyes of those who had only followed him 
 with effort, and did not expect this decided step. It made of him 
 a more singular painter, but a less sure master. It proved exciting, 
 and divided people of taste according to the warmth of their blood 
 and the unbending character of their reason. In short, it was con- 
 sidered as an absolutely new adventure, but doubtful, which brought 
 him applause, some blame, and which at bottom satisfied no one. 
 If you know the judgments on this subject, expressed by the con- 
 temporaries of Rembrandt, his friends, and his pupils, you must see 
 that opinions have not much altered in two centuries, and that we 
 repeat very nearly what this audacious great man must have heard 
 said during his life. 
 
 The sole points upon which opinion is unanimous, especially in 
 our day, are the color of the picture, which is called dazzling, blind-
 
 256 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 ing, unheard of, (and you must admit that such words are rather 
 made to spoil an eulogium,) and the execution, which people agree 
 in finding sovereign. Here the question becomes very delicate. 
 Cost what it may, we must abandon convenient ways, enter into 
 the briers, and talk shop. 
 
 If Rembrandt was a colorist in no sense, no one would have made 
 the mistake of taking him for a colorist, and in any case, nothing 
 would be easier than to indicate why he is not one ; but it is evi- 
 dent that his palette is his most ordinary and powerful means of 
 expression, and that in his etchings as in his painting, he expresses 
 himself still better by color and effect than by drawing. Rembrandt 
 is then, with great reason, classed among the most powerful color- 
 ists that have ever existed. So that the sole way of separating and 
 putting on one side the gift which is his own, is to distinguish him 
 from the great colorists known as such, and to establish what is 
 the profound and exclusive originality of his notions about color. 
 
 It is said of Veronese, Correggio, Titian, Giorgione, Rubens, 
 Velasquez, Frans Hals, and Vandyck, that they are colorists, be- 
 cause in nature they perceive color still more delicately than form, 
 and because they color more perfectly than they draw. To color 
 well is, according to their example, to seize shades delicately or 
 richly, choose them well on the palette, and bring them into 
 proper juxtaposition in the picture. A part of this complicated art 
 is ruled into a principle by certain sufficiently precise laws of phys- 
 ics, but the greater part is made by the aptitudes, the habits, in- 
 stincts, caprices, and sudden sensitiveness of each artist. There is
 
 THE NIGHT WATCH. 
 
 a great deal to say upon this topic, for color is a thing about which 
 people who are strangers to our art speak very readily without 
 understanding it well, and upon which, so far as I know, the men 
 of the craft have never spoken their mind. 
 
 . Reduced to its most simple terms, the question can thus be for- 
 mulated, to choose colors beautiful in themselves ; and, secondly, 
 to combine them in beautiful, learned, and just relations. I will add 
 that colors may be deep or light, rich in tint or neutral, that is, 
 more dull ; frank, that is to say, nearer the mother color, or shaded 
 and broken, as is said in technical language ; finally, they may be 
 of different values (I have told you elsewhere what is meant by 
 that), and all this is a matter of temperament, of preference, and 
 also of convenience. Thus Rubens, whose palette is very limited 
 as to the number of the colors, whose mother colors are very rich, 
 and who runs through the most extended scale, from pure white to 
 absolute black, knows how to reduce himself when it is necessary, 
 and break his color whenever it suits him to introduce a dull tone. 
 Veronese, who proceeds in a very different way, bends no less than 
 Rubens to the necessities of circumstances ; nothing can be more 
 flowery than some of the ceilings in the ducal palace ; nothing can 
 be more sober in its general bearing than the Supper at the House 
 of Simon, at the Louvre. It must also be said that it is not neces- 
 sary to color highly in order to do the work of a great colorist. 
 
 There are men, witness Velasquez, who color marvellously with 
 the saddest colors, black, gray, brown, white tinged with bitumen ; 
 what masterpieces have been executed with these few rather under- 
 
 17
 
 258 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 toned notes ! It suffices for this that color should be rare, tender, 
 or powerful, but resolutely composed by a man skilful in feeling 
 shades and in proportioning them. The same man, when it suits 
 him, can extend or reduce his resources. The day when Rubens 
 painted, with all the varieties of bistre, the Communion of St. Fran- 
 cis of Assisi, was, even speaking only of the adventures of his pal- 
 ette, one of the most inspired days of his life. 
 
 Finally, and this is a fact to be retained particularly in this 
 most brief definition, a colorist properly so called is a painter who 
 knows how to preserve in the colors of his gamut, whatever it 
 may be, rich or not, broken or not, complicated or reduced, their 
 principle, their fitness, their resonance, and their truth ; and that 
 everywhere and always, in the shade, in the half-tint, and even in 
 the most vivid light. It is in this especially that schools and men 
 are distinguished. Take an anonymous painting, examine the qual- 
 ity of its local tone, what that tone becomes in light, whether it 
 exists in the half-tint, if it exists in the most intense shadow, and 
 you can say with certainty whether or not this painting is the work 
 of a colorist, and to what epoch, what country, and what school it 
 belongs. 
 
 There exists on this subject, in technical language, a regular for- 
 mula which is excellent to quote. Every time that color undergoes 
 all the modifications of light and shade without losing anything of 
 its constituent qualities, it is said that the shadow and the light are 
 of the same family, which means that both should preserve, what- 
 ever may happen, the relationship most easy to seize with the local
 
 THE NIGHT WATCH. 259 
 
 tone. Ways of understanding color are very different. There are, 
 from Rubens to Giorgione and from Velasquez to Veronese, varie- 
 ties which prove the immense elasticity of the art of painting, and 
 the astonishing liberties of method that genius can take without 
 changing its aim ; but one law is common to them all, and is ob- 
 served only by them, whether at Venice, Parma, Madrid, Antwerp, 
 or Haarlem ; it is precisely the relationship of shade and light, and 
 the identity of the local tone through all the changes of the light. 
 
 Is it thus that Rembrandt proceeds ? A glance at the Night 
 Watch is sufficient to perceive exactly the contrary. With the 
 exception of one or two frank colors, two reds, and a dark purple, 
 except one or two sparks of blue, you perceive nothing in this 
 colorless and violent canvas which recalls the palette, and the ordi- 
 nary method of any of the known colorists. The heads have rather 
 the appearance than the coloring of life. They are red, winy, or pale, 
 without having on that account the true pallor that Velasquez gives 
 to his faces ; or those ruddy, yellow, grayish, or purple shades that 
 Frans Hals opposes with so much dexterity when he wishes to 
 specify the temperaments of his figures. In the clothes and head- 
 gear, in the very differing parts of the adjustments, the color is neither 
 more exact nor more expressive than is the form itself. When a 
 red appears, it is a red not very delicate in its nature, which ex- 
 presses indistinctly silk, cloth, or satin. The guard who is loading 
 his musket is dressed in red from head to foot, from his felt hat to 
 his shoes. Do you perceive that the characteristic peculiarities of 
 this red, its nature, and its substance, which a real colorist would
 
 260 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 not have failed to seize, have occupied Rembrandt for a single mo- 
 ment ? It is said that this red is admirably consistent in its light 
 and in its shadow ; in truth, I do not believe that any man who is 
 at all used to handling a tone can be of this opinion, and I do not 
 suppose that either Velasquez, Veronese, Titian, or Giorgione, set- 
 ting aside Rubens, would have admitted its first composition and 
 its use. I defy any one to say how the lieutenant is dressed, and 
 what color is his coat. Is it white tinged with yellow ? Is it yellow 
 faded to white ? The truth is, that, this person having to express 
 the central light of the picture, Rembrandt clothed him with light, 
 very intelligently as to his brilliancy, but very negligently as to 
 his color. 
 
 Now here Rembrandt begins to betray himself, since for a colorist 
 there is no abstract light. Light in itself is nothing ; it is the result 
 of colors differently lighted, and diversely radiant according to the 
 nature of the ray they reflect or absorb. One very dark tint may 
 be extraordinarily luminous ; another very light one may not be so 
 at all. There is not a pupil of the school who does not know this. 
 Among the colorists the light then depends exclusively upon the 
 choice of the colors employed to render it, and is so united to the 
 tone that it can be said in very truth that with them light and 
 color are one. In the Night Watch there is nothing of the kind. 
 The tone disappears in the light, as it disappears in the shadow. 
 The shadow is blackish, the light whitish. Everything is lightened 
 or darkened ; everything radiates or is obscured by an alternate 
 effacing of the coloring principle. There are in it variations of val-
 
 THE NIGHT WATCH. 261 
 
 ues rather than contrasts of tone. And that is so true that a fine 
 engraving, a well-rendered drawing, a Mouilleron lithograph, or a 
 photograph, give an exact idea of the picture in its great intentional 
 effects, and a representation only altered from light to dark does not 
 at all destroy its lines. If I am well understood, this is what shows 
 evidently that to make combinations of color as they are habitually 
 understood is not Rembrandt's way of working, and that we must 
 continue to seek elsewhere the secret of his real power and the 
 familiar expression of his genius. Rembrandt is in everything a 
 dealer in the abstract, who can be defined only by elimination. 
 When I shall have said with certainty all that he is not, perhaps I 
 shall succeed in determining exactly what he is. 
 
 Is he a great workman ? Assuredly. Is the Night Watch in its 
 workmanship, and in relation to himself, when it is compared to the 
 masterworks of the great virtuosos, a fine piece of execution ? I 
 do not think it is ; this is another miscomprehension that it is a 
 good thing to cause to disappear. 
 
 The handiwork, as I said concerning Rubens, is only the conse- 
 quent and adequate expression of the sensations of the eye and the 
 operations of the mind. What is in itself a well-turned phrase, a 
 well-chosen word, but the instantaneous witness of what the writer 
 wished to say, and of the intention that he had to say it thus rather 
 than otherwise ? Consequently, to paint well generally means to 
 draw well or color well ; and the manner in which the hand acts is 
 only the definite announcement of the painter's intentions. If the 
 execution of men sure of themselves is examined, it can be seen
 
 262 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 how obedient is the hand, how prompt in well expressing the dic- 
 tation of the mind, and what shades of sensitiveness, of ardor, of 
 delicacy, of wit, of depth, pass from the ends of their ringers, 
 whether these fingers are armed with the chisel, the brush, or the 
 burin. Every artist, then, has his manner of painting, as he has 
 his size and his way of working with the thumb, and Rembrandt 
 escapes this common law no more than the rest of them. 
 
 How does he execute in the picture which occupies us ? Does he 
 treat any of the stuffs well ? No. Does he ingeniously and vividly 
 express their folds, their breaks, their suppleness, or their tissue ? 
 Certainly not. When he puts a feather in a hat, does he give to 
 this feather the lightness, the floating grace, that are seen in Van- 
 dyck or Hals or Velasquez ? Does he indicate with some shining 
 touches on a dull ground, in their form and the feeling of the body, 
 the human aspect of a well adjusted garment, rustling with a gesture 
 or crumpled by use ? Does he know how, in a few brief touches, 
 and proportioning his trouble to the value of things, to indicate a 
 lace, induce belief in jewelry and rich embroideries ? 
 
 There are, in the Night Watch, swords, muskets, partisans,* pol- 
 ished helmets, damasked gorgets, funnel-shaped boots, shoes with 
 ribbons, a halberd with its pennqn of blue silk, a drum, and lances. 
 Imagine with what ease, with what lack of ceremony, and what a 
 wonderful way of making things probable without emphasizing, Ru- 
 bens, Veronese, Vandyck, .Titian himself, finally Frans Hals, that 
 workman of unparalleled cleverness, would have briefly indicated, 
 
 * A kind of pike or halberd.
 
 THE NIGHT WATCH. 263 
 
 and superbly carried off all these accessories. Do you find honestly 
 that Rembrandt, in the Night Watch, excels in treating them thus ? 
 Look, I entreat you, for in this punctilious discussion proofs are 
 necessary, at the halberd which the little Lieutenant Ruytenberg 
 holds at the end of his stiff arm ; see the foreshortened pike ; see 
 especially the floating silk, and tell me if a workman of such power 
 could possibly express more painfully an object which ought to be 
 born under his brush without his knowing it. Look at the laced 
 sleeves that are spoken of with such praise, the cuffs, the gloves ; 
 examine the hands. Consider well how in their negligence, affected 
 or unaffected, the form is accentuated, the foreshortening expressed. 
 The touch is thick, embarrassed, almost awkward and groping. It 
 might really be said that it is falsely applied, and that, put across 
 when it ought to be put up and down, laid on flat when anybody 
 else would have applied it in a circular fashion, it confuses form 
 rather than determines it Everywhere there are bright spots (re- 
 hauts), that is, decided accents that are not necessary and are neither 
 true nor appropriate. There are thicknesses that are overloaded, 
 roughnesses that nothing justifies, except the need of giving con- 
 sistency to the lights, and the obligation in his new method to work 
 over rugged tissues rather than a smooth basis ; salient points, which 
 mean to be real and are not so, distract the eye and have the repu- 
 tation of being original art ; there are ellipses that are omissions, 
 forgetfulnesses that would make one believe in the artist's impotence. 
 In all the salient parts we see a convulsive hand, an embarrassment 
 in finding the proper phrase, a violence of terms, and a turbulence
 
 264 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 of execution that are at variance with the small degree of reality 
 obtained, and the rather dead immobility of the result. Do not take 
 my word for it. Go elsewhere and see good and beautiful examples 
 among the most serious as well as the most lively ; address yourself 
 in succession to the rapid hands and to the patient ones, see their 
 finished works, their sketches, and then return to the Night Watch, 
 and compare. I will say more : address yourself to Rembrandt him- 
 self when he is at his ease, free in his ideas, free in his art ; when he 
 is imagining, when he is moved, and nervous without too much ex- 
 asperation, and when master of his subject, his sentiment, and his 
 language, he becomes perfect, that is, admirably skilful and profound, 
 which is better than being adroit. There are circumstances in which 
 the method of Rembrandt equals that of the best masters, and main- 
 tains itself at the height of his finest gifts. But it is when it is sub- 
 ject to perfectly natural obligations, or when it is animated by the 
 interest of an imaginary subject. Beyond that, as in the case of 
 the Night Watch, you have only Rembrandt mixed, that is to say, 
 the ambiguities of his mind, and false pretences of skill of hand. 
 
 Finally, I come to the incontestable interest of the picture, to the 
 grand effort of Rembrandt in a new direction. I speak of the appli- 
 cation on a great scale of that manner of seeing which is his own, 
 that has been called chiaroscuro. 
 
 Here there is no mistake possible. What one bestows on Rem- 
 brandt is entirely his own. Chiaroscuro is, there is no doubt, the 
 native and necessary form of his impressions and of his ideas. Others 
 than he used it ; none used it so continually, so ingeniously as he. It
 
 THE NIGHT WATCH. 265 
 
 is the mysterious form above all, the most veiled, the most elliptical, 
 the most rich in suppressions and surprises, that exists in the pictu- 
 resque language of painters. In this regard it is, more than any other, 
 the form of intimate sensations or of ideas. It is light, misty, veiled, 
 discreet ; it lends its charm to things which conceal themselves, in- 
 vites curiosity, adds an attraction to moral beauty, gives a grace to 
 the speculations of conscience. Finally, it partakes of sentiment, of 
 emotion, of the uncertain, the indefinite and the intimate, of the 
 dream and the ideal. And this is why it is, as it should be, the poet- 
 ical and natural atmosphere that the genius of Rembrandt has not 
 ceased to inhabit. It would be possible, then, by means of this ha- 
 bitual form of his thought, to study Rembrandt in his most intimate 
 and true nature. And if, instead of touching it lightly, I were to 
 profoundly penetrate so vast a subject, you would see his whole 
 psychologic nature issue of itself from, the mists of chiaroscuro ; 
 but I shall not say what is necessary to say, and yet I trust Rem- 
 brandt will none the less stand forth. 
 
 In very ordinary language, and in its action common to all schools, - 
 chiaroscuro is the art of rendering the atmosphere visible, and of 
 painting an object enveloped in air. Its aim is to create all the 
 picturesque accidents of shadow, of half tint and light, of relief and 
 distances, and consequently to give more variety, unity of effect, 
 caprice, and relative truth, whether to forms or to colors. The 
 contrary is an acceptation more ingenuous and more abstract, by 
 virtue of which objects are shown such as they are, seen as if near, 
 the air being suppressed, and consequently without other perspec-
 
 266 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 tive than linear perspective, which results from the diminution of 
 objects in relation to the horizon. Aerial perspective presupposes 
 already a little chiaroscuro. 
 
 Chinese painting ignores it. Gothic and mystical painting did 
 without it. Witness Van Eyck and all the early painters, whether 
 Flemings or Italians. Must I add that if it is not contrary to the 
 spirit of fresco, chiaroscuro is not indispensable to its needs. At 
 Florence it begins late, as it does everywhere that line takes pre- 
 cedence of color. At Venice it does not appear till the time of the 
 Bellini. As it corresponds to quite personal ways of feeling, it does 
 not always pursue in the schools, and parallel with their progress, 
 a very regular chronological advance. Thus in Flanders, after hav- 
 ing had a presentiment of it in Memling, it is seen to disappear for 
 half a century. Among the Flemings returned from Italy, very 
 few adopted it among those who nevertheless had lived with Michael 
 Angelo and Raphael. At the same time that Perugino and Man- 
 tegna judged it useless for the abstract expression of their ideas, 
 and continued, so to speak, to paint with the burin of an engraver 
 or jeweller, and to color with the methods of a glass painter, a great 
 man, a great spirit, a great soul, found in it, for the height or the 
 depth of his sentiment, the rarest elements of expression, and the 
 means of rendering the mystery of things by a mystery. Leonardo, 
 to whom, not without reason, Rembrandt has been compared, on ac- 
 count of the torment that it caused them both to formulate their ideal 
 sense of things, Leonardo is in fact, in the midst of the archaic 
 period, one of the most unexpected representatives of chiaroscuro.
 
 THE NIGHT WATCH. 267 
 
 In the course of time, in Flanders, from Otho Voenius we come to 
 Rubens. And if Rubens is a very great painter of chiaroscuro, 
 although he more habitually uses light than dark, Rembrandt is not 
 the less the definite and absolute expression for many reasons, and 
 not only because he uses more willingly dark than light. After him 
 the whole Dutch School, from the beginning of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury till the height of the eighteenth, the fine and fruitful school of 
 half tints and narrow lights, moves only in that element common 
 to all, and offers so rich and various a whole only because, hav- 
 ing once admitted this fashion, it knew how to vary it by the most 
 delicate metamorphoses. 
 
 Any other than Rembrandt in the Dutch School would sometimes 
 make one forget that he obeyed the fixed laws of chiaroscuro ; with 
 him this oblivion is impossible ; he has digested, established, and, so 
 to speak, promulgated its code ; and if one could believe in his doc- 
 trines at this period of his career, when he was acting much more 
 from impulse than reflection, the Night Watch would have redoubled 
 interest, for it would take the character and the authority of a 
 manifesto. 
 
 To veil everything, to immerse everything in a bath of shadow, 
 to plunge the light itself into it, to extract it afterwards in order to 
 make it appear more distant and radiant ; to make the dark waves 
 revolve around bright centres, to shade them, deepen them, thicken 
 them ; to render nevertheless the darkness transparent, the half-dark- 
 ness easy to pierce ; to give, finally, to the strongest colors a sort of 
 penetrability, which prevents their being black, such is the first
 
 268 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 condition, such are also the difficulties of this very special art. It 
 is unnecessary to say that if any one excelled in it, it was Rem- 
 brandt. He did not invent, he perfected everything, and the method 
 he employed oftener and better than any one else bears his name. 
 
 The consequences of this way of seeing, feeling, and rendering 
 the things of real life can be divined. Life has no longer the same 
 appearance. The edges become faint or disappear, the colors are 
 volatilized. The modelling, no longer imprisoned by a rigid out- 
 line, becomes more uncertain in its touch, more undulating in its 
 surfaces, and when it is treated by a learned and feeling hand, it is 
 the most living and the most real of all, because it contains a thou- 
 sand artifices, thanks to which it lives, so to speak, a double life, 
 the life it has by nature, and that which comes to it from a com- 
 municated emotion. To sum up, there is a way of hollowing the 
 canvas, of making it distant or near, of dissimulating, of showing 
 and of drawing the true in the imaginary, which is art, and nomi- 
 nally the art of chiaroscuro. 
 
 Because such a method authorizes many licenses, does it result 
 that it permits every liberty ? Neither a certain relative exactitude, 
 nor truth of form, nor its beauty when it is sought for, nor the 
 permanence of color, would suffer, if many principles were changed 
 in the way of perceiving and translating objects ; on the contrary, 
 it must be said that among the great Italians (let us take Leonardo 
 and Titian), if the habit of introducing much shadow and very little 
 light expressed better than another the sentiment they had to render, 
 this way of working would not do the least harm to the beauty of the
 
 THE NIGHT WATCH. 269 
 
 coloring, the outline, or the work. It was one more lightness in 
 the material, like a more exquisite transparency of language. The 
 language lost nothing by it, either in purity or clearness ; it be- 
 came in a certain sort rarer, more limpid, more expressive, and 
 more powerful. 
 
 Rubens did nothing but embellish and transform by numberless 
 artifices what seemed to him to be the preferable acceptation of life. 
 And if his form is not more correct, it is certainly not the fault 
 of the chiaroscuro. Heaven knows, on the contrary, what service 
 this incomparable veil has rendered to his drawing. What would 
 he be without it, and when he is well inspired, what does he not 
 become, thanks to it ? The man who draws, draws still better with 
 its help ; and he who colors, colors so much the better when he 
 makes it enter his palette. A hand does not lose its form because 
 it is bathed with obscure fluidities, nor a face its character, a re- 
 semblance its exactness, a stuff, if not its texture, at least its appear- 
 ance, a metal the polish of its surface and the density appropriate 
 to its material ; finally, a color does not lose its local tone, that is, 
 the very principle of its existence. It might be quite another thing 
 and yet remain as true. The learned works of the Amsterdam 
 School are a proof of it. Among all the Dutch painters, among all 
 the excellent masters of whom chiaroscuro was the common and 
 current language, it enters into the art of painting as an auxiliary, 
 and among them all it concurs in producing a whole more homo- 
 geneous, more perfect, and more true. From the works so pictu- 
 resquely true of Pieter de Hoogh, Van Ostade, Metzu, and Jan Steen,
 
 2/0 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 to the loftier inspirations of Titian, Giorgione, Correggio, and Ru- 
 bens, everywhere is seen the use of half tints, and the large shad- 
 ows are born of the need of expressing with more salience things 
 perceptible, or of the necessity of embellishing them. Nowhere 
 can they be separated from the architectural line or the line of 
 the human form, from the true light or the true color of objects. 
 
 Rembrandt alone, upon this point as upon all the others, sees, 
 thinks, and acts differently ; and I am not wrong then in denying 
 this eccentric genius the greater part of the exterior gifts which 
 are the ordinary possession of the masters, for I am doing nothing 
 but visibly setting apart the dominant faculty which he shares with 
 no one. 
 
 If you are told that his palette has the virtue proper to the opu- 
 lent Flemish, Spanish, and Italian palettes, I have made you recog- 
 nize the motives by which you are permitted to doubt it. If you are 
 told that he has a swift, adroit hand, prompt in saying things clearly, 
 that it is natural in its play, brilliant and free in its dexterity, I ask 
 you not to believe it at all, at least in presence of the Night Watch. 
 Finally, if his chiaroscuro is spoken of as a discreet and light at- 
 mosphere, solely destined to veil very simple ideas, or very positive 
 colors, or very clear forms, examine to see if there is not in that a new 
 error, and if upon this point, as upon others, Rembrandt has not 
 altered the whole system of ways of painting. If, on the contrary, 
 you hear it said that, despairing of classing him, for want of names 
 in the vocabulary, he is called a luminarist, ask what this barbarous 
 word signifies, and you will perceive that this exceptional term ex-
 
 THE NIGHT WATCH. 
 
 presses something very strange and very just. A luminarist would 
 be, if I am not deceived, a man who would conceive light outside 
 of recognized laws, would attach to it an extraordinary meaning, 
 and would make great sacrifices to it. If such is the meaning of 
 the new word, Rembrandt is at once defined and judged ; for under 
 its unpleasing form the word expresses an idea difficult to render, 
 a true idea, a rare eulogium, and a criticism. 
 
 I told you, apposite to the Anatomical Lecture, a picture which 
 means to be dramatic, and is not so, how Rembrandt used the 
 light when he used it inappropriately; this is to judge the luminarist 
 when he goes astray. I will tell you, further on, how Rembrandt 
 uses light when he makes it express what no painter in the world 
 has expressed by known means ; you can judge by that what the 
 luminarist becomes when he accosts with his dark lantern the world 
 of the marvellous, of conscience and the ideal, and there he has no 
 master in the art of painting, because he has no equal in the art 
 of showing the invisible. The whole career of Rembrandt turns 
 then around this troublesome objective point, to paint only by the 
 help of light, to draw only with light; and all the differing judg- 
 ments that have been pronounced upon his works, whether beautiful 
 or defective, doubtful or incontestable, can be brought back to this 
 simple question, Was this or was it not an occasion for making 
 light an exclusive condition ? Did the subject require it, did it 
 allow it, or exclude it ? In the first case the work results from the 
 spirit of the work ; infallibly it must be admirable. In the second 
 the result is uncertain, and almost invariably the work is disputable
 
 2/2 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 or a poor success. It is idle to say that light in the hand of Rem- 
 brandt is like a marvellously submissive and docile instrument of 
 which he is sure. Examine his work well ; take it from his earliest 
 years to his latter days, from the St. Simeon at the Hague to the 
 Jewish Bride at the Hoop Museum, and the St. Matthew at the 
 Louvre, and you will see that this dispenser of light has not always 
 disposed it as he should, not even as he would have wished; that 
 it has possessed him, governed him, inspired him to the point of 
 sublimity, conducted him to the impossible, and sometimes betrayed 
 him. 
 
 Explained by this desire of the painter to express a subject only 
 by the brilliancy and darkness of objects, the Night Watch has, 
 so to speak, no secrets. Everything which might make us hesitate 
 is deducted from it. The merits have their reason for being, the 
 errors one succeeds at last in understanding. The embarrassment 
 of the workman when he executes, of the draughtsman when he 
 constructs, of the painter when he colors, of the costumer when 
 he dresses, the inconsistency of the tone, the ambiguity of the 
 effect, the uncertainty of the hour, the strangeness of the figures, 
 their lightning-like apparition in the midst of darkness, all result 
 by chance from an effect conceived contrary to probability, pursued 
 in spite of all logic ; an effect of small necessity, whose theme was 
 this, to illumine a true scene by a light which was not true, that 
 is to say, to give to a fact the ideal character of a vision. Seek 
 nothing beyond this very audacious project, which agreed with the 
 aims of the painter, conflicted with received renderings, opposed a
 
 THE NIGHT WATCH. 273 
 
 system to habit, boldness of spirit to skill of hand, and whose 
 temerity certainly did not fail to prick him on till the day when, I be- 
 lieve, insurmountable difficulties were revealed ; for if Rembrandt 
 solved some of them, there were many he could not solve. 
 
 I appeal to those who cannot believe without reserve in the infalli- 
 bility of even the best minds. Rembrandt had to represent a com- 
 pany of men at arms : it was simple enough to tell us what they 
 were going to do ; he has done this so negligently that up to this 
 time no one understands it even at Amsterdam. He had likenesses 
 to paint, and they are doubtful ; costumes in character, and they are 
 for the most part apocryphal ; a picturesque effect, and that effect is 
 such that the picture becomes from it indecipherable ; the country, 
 the place, the moment, the subject, the men, the objects, have dis- 
 appeared in the stormy phantasmagoria of his palette. Generally 
 he excels in rendering life, he is marvellous in the art of painting 
 fictions, his habit is to think, his master faculty to express light; 
 here fiction is out of place, life is wanting, and the thought redeems 
 nothing. As to the light, it adds still another inconsistency. It 
 is supernatural, disquieting, artificial ; it radiates from within out ; 
 it dissolves the objects that it illuminates. I see many brilliant 
 focuses, but I do not see one object lighted ; it is neither beautiful 
 nor true, nor has it a purpose. In the Anatomical Lecture the 
 corpse is forgotten for a trick of the palette. Here two of the 
 principal figures lose their body, their individuality, and their human 
 signification in the gleam of an ignis fatuus. 
 
 How then does it happen that such a mind was so mistaken that 
 
 18
 
 2/4 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 he did not say what he had to say, and did say precisely what he 
 was not required to say ? Why is he who, when it is necessary, 
 can be so clear, when there is occasion, so profound, why is he here 
 neither profound nor clear ? Has he not, I ask you, drawn better 
 and colored better even in his own manner ? As a portrait painter 
 has he not made portraits a hundred times better ? Does the picture 
 which occupies us give even an approximate idea of the forces 
 of this inventive genius when he is peaceably working from his 
 inmost recesses ? Finally, his ideas, which always are drawn, at 
 bottom, from the marvellous, as his Vision of Dr. Faustus, which 
 appears in a dazzling circle of rays, those rare ideas, where are 
 they in this ? And if the ideas are not here, why so many rays ? I 
 think that the reply to all these doubts is contained in the preceding 
 pages, if those pages have any clearness. 
 
 Perhaps you at length perceive, in this genius made up of exclu- 
 siveness and contrasts, two natures which up to this time have not 
 been very well distinguished from each other, which moreover con- 
 tradict each other, and scarcely ever meet together at the same time 
 and in the same work, one a thinker who bends himself uneasily to 
 the requirements of the truth, while he becomes inimitable when the 
 obligation of veracity is not there to hamper his hand ; and the other 
 a workman who can be magnificent when the visionary does not 
 trouble him. The Night Watch, which represents him in a day of 
 great ambiguity, cannot be then the work of his thought when it is 
 free, nor the work of his hand when it is healthy. In a word, the 
 true Rembrandt is not here ; but very happily for the honor of the
 
 THE NIGHT WATCH. 275 
 
 human mind, he is elsewhere, and I think I shall have diminished 
 nothing of his lofty glory, if, thanks to less celebrated works, which 
 yet are superior, I can show you, one after the other, in all their bril- 
 liancy, the two sides of this great mind.
 
 XIV. 
 
 REMBRANDT AT THE SIX AND VAN LOON GALLERIES. 
 REMBRANDT AT THE LOUVRE. 
 
 REMBRANDT would indeed be inexplicable, if one did not see in 
 him two men of adverse nature, who are very much embarrassed by 
 each other. Their force is almost equal, their power has no compari- 
 son ; as to their object it is absolutely opposite. They tried to be in 
 harmoity, and only succeeded after a long time on occasions which 
 have Become very celebrated, but are very rare. It was their habit " to 
 act and think separately, which always succeeded." The long efforts, 
 the audacities, the occasional failures, the. last masterpiece of this 
 doubly great man, the Syndics, are nothing but the struggle and 
 the final reconciliation of his two natures. The Night Watch will have 
 given you an idea of the want of understanding which existed between 
 them when too soon, without doubt, Rembrandt undertook to make 
 them labor together in the same work. It remains for me to show 
 you each in its domain. In seeing up to what point they are contrary 
 and complete, you will better understand why Rembrandt had such 
 difficulty in finding a work of mixed character in which they could be 
 manifested together without injuring each other.
 
 REMBRANDT AT THE SIX AND VAN LOON GALLERIES. 277 
 
 In the first place there is the painter whom I shall call the exterior 
 man ; with a clear mind, a vigorous hand, and infallible logic, the 
 opposite in everything of the romantic genius to whom the admiration 
 of the world has been given almost entirely, and sometimes, as I have 
 just told you, rather too promptly. In his way, at certain times, the 
 Rembrandt of whom I am speaking is a superior master. His manner 
 of seeing is thoroughly healthy, his way of painting edifying by the 
 simplicity of the means employed ; his manner attests that he wishes 
 to be above all things comprehensible and veracious. His palette is 
 wise, limpid, tinged with the true colors of the daylight, and without 
 cloudiness. His drawing makes you forget it ; but it forgets noth- 
 ing. He is admirably lifelike. He expresses and characterizes, in 
 their individuality, features, glances, attitudes, and gestures, that is to 
 say, the normal habits and the furtive accidents of life. His execu- 
 tion has the propriety, breadth, the high bearing, the firm tissue, the 
 force and conciseness proper to practitioners who are passed masters 
 in the art of fine language. His painting is gray and black, unshin- 
 ing (mate), solid, and exceedingly thick and agreeable. It has for the 
 eyes the charm of an opulence which hides instead of proclaiming 
 itself, and of a skill which is betrayed only by outbursts of the great- 
 est learning. 
 
 If you compare it to the paintings of the same fashion and th'e 
 same gamut which make the renown of the Dutch painters, Hals ex- 
 cepted, you will perceive, by something more sustained in the tone, by 
 a certain interior warmth in the shades, in the flowing of the color, 
 in the ardor of the execution, that a fiery temperament is hidden under
 
 2/8 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 the apparent tranquillity of the method. Something warns you that 
 the artist who paints thus is doing his very best not to paint differ- 
 ently ; that this palette affects sobriety for the occasion ; finally, that 
 this unctuous and grave material is much richer at bottom than it 
 appears, and that if it were analyzed there would be discovered in 
 it, like a magnificent alloy, remains of melted gold. 
 
 Under this unexpected form Rembrandt is revealed, every time 
 that he comes out of himself to yield to quite accidental obligations ; 
 and such is the power of such a mind, when it is borne in sincerity 
 from one world to another, that this performer of miracles is one of 
 the witnesses most capable of giving us a faithful and a hitherto 
 unexpressed idea of the exterior world as it is. His works thus 
 conceived are few. I do not believe and the reason is easy to 
 grasp that any of his pictures, I mean any of his imaginary or im- 
 agined works, ever were clothed in this relatively impersonal form 
 and color. Thus you do not meet in him with this manner of feeling 
 and painting except in those cases when, whether from fancy or 
 necessity, he subordinates himself to his subject. In this may be 
 classed certain exceptional portraits disseminated in European collec- 
 tions, which deserve to be made a separate study. It is also to 
 those moments of rare abandonment in the life of a man who sel- 
 dom forgot himself, and only yielded himself from complacence, that 
 we owe the portraits in the Six and Van Loon galleries ; and it is 
 to these perfectly beautiful works that I should recommend one to 
 recur, who wishes to know how Rembrandt treated the human being, 
 when, for the reasons that have been suggested, he consented to 
 occupy himself only with his model.
 
 REMBRANDT AT THE SIX AND VAN LOON GALLERIES. 279 
 
 The most celebrated is that of the Burgomaster Six. It dates 
 from 1656, the fatal year, that in which Rembrandt grew old, became 
 bankrupt, and retired to the Roosgracht (Rose Canal), saving from 
 his prosperity only one thing, which was worth it all, his genius intact. 
 It is astonishing that the burgomaster who had lived in intimate 
 familiarity with Rembrandt for fifteen years, and whose portrait he 
 had already engraved in 1647, should have waited till so late to be 
 painted by his illustrious friend. Was it that, while greatly admiring 
 his portraits, Six had some reason to doubt their likeness ? Did he 
 not know how the painter had formerly used Saskia,* with what little 
 scruple he had painted himself already thirty or forty times ; and did 
 he fear in his own representation one of those infidelities which he 
 had witnessed of tener than any one else ? 
 
 What is certain is, that at this time, of all others, and undoubtedly 
 out of regard for a man whose friendship and patronage had followed 
 him in his ill fortune, Rembrandt suddenly mastered himself, as if 
 his mind and his hand had never practised the least deviation. He 
 is free but scrupulous, agreeable and sincere. From this unchimeri- 
 cal person Ke made an unchimerical picture, and with the same hand 
 that signed two years before, in 1654, the Bathsheba in the Lacase 
 Museum, a rather eccentric study from the life, he signed one of the 
 best portraits he ever painted, and one of the finest bits of execution 
 that he ever produced. He abandons himself more than he watches 
 himself ; nature here directs him. The transformation he makes things 
 undergo is imperceptible, and a real object must be placed near the 
 
 * Saskia Nilenburg, Rembrandt's first wife. TR.
 
 280 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 canvas to perceive the artifice in this picture, which is so delicate and 
 so masculine, so learned and so natural. The work is rapid, the 
 material rather thick and smooth ; it is painted at once without use- 
 less relief ; it is flowing, abundant, a little faint, and lightly blended 
 at the edges. There is no too sudden digression, no abruptness, not 
 a detail which has not its primary or secondary interest. 
 
 A colorless atmosphere circulates around this personage, viewed 
 at home, in his habits of body, and his every-day clothes. He is not 
 entirely a nobleman, nor is he exactly a burgher; he is a dis- 
 tinguished man, well dressed, perfectly at ease in his mien ; his eye 
 is steady without being too fixed, his face is calm, his bearing a little 
 absent. He is going out, his head is covered, he is putting on 
 gloves of a grayish color. His left hand is already gloved, the right 
 is bare ; neither of them is finished, and could not be more so, for 
 the rough draught is left with a definite purpose. Here the truth 
 of tone, the veracity of gesture, the perfect rigor of form, are such 
 that everything is expressed as it should be. The rest was a matter 
 of time and care, and I can reproach neither painter nor model 
 for remaining satisfied with so clever an almost. The hair is red, 
 the felt hat is black; the face is as true a likeness in complexion as in 
 expression, as individual as it is living. The doublet is pale gray, 
 the short mantle thrown over the shoulder is red, with trimmings of 
 gold braid. Both have their appropriate color, and the choice of 
 these two colors is as subtle as the relation of the two colors is just. 
 As moral expression, it is charming ; as truth, it is absolutely sin- 
 cere ; as art, it is of the highest quality.
 
 REMBRANDT AT THE SIX AND VAN LOON GALLERIES. 281 
 
 What painter would have been capable of making a portrait like 
 this? You can test it by the most redoubtable comparisons, and 
 it resists them. Would Rembrandt himself have brought to it so 
 much experience and freedom, that is, such a harmony of ripe 
 qualities, before having passed through his profound researches, and 
 the great audacities which had occupied the most laborious years 
 of his life ? I think not. No effort of a man is lost, and every- 
 thing serves him, even his mistakes. There are in this picture the 
 good nature of a mind which unbends itself, the want of ceremony 
 of a hand which is resting, and, above all, that way of interpreting 
 life which belongs only to thinkers trained to the loftiest problems. 
 In this relation, and remembering the attempts in the Night Watch, 
 the perfect success of the portrait of Six is, if I am not mistaken, 
 an unanswerable argument. 
 
 I do not know whether the portraits of Martin Daey and his 
 wife, the two important panels which adorn the grand drawing-room 
 of the Van Loon mansion, are worth more or less than the Burgo- 
 master. In any event they are more unexpected, and much less 
 well known, the name of the personages having, in the first place, 
 been less of a recommendation. Moreover, they belong visibly 
 neither to Rembrandt's first nor to his second manner. 
 
 Much more than the portrait of Six are they an exception to the 
 work of his years of middle life ; and the need of classing the 
 works of a master according to such and such an ultra-celebrated 
 picture has made them, I think, considered as canvases without a 
 type, and on this account they have been a little neglected. One
 
 282 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 of them, that of the husband, is dated 1634, two years after the Ana- 
 tomical Lecture; the other, that of the wife, was executed in 1643, a 
 year after the Night Watch. Nine years separate them, and yet 
 they seem to have been conceived at the same time ; and if nothing 
 in the first recalls the timid, patient, thin, and yellow period of which 
 the Anatomical Lecture remains as the most important specimen, 
 nothing, absolutely nothing, in the second bears the trace of the 
 audacious undertakings, upon which Rembrandt had just entered. 
 Here, very briefly, indicated by notes, is recorded the peculiar value 
 of these two admirable pages. 
 
 The husband is standing facing us, in a black doublet and black 
 breeches, with a hat of black felt, a guipure lace collar and cuffs, 
 a knot of guipure at his garters, and large rosettes of the same on 
 his black shoes. He has his left arm folded, and the hand hidden 
 under his black mantle, which is braided with black satin ; with 
 the right hand extended forward, he holds a doeskin glove. The 
 background is blackish, the floor gray. It is a fine head, sweet and 
 grave, rather round, with handsome eyes looking honestly at you ; 
 charming drawing, grand, easy, and familiar, of the most perfect 
 naturalness. The painting is even, firm at the edges, of a consist- 
 ency and breadth so great that it could be thinner or thicker 
 without our expecting more or less ; imagine a Dutch Velasquez, 
 more intimate and more thoughtful. As to the rank of the person, 
 it is indicated in the most delicate manner ; he is not a prince, 
 hardly a great lord, but he is a nobleman of high birth, fine edu- 
 cation, and elegant habits. In this work of pure good faith you
 
 REMBRANDT AT THE SIX AND VAN LOON GALLERIES. 283 
 
 find the race, age, temperament, life, in a word, in its most char- 
 acteristic expression, everything that had been lacking in the Ana- 
 tomical Lecture, and which would be wanting later in the Night 
 Watch. 
 
 The woman, of the same full-length size, is placed against a black- 
 ish background, upon a gray floor, and she also is dressed all in 
 black with a necklace and bracelet of pearls ; there are knots of 
 silver lace at her girdle, and rosettes of silver lace upon her deli- 
 cate slippers of white satin. She is thin, white, and tall. Her 
 pretty head, a little inclined, gazes at you with quiet eyes, and her 
 complexion, of uncertain color, lends a more lively brilliancy to the 
 warmth of her reddish hair. A slight enlargement of the waist, 
 very decently expressed under the amplitude of her robe, gives her 
 an infinitely respectable appearance as a young matron. Her right 
 hand holds a fan of black feathers with a little golden chain ; the 
 other, which hangs by her side, is white, slender, and long, of 
 exquisite lineage. 
 
 Black, gray, white, nothing more, nothing less ; and the whole 
 tone is unequalled. An invisible atmosphere, and yet air ; slight 
 modelling, and yet all possible relief ; an inimitable manner of being 
 precise without littleness, of opposing the most delicate work to 
 the largeness of the whole, of expressing by tone the luxury and 
 value of objects, in a word, a security of eye, a sensitiveness of 
 palette, a certainty in the hand which would suffice for the glory of 
 any master, these are, if I am not mistaken, astonishing qualities 
 obtained by the same man who a few months before had signed 
 the Night Watch.
 
 284 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 Was I not right in appealing from Rembrandt to Rembrandt ? 
 If one were to suppose in effect that the Anatomical Lecture and 
 the Night Watch were treated thus, with respect for necessary 
 things, for faces, costumes, typical features, would they not be in 
 this style of portrait composition an extraordinary example to me- 
 ditate upon and follow ? Did not Rembrandt risk much in being 
 complicated ? Was he less original when he confined himself to 
 the simplicity of his fine method ? What healthy and powerful 
 language, a little traditional, but entirely his own ! Why change it 
 at all? Had he then such pressing need to create for himself an 
 idiom, strange, expressive, but incorrect, which no one since has 
 been able to speak without falling into barbarisms? Such are 
 the questions that would suggest themselves if Rembrandt had 
 consecrated his life to painting the personages of his time, such 
 as Dr. Tulp, Captain Kock, the Burgomaster Six, and M. Martin 
 Daey ; but what Rembrandt cared for was not that. If the painter 
 of the outside had so spontaneously found his formula, and at the 
 first blow, as it were, attained his aim, it was not the same with 
 the inspired creator that we are going to see at work. The latter 
 was very difficult to satisfy in a different way, because he had 
 things to say which could not be treated like fine eyes, pretty 
 hands, rich laces upon black satin, and for which would not suffice 
 a categorical estimate, a bright palette, a few frank, clear, and 
 concise expressions. 
 
 Do you remember the Good Samaritan that we have at the 
 Louvre ? Do you remember that half-dead man, bent double,
 
 REMBRANDT AT THE LOUVRE. 285 
 
 supported by the shoulders, borne by the legs, shattered, his whole 
 body out of shape, panting with the movements of the walkers, his 
 legs bare, his feet close together, his knees touching, one arm 
 awkwardly contracted over his hollow chest, and his brow enveloped 
 in a bandage on which blood is seen ? Do you remember that 
 small suffering face with its half-closed eye, its dim glance, its 
 dying expression of agony, one eyebrow raised, the groaning mouth, 
 the two lips separated by an imperceptible distortion in which the 
 wail expires ? It is late ; everything is in shadow, except one or 
 two floating gleams, which seem to change places upon the canvas, 
 so capriciously are they arranged, so mobile and light ; nothing 
 disturbs the tranquil uniformity of the twilight. Hardly in this 
 mystery of the dying day do you remark, on the left of the pic- 
 ture, the horse so beautiful in style, and the miserable-looking child 
 standing on tiptoe, peering over the shoulders of the animal, with- 
 out much compassion following with his eyes to the inn this 
 wounded man picked up on the road, who is being carefully car- 
 ried, weighing heavily in the hands of his bearers, and groaning. 
 
 The canvas is smoky, all impregnated with sombre gold, very 
 rich in the undertones, and particularly grave. The material is 
 muddy and yet transparent ; the execution is heavy and yet 
 subtle, hesitating and resolute, painful and free, very unequal, 
 uncertain, vague in some places, of astonishing precision in others. 
 Something invites you to reflection, and "would warn you, if wan- 
 derings of mind were permissible before so imperious a work, that 
 the author was himself singularly attentive and thoughtful when
 
 286 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 he painted it. Stop and look at it from a distance, then near by ; 
 examine it for a long time. There is no apparent outline, not 
 one accent given from routine ; an extreme timidity which is not 
 ignorance, and which comes, one would say, from the fear of be- 
 ing commonplace, or from the value the thinker attached to the 
 immediate and direct expression of life ; a construction of objects 
 which seems to exist of itself, almost without the aid of the 
 known formulas, and renders without any perceptible medium the 
 uncertainties and precision of nature. Naked legs and feet, of 
 irreproachable form and style, cannot be overlooked in their small 
 dimensions, any more than the legs and feet of the Christ can 
 be forgotten in Titian's Entombment. In this pale, thin, and 
 groaning countenance there is nothing which is not an expression, 
 something coming from the soul, from within out ; the weakness, 
 the suffering, and something of the sad joy with which a man 
 finds that he is self-possessed when he feels that he is about to die. 
 There is not a contortion, not a feature, which exceeds moderation, 
 not a touch in this manner of rendering the inexpressible which is 
 not pathetic and restrained, and the whole is dictated by a profound 
 emotion, and translated by means that are entirely extraordinary. 
 
 Look around this picture, without any grand exterior, which is 
 imposing to those who know how to see, solely from the power 
 of its general scale of color ; search the great gallery, return even to 
 the Salon Carr6, consult the most powerful and most skilful painters, 
 from the Italians to the cunning Dutchmen, from Giorgione in his 
 Concert to Metzu in his Visit, from Holbein in his Erasmus to
 
 REMBRANDT AT THE LOUVRE. 287 
 
 Terburg and Ostade ; examine the painters of sentiment, of physi- 
 ognomy, of attitudes, the men of scrupulous observation or of impulse ; 
 discover what they propose to themselves, study their researches, 
 measure their domain, weigh well their language, and ask yourself if 
 you perceive anywhere such inwardness in the expression of a face, 
 emotion of such a nature, such simplicity in the way of feeling, any- 
 thing, in a word, so delicate in conception and expression, or which 
 has been said in terms either more original, more exquisite, or 
 more perfect. 
 
 Up to a certain point that which makes the perfection or even 
 the strange beauty of Holbein can be defined. We can almost say 
 to what attentive and powerful examination of human features the 
 former owes the excellence of his likenesses, the precision of his 
 form, the clearness and rigor of his language. Perhaps it might 
 be suspected in what ideal world of high formulas or dreamed- 
 of types, Leonardo divined what La Joconde must be in herself, 
 and how from this first conception he drew the semblance of 
 his St. John and of his Virgins. With still less difficulty can be ex- 
 plained the laws of drawing among the Dutch imitators. Every- 
 where Nature is present to teach them, sustain them, restrain them, 
 and assist their hand as well as their eye. But Rembrandt ? 
 If his ideal is sought for in the upper world of forms, it is per- 
 ceived that in it he has seen only moral beauty and physical ugliness. 
 If his hold upon the real world is sought, it is discovered that he 
 excludes from it everything which serves other people, that he also 
 knows it well, but only half looks at it, and that if he adapts it
 
 288 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 to his needs, he almost never conforms himself to it. Moreover, he 
 is more natural than any one else, at the same time that he is less 
 near to nature, more familiar while less literal, more trivial and quite 
 as noble, ugly in his types, extraordinarily fine in his feeling for 
 countenances, less adroit of hand, that is, less smoothly and equally 
 sure of his work, and yet of a skill so rare, so fruitful, and so full, 
 that he can go from the Samaritan to the Syndics, from the Tobias 
 to the Night Watch, from the Joiner's Family to the portrait of 
 Six, and the portraits of Martin Daey and his wife, that is, from 
 pure sentiment to almost pure display, and from what is most in- 
 timate to what is most superb. 
 
 What I say to you concerning the Samaritan I could say about 
 the Tobias, and with still more reason I can say it about the 
 Disciples at Emmaus, a marvel undeservedly lost in a corner of the 
 Louvre, which can be counted among the masterpieces of the painter. 
 This little picture, of poor appearance, of insignificant arrangement, 
 of tarnished color, of reserved and almost awkward execution, would 
 alone suffice to establish the greatness of a man. Without speak- 
 ing of the disciple who understands and folds his hands, or of 
 him who is astounded, and, placing his napkin on the table, looks 
 straight at the head of Christ, and says clearly what in ordinary 
 language could be translated by the exclamation of a man in amaze- 
 ment ; without speaking of the young servant with black eyes, who 
 is bringing a dish and sees but one thing, a man who was going 
 to eat but does not eat, and crosses himself with contrition; one 
 might retain in this unique work only the Christ, and that would
 
 REMBRANDT AT THE LOUVRE. 289 
 
 be enough. What painter has not made a Christ, at Rome, Florence, 
 Sienna, Milan, Venice, Basle, Bruges, or Antwerp? From Leo- 
 nardo, Raphael, and Titian to Van Eyck, Holbein, Rubens, and Van- 
 dyck, how has he not been deified, humanized, transfigured, shown 
 in his history, his passion, and his death? How have been re- 
 cited the adventures of his terrestrial life, how have been con- 
 ceived the glories of his apotheosis ! Has he ever been imagined 
 thus ? Pale, emaciated, sitting facing us, breaking the bread as on 
 the evening of the Last Supper, in his pilgrim's robe, with his 
 blackened lips on which the torture has left its traces, his great 
 brown eyes, soft, widely opened, and raised towards heaven, with his 
 cold nimbus, a sort of phosphorescence around him which envelops 
 him in an indefinable glory, and that inexplicable look of a living, 
 breathing human being who certainly has passed through death. 
 The attitude of this divine shade, that gesture impossible to describe, 
 surely impossible to copy, the intense ardor of his countenance, 
 whose type is expressed without features, and whose physiognomy 
 depends upon the movement of his lips and glance, these things, 
 inspired no one knows where, and produced no one knows how, 
 are all priceless. No art recalls them; no one before Rembrandt, 
 no one after him, has expressed them. 
 
 Three of the portraits signed by his hand, that our gallery pos- 
 sesses, are of the same essence and of the same value, his Portrait 
 (No. 413 of the Catalogue), the fine bust of the Young Man with the 
 small mustaches and long hair (No. 417), and the Portrait of a 
 Woman (No. 419), perhaps that of Saskia at the end of her short 
 
 19
 
 290 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 life. To multiply examples, that is to say, witnesses of his supple- 
 ness and his force, of his presence of mind when he is dreaming, of 
 his prodigious lucidity when he discerns the invisible, we must cite 
 the Joiner's Family, in which Rembrandt throws himself fully into 
 the marvellousness of light, this time with great success, because the 
 light is in the truth of his subject ; and especially the Two Philoso- 
 phers, two miracles of chiaroscuro, which he alone was capable of 
 accomplishing upon this abstract theme, Meditation. 
 
 Thus, I think, in a few and not the most celebrated of his works, 
 we have an exhibition of the unique faculties and of the fine manner 
 of this great spirit. Note that these pictures are of every date, and 
 consequently it is hardly possible to establish at what moment of 
 his career he was most completely master of his thought and of his 
 craft as well as a poet. It is positive that from the time of the 
 Night Watch there was a change in his material way of working, 
 sometimes a progress, sometimes merely a positive intention, a new 
 habit ; but the true and profound merit of his productions has 
 almost nothing to do with the novelties of his labor. He returns 
 elsewhere to his incisive and light language when the need of saying 
 profound things with expression conquers in his mind the tempta- 
 tion to say them more energetically than before. 
 
 The Night Watch is dated 1642; the Tobias, 1637; the Joiner's 
 Family, 1640; the Samaritan, 1648; the Two Philosophers, 1633; tne 
 Disciples at Emmaus, the most limpid and trembling of all, 1.648 ; and 
 if his portrait was made in 1634, that of the Young Man, one of the 
 most finished that ever came from his hand, dates from 1658. What I
 
 REMBRANDT AT THE LOUVRE. 2QI 
 
 should conclude, solely from this enumeration of dates, is that six years 
 after the Night Watch, he signed the Disciples at Emmaus and the 
 Samaritan. Now when, after such a renown, in the midst of his glory, 
 and what a far-famed glory, applauded by some, contradicted by 
 others, a man can calm himse'f a^d remain so humble, can possess 
 himself sufficiently to turn from so much turbulence to so much wis- 
 dom, it is because beside the innovator who seeks and the painter 
 who exerts himself to perfect his resources, there exists the thinker 
 who pursues his work as best he can, as he feels it, almost always 
 with the force of clairvoyance which belongs to brains illuminated by 
 intuitions.
 
 XV. 
 
 THE SYNDICS. 
 
 FROM the Syndics we learn what was the character of the final 
 Rembrandt. In 1661 he had only eight more years to live. During 
 these last years, sorrowful, difficult, forsaken, always laborious, his 
 handling was to grow heavier, but his manner was to undergo no 
 further change. Had it indeed changed much ? Taking Rembrandt 
 from 1632 to the Syndics, from his starting-point to his goal, what 
 are the variations produced in this obstinate genius who mingled so 
 little with others ? His method has become more rapid, his brush 
 larger, the paint heavier and more substantial, the material (le tuf) of 
 a more resisting character. The strength of the first construction 
 is all the greater because the hand must move so impetuously over 
 the surfaces. This is what is called treating a canvas in a masterly 
 way, because really such elements are so difficult to handle that 
 often, instead of easily governing them, a man becomes their slave, 
 and a long past, full of successful experiments, is necessary to enable 
 one to use such expedients without too great risk. 
 
 Rembrandt had attained this confidence gradually, or rather by 
 shocks, a sudden rush forward followed by a recoil. Sometimes
 
 THE SYNDICS. 
 
 293 
 
 pictures of great wisdom were succeeded, as I have told you, by 
 works wholly lacking in it ; but finally, after this long journeying 
 for thirty years, he became satisfied on all points, and the Syndics 
 may be considered as the summing up of his acquisitions, or rather 
 as the brilliant result of his certainty. 
 
 They are portraits grouped in one frame, not his best, but to be 
 compared with the best that he produced in his last years. Unques- 
 tionably they do not at all recall those of Martin Daey and his wife, 
 nor have they the fresh accent and the clear color of that of Six. 
 They are conceived in the shadowy, tawny, and powerful style of 
 the Young Man at the Louvre, and are much better than the St. 
 Matthew which dates from the same year, in which old age is already 
 betrayed. The clothes and felt hats are black, but through the 
 black a depth of red is felt ; the linens are white, but strongly glazed 
 with bistre ; the faces, which are wonderfully living, are animated by 
 fine luminous and direct *eyes, which do not exactly look at the 
 spectator, but yet their glance follows, interrogates, and listens to 
 him. They are individual, and are likenesses. They are certainly 
 burghers and merchants, but notables, assembled in their own house 
 before a table with a red cover, with an open register upon it, sur- 
 prised in full counsel. They are occupied without acting, they speak 
 without moving their lips. Not one of them is posing ; they are living. 
 The blacks are sharp or indistinct ; a warm atmosphere, increased 
 tenfold in value, envelops the whole with rich, grave half-tints. 
 The relief of the linens, the faces, and the hands is extraordinary, 
 and the extreme vivacity of the light is as delicately observed as if
 
 294 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 Nature herself had given its quality and measure. It might almost 
 be said of this picture that it is one exhibiting the greatest restraint 
 and moderation, there is such exactitude in its balance, were it not 
 that beneath all this maturity full of cool self-possession can be felt 
 nervous force, impatience, and fire. 
 
 It is superb. Take several of the fine portraits conceived in the 
 same spirit, and they are numerous, and you will have an idea of 
 what may be an ingeniously arranged assemblage of four or five 
 portraits of the first order. The ensemble is grand, the work a 
 decisive one. It cannot be said that it reveals an abler or even 
 a bolder Rembrandt, but it bears witness that the seeker has re- 
 volved the same problem often in his mind, and has at last found 
 the solution. 
 
 This page, moreover, is too celebrated and too deservedly conse- 
 crated for me to emphasize it. What I hold to establishing is this : it 
 is at once very real and very imaginative, both copied and conceived, 
 prudently managed, and magnificently painted. All Rembrandt's 
 efforts have there borne fruit ; not one of his researches has been in 
 vain. What then did he propose to himself? He meant to treat 
 living nature about as he treated fictions, that is, by mingling the 
 ideal with the true. By means of a few paradoxes he succeeded. 
 He thus binds together all the links of his beautiful career. 
 
 The two men who had long divided the forces of his mind joined 
 hands in this hour of perfect success. He closed his life by an 
 understanding with himself, and by a masterpiece. Was he per- 
 mitted to know what is peace of mind ? The Syndics once signed, 
 he might at least have believed that the day for it had come.
 
 THE SYNDICS. 295 
 
 One last word, to finish with the Night Watch. 
 
 I have told you that the rendering in this picture seemed to me 
 too real to admit of so much magic, and consequently the fantastic 
 part which disturbs it appeared to me to be out of place, that, con- 
 sidered as the representation of an actual scene, the picture does not 
 explain itself, and, viewed as art, it lacks the ideal resources which 
 are the natural element in which Rembrandt asserts himself with all 
 his merits. I have, moreover, told you that an incontestable quality 
 already had manifested itself in this picture, the art of introducing 
 in a large frame and in a widely expanded scene a picturesque 
 novelty, a transformation of objects, a force of chiaroscuro, the secrets 
 of which have been known so profoundly to no one before or after 
 him. I have dared to say that this picture did not show that Rem- 
 brandt was a great draughtsman in the sense in which drawing is 
 ordinarily understood, and that it manifested all the differences which 
 separate him from the great and true colorists ; I did not say the 
 distance, because between Rembrandt and the great masters of the 
 palette there are only dissimilarities, and not degrees. Finally, I 
 have tried to explain why, in this particular work, he is not what 
 might be called a good workman, and I have used his pictures in 
 the Louvre and his portraits of the Six family to show that, when 
 he consents to see nature as it is, his method is admirable, and when 
 he expresses a sentiment, even if that sentiment appears inexpres- 
 sible, his workmanship is then unrivalled. Have I not almost 
 therein traced the outlines and the limits of this great spirit, and 
 is it not easy for you to form a conclusion?
 
 296 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 The Night Watch is an intermediary picture in his life, which 
 divides it nearly in half, at least in the domain of his faculties. It 
 reveals and manifests all that could be expected from so supple a 
 genius. It does not contain him, nor does it mark his perfection 
 in any of the styles he has treated, but it makes one foresee that 
 in many of them he can be perfect. The heads in the background, 
 and one or two faces in the foreground, show what the portrait painter 
 must be, and what is his new manner of treating a resemblance by 
 abstract life, by life itself. Once for all, the master of chiaroscuro 
 has given a distinct expression of that element, confounded until then 
 with many others. He has proved that it exists in itself independent 
 of exterior form and of coloring, and that it can, by force and variety 
 in its usage, by the power of its effects, the number, the depth, or 
 the subtlety of the ideas which it expresses, become the principle of 
 a new art. He has proved that an overwhelming comparison can 
 be sustained without coloring, by the sole action of the lights upon 
 the shadows. He has formulated by that, more decidedly than any 
 one else, the law of values, and rendered incalculable service to our 
 modern art. His fancy has been led astray in this work, into com- 
 monplace expression by his rendering. And yet the Girl with the 
 Cock, apposite or not, exists to testify that this great portrait painter 
 is, before all, a visionary ; that this very exceptional colorist is, above 
 all things, a painter of light ; that his strange atmosphere is the air 
 appropriate to his conceptions ; and that there are, outside of Nature, 
 or rather in her depths, things that this pearl-fisher alone has dis- 
 covered.
 
 THE SYNDICS. 297 
 
 To me the most positive thing contained in this picture is the inter- 
 esting testimony it bears of a mighty effort. It is incoherent simply 
 because it attempts many contrary results. It is obscure only be- 
 cause the rendering was uncertain and the conception vague. It is 
 violent solely because the painter's mind was on a strain to compass 
 it, and excessive only because the hand which executed it was less 
 resolute than it was bold. We seek in it a mystery which does not 
 exist. The sole mystery I discover in it is the eternal and secret 
 struggle between the reality, which asserts itself, and the truth as 
 it is conceived in a brain enamored with chimeras. Its historical 
 importance comes from the grandeur of the work, and the impor- 
 tance of the attempts of which it is the substance ; its celebrity arises 
 from its strangeness ; and, finally, its least doubtful title comes, not 
 from what it is, but, as I have told you, from what it affirms and 
 promises. 
 
 A masterpiece has never, so far as I know, been a faultless work, 
 but generally it is at least the explicit and complete exhibition of the 
 faculties of a master. Thus considered, is the Amsterdam picture a 
 masterpiece ? I think not. Could one, having seen this page alone, 
 write a truly judicious study of this far-reaching genius? Could his 
 measure be taken from it ? If the Night Watch should disappear, 
 what would happen ? Would there be a void or an hiatus ? And 
 what would happen, on the other hand, if certain pictures or certain 
 choice portraits should disappear ? Which loss would most diminish 
 the glory of Rembrandt, and from which would posterity really suffer 
 the most ? Finally, is Rembrandt perfectly known when he has
 
 298 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 been seen at Paris, London, and Dresden ? and would he be per- 
 fectly understood if he had been seen only at Amsterdam in the 
 picture which passes for his master-work? 
 
 I think that the Night Watch is, like Titian's Assumption, an im- 
 portant and very significant page, but not one of his very best 
 pictures. I think also, without any comparison between the merits 
 of the works, that Veronese would remain unknown if he had to 
 represent him only the Rape of Europa, which is one of his most 
 celebrated pages, and certainly one of the most degenerate, a work 
 which, far from exhibiting an advance, announces the decadence of 
 the man and the decline of a whole school. Thus, it may be seen, 
 that the Night Watch is not the only misconception in the history 
 of art.
 
 XVI. 
 
 REMBRANDT. 
 
 THE life of Rembrandt is, like his painting, full of half-tints and 
 dark corners. Often as he shows himself as he was in the full 
 light of his works, of his public and private life, clear, luminous, and 
 sparkling with wit, good humor, and haughty grace and grandeur, 
 equally often he secretes himself, and seems always to be hid- 
 ing something, whether he painted or whether he lived. He had 
 no palace with the conditions of a great lord's house, no train and 
 galleries in the Italian fashion, but a modest abode, the blackened 
 house of a petty merchant, the interior confusion of a collector, a 
 book-hunter, a lover of prints and curiosities. He had no public 
 business to draw him from his studio, and make him enter into the 
 politics of his time ; no great favor ever attached him to any prince. 
 He had no official honors, nor orders, nor decorations, nothing 
 which connects him closely or distantly with such a fact or with such 
 personages as would have kept him from being* forgotten ; for 
 history in mentioning them might incidentally have spoken of 
 him. Rembrandt belonged to the third estate, and hardly to that, 
 as would have been said in France in 1789. He belonged to those
 
 300 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 crowds in which individuals are lost, whose manners are on a dead 
 level, their habits without any character to elevate them ; and even 
 in Holland, that country of so-called equality in classes, Protestant, 
 republican, without prejudices of nobility, the singularity of his genius 
 did not prevent the social mediocrity of the man from keeping him 
 down in the obscure layers, and drowning him in them. 
 
 For a long time nothing was known of him but from the testi- 
 mony of Sandrart or his pupils, those at least who have written, 
 Hoogstraaten and Houbraken ; and these reports were reduced 
 to a few legends of the studios, to doubtful authorities, to too hasty 
 judgments, and to gossip. What was perceived of himself were his 
 eccentricities, his manias, a few trivialities, and certain faults that 
 were almost vices. He was called interested, grasping, even miserly, 
 rather disposed to bargain ; and on the other hand he has been 
 called dissipated, and disorderly in his expenses, witness his bank- 
 ruptcy. He had many pupils, whom he put into cells in his rooms 
 which were divided into compartments, watched them to see that 
 between them was no contact, no influence, and drew a great revenue 
 from this mistrustful teaching. Some fragments of oral lessons 
 are collected by tradition, which are truths of simple good sense, 
 but they brought about no particular result. He had not seen Italy, 
 did not recommend that journey ; which was for his ex-disciples, 
 become doctors in aesthetics, a grievance and an occasion for regret- 
 ting that their master had not added this necessary culture to his 
 healthy doctrines and his original talent. He was known to have 
 singular tastes, a love for old monkish robes, for Oriental frippery,
 
 REMBRANDT. 
 
 301 
 
 for helmets, swords, and Asiatic carpets. Before knowing more 
 exactly the detail of his artistic furniture, and all the instructive 
 and useful curiosities with which he had encumbered his house, 
 it seemed to be but a disorder of fantastic things, belonging to 
 natural history and bric-a-brac, savage panoplies, stuffed animals, 
 and dried grasses. It savored of the capharnaum and the laboratory, 
 a little of occult science and the cabala; and this oddity, joined to 
 the passion he was supposed to have for money, gave to the medi- 
 tative and crabbed face of this furious worker the indescribable and 
 suspicious air of an alchemist. 
 
 He had a passion for sitting in front of a mirror and painting 
 himself, not as Rubens did in his heroic pictures, under a chival- 
 rous exterior, as a warrior amid a confusion of epic figures, but 
 all alone, in a little frame, looking right into his own eyes, for 
 himself alone, and solely for the value of a shimmering light, or 
 a more rare half-tint, playing over the rounded planes of his fat 
 face with its flushed pulp. He turned up his mustache, put air 
 and movement into his curly hair, smiled with a strong and ruddy 
 lip ; and his little eye, lost under thick jutting brows, darted a 
 singular glance, in which were ardor, fixity, insolence, and content- 
 ment. It was not everybody's eye. The face had strong planes, the 
 mouth was expressive, the chin wilful. Between his two eyebrows 
 labor had traced two vertical furrows, two swellings, and that fold 
 contracted by the habit of frowning, which belongs to concentrated 
 brains which refract received sensations, and make an effort from 
 without in. He adorned himself besides, and travestied himself after
 
 302 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 the fashion of theatrical people. He borrowed from his store the 
 wherewithal to clothe himself, cover his head, or adorn himself ; 
 he put on turbans, velvet caps, felt hats, doublets, mantles, sometimes 
 a cuirass ; he hooked jewelry into his headgear, fastened round his 
 neck chains of gold with precious stones : and when you get a little 
 into the secret of his researches, you begin to ask if all this com- 
 placency of the painter for the model was not the weakness of the 
 man, to which the artist lent himself. Later, after his mature years, 
 in his days of difficulty, he is seen to appear in graver, more modest, 
 and more truthful garments, without gold or velvet, in sombre 
 raiment, with a handkerchief tied round his head, his countenance 
 saddened, wrinkled, emaciated, the palette in his rough hands. This 
 costume of a man disenchanted was a new form which prevailed 
 with him when he had passed fifty years, but it only complicates 
 the more the true idea that one would like to form of him. 
 
 All this together did not make a very harmonious whole, did not 
 sustain itself, accorded ill with the meaning of his works, the high 
 aim of his conceptions, the profound seriousness of his habitual 
 purposes. The outbursts of this character difficult to define, the 
 revealed points of his almost unprecedented habits, were relieved 
 with a certain sharpness upon the background of a dull, neutral 
 existence, smoky with uncertainties and biographically sufficiently 
 confused. 
 
 Since then, light has been shed upon almost all of the doubtful 
 parts of this shadowy picture. Rembrandt's history has been written 
 and very well written in Holland, and even in France after the
 
 REMBRANDT. 303 
 
 Dutch writers. Thanks to the labors of one of his most fervent 
 admirers, M. Vosmaert, we know now of Rembrandt, if not all that 
 is necessary to know, at least all that will probably ever be known ; 
 and this suffices to make us love, pity, esteem, and I believe com- 
 prehend him well. Considering him by the exterior, he was an 
 excellent man, loving his home, his domestic life, his fireside; a 
 family man, with the nature of a husband rather than a libertine; 
 a man of one wife, who could never bear either celibacy or widow- 
 hood, whom circumstances not wholly explained forced to marry 
 three times ; a retired man of course, not very economical, for he 
 did not know how to balance his accounts ; not avaricious, for 
 he became bankrupt ; and if he spent little money for his comfort, 
 he lavished it apparently for the curiosities of his mind ; difficult 
 to live with, perhaps suspicious, solitary ; in everything and in his 
 modest sphere a singular being. He lived in no luxury, but he 
 had a kind of concealed opulence, treasures buried in valuable 
 objects of art, which caused him much joy, but which he lost in the 
 final disaster, and which under his eyes, before the door of an inn, on 
 a truly sinister day, were sold at a low rate. All this personal property 
 was not bric-a-brac, as has been seen from the inventory published 
 at the time of the sale, though posterity occupied itself a long time 
 with it without understanding it. There were marbles, Italian pic- 
 tures, Dutch pictures, a great number of his own works, and espe- 
 cially engravings of the rarest kind, which he exchanged for his own, 
 or paid dearly for. He cared for all these things, which were beautiful, 
 curiously collected, and choice, as the companions of his solitude,
 
 304 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 the witnesses of his work, the confidants of his thought, the inspirers 
 of his mind. Perhaps he treasured them as would a dilettante, a man 
 of erudition, a person delicate in his intellectual enjoyments ; and 
 such was probably the unaccustomed form of an avarice whose 
 intimate meaning was not understood. As to his debts which 
 crushed him, he already had them at the epoch when, in a cor- 
 respondence which has been preserved, he called himself rich. He 
 was proud enough, and signed his bills of exchange with the care- 
 lessness of a man who does not know the value of money, and 
 does not count with sufficient exactness either what he possesses or 
 what he owes. 
 
 He had one charming wife, Saskia, who, like a ray of sunshine 
 in this perpetual chiaroscuro, during those two brief years, in spite 
 of a lack of elegance and very real charm, put into them some- 
 thing of a more lively brilliancy. What is wanting to this gloomy 
 interior, as to this labor, morose with all its profundity, is expansion, 
 a little loving youth, feminine grace, and tenderness. Did Saskia 
 bring him all that ? It cannot be seen distinctly. He was in love 
 with her, it is said ; painted her often, muffled her, as he did himself, 
 in eccentric or magnificent disguises ; covered her, as he did himself, 
 with I know not what luxury of the moment ; represented her as a 
 Jewess, an Odalisque, a Judith, perhaps as a Susanna, and a Bath- 
 sheba, never painted her as she really was, and never left of her one 
 portrait, dressed or not, which was faithful, that is, we prefer to 
 believe so. This is all that we know of his too soon extinguished 
 domestic joys. Saskia died young, in 1642, the very year when he
 
 REMBRANDT. 305 
 
 produced the Night Watch. The pleasant and laughing faces of his 
 children for he had several in his three marriages are not once 
 met with in his pictures. His son Titus died some months before 
 him. The others disappeared in the obscurity which covered his 
 last years and followed his death. 
 
 It is known that Rubens, in his grand life which was so exciting 
 and always happy, had, on his return from Italy, when he felt him- 
 self out of place in his own country, and again after the death of 
 Isabel Brandt, when he found himself a widower and alone in his 
 house, a moment of great weakness, and something like a sudden 
 failing of power. The proof of it is in his letters. With Rembrandt 
 it is impossible to know what his heart suffered. Saskia died, and 
 his labor continued without stopping a day ; this is proved by the 
 date of his pictures, and better still by his etchings. His fortune 
 crumbled, he was dragged into the Insolvent room, everything he 
 loved was taken from him ; he took his easel, installed himself else- 
 where, and neither his contemporaries nor posterity have heard a 
 cry or a complaint from this strange nature, that might have been 
 believed to be wholly overwhelmed. His productiveness neither 
 weakens nor declines. Favor abandons him with fortune, happi- 
 ness, and comfort; he replies to the injustice of Fate and the un- 
 faithfulness of opinion by the portrait of Six, and the Syndics, not 
 to speak of the Young Man at the Louvre, and ever so many others 
 classed among his most composed, most satisfying and vigorous 
 works. During his mourning, in the midst of humiliating misfor- 
 tunes, he preserved a strange impassibility, which would be wholly
 
 306 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 inexplicable if it were not known what is the capability, as a moving 
 spring to produce indifference or prompt forgetfulness, of a soul 
 occupied with profound views. 
 
 Had he many friends ? It is not thought that he had. It is certain 
 that he did not have all those he deserved to have, not Vondel, who 
 himself was a familiar friend of the house of Six ; nor Rubens, whom 
 he knew well, who came to Holland in 1636, visited all the celebrated 
 painters, Rembrandt alone excepted, and died in the year preceding 
 the Night Watch, without the name of Rembrandt figuring either 
 in his letters or his collections. Was he honored, much surrounded, 
 very well known ? Not at all. When he is spoken of in the Apologies, 
 in the writings, in the little fugitive poems, made for an occasion in 
 his time, it is under orders, rather from a spirit of justice, as if by 
 chance, and without great warmth. The literary men had other 
 preferences, after whom came Rembrandt, the only one of all who 
 was illustrious. In official ceremonies, in the great days of pomp 
 of all kinds, he was forgotten, or, so to speak, he was never seen 
 anywhere in the front ranks or on the platforms. 
 
 In spite of his genius, his glory, the prodigious infatuation which 
 attracted painters to him in the beginning, what was called society 
 was, even at Amsterdam, a social circle which perhaps half opened 
 its doors to him, but to which he never belonged. His portraits 
 recommended him no better than his person. Although he had 
 made magnificent ones of people of distinction, they were not those 
 pleasant, natural, lucid works which could give him a position in a 
 certain kind of society, would be appreciated there, and give him
 
 REMBRANDT. 307 
 
 admittance to it. I have told you that Captain Kock, who figures in 
 the Night Watch, consoled himself later with Van der Heist ; as to 
 Six, a young man in relation to Rembrandt, and who, I insist upon 
 believing, only let himself be painted because he could not help it, 
 when Rembrandt went to the house of this official personage, he 
 went rather to see the Burgomaster and Mecaenas than a friend. 
 From habit and preference, he consorted with people of low rank, 
 shopmen, and petty citizens. His associations have been even too 
 much vilified; they were very humble, but not degrading, as has 
 been said. He has even been occasionally reproached with having 
 drunken habits (though he hardly ever frequented drinking-houses, 
 which was rare at that time), because, ten years after the loss of his 
 wife, people thought they perceived that this lonely man had some 
 suspicious relations with his serving-maid. 
 
 The servant was reprimanded, and Rembrandt passably condemned. 
 Moreover, at that moment everything went ill, fortune as well as 
 honor ; and when he left the Breestraat, homeless, penniless, but at 
 quits with his creditors, neither his talent nor his acquired glory 
 sustained him. His trace was lost, he was forgotten, and for the 
 time he disappeared in the lowly, needy, and obscure life from which, 
 to tell the truth, he had never issued. 
 
 In everything, as can be seen, he was a man apart, a dreamer ; 
 perhaps a silent man, although his face says the contrary ; possibly 
 an angular character, rather rough, unbending, cutting, not pleasant 
 to contradict, still less to convince ; vacillating at bottom, stiff in 
 his manner, undoubtedly peculiar. If he was celebrated and cher-
 
 308 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 ished and praised at first, in spite of the jealous and short-sighted, 
 the pedants and the fools, they well revenged themselves when he 
 was no longer there. 
 
 In his execution he neither painted, drew, nor engraved like any 
 one else. His works were, even in their methods, enigmas. He 
 was admired not without disquietude, he was followed without being 
 very well understood. It was especially at his work that he seemed 
 like an alchemist. Seeing him at his easel, with a palette that must 
 certainly have been daubed, from which came so much heavy paint, 
 and whence escaped so many subtle essences ; or leaning over his 
 copperplates, and using his burin contrary to all rules, one would 
 seek, at the tip of his burin or his brush, secrets which came from 
 much farther off. His manner was so novel that it confounded 
 the strong minds, and filled with enthusiasm the simple spirits. 
 All the young, enterprising, insubordinate, and giddy scholars in 
 painting ran after him. His immediate pupils were mediocre, 
 their followers were detestable. A striking thing resulted from the 
 teaching in cells of which I have spoken ; not one kept his indepen- 
 dence. They imitated him as no master was ever imitated by servile 
 copyists, and it is evident took from him only the worst of his 
 methods. 
 
 Was he learned and cultivated ? Was he even a man of any read- 
 ing ? Because he had a taste for theatrical effects, and touched 
 upon history, mythology, and Christian dogmas, people say he was. 
 It is said that he was not, because the examination of his furniture 
 revealed innumerable engravings and almost no books. Was he.
 
 REMBRANDT. 309 
 
 in fine, a philosopher, as the word philosopher is understood ? What 
 did he gain from the movement of reform ? Did he, as has been main- 
 tained in our day, contribute his part as an artist towards destroying 
 dogmas, and revealing the purely human sides of the Gospel ? Did 
 he pronounce his opinion intentionally upon the political, religious, 
 and social questions which had turned his country upside down for 
 so long, and which very fortunately were finally solved ? He painted 
 mendicants, the disinherited and beggars, even more than rich men, 
 Jews oftener than Christians ; does it follow that he had for the 
 wretched classes anything but purely picturesque predilections ? All 
 this is more than conjectural, and I do not see the necessity of sift- 
 ing farther a subject already so profound, and adding another to so 
 many hypotheses. 
 
 The fact is, that it is difficult to isolate him from the intellectual 
 and moral movement of his country and his time, which he breathed 
 in the seventeenth century in Holland as he did the native air on 
 which he lived. Had he come earlier, he would have been inexpli- 
 cable ; had he been born anywhere else, he would play still more 
 strangely this r61e of a comet outside of the axis of modern art, 
 which has been attributed to him ; had he come later, he would have 
 no longer the immense merit of closing a past, and opening one 
 of the great gates of the future. In every relation he has deceived 
 many people. As a man he was lacking in exterior, whence it has 
 been concluded that he was coarse. As a student he has dis- 
 turbed more than one system, whence it has been concluded that 
 he was wanting in taste. As an artist loving the beautiful, he has
 
 310 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 given of the things of the earth some very ugly ideas. It has not 
 been remarked that he was looking elsewhere. In short, greatly 
 as he was praised, wickedly as he was vilified, unjustly as he was 
 esteemed, for good or for evil, or contrary to his nature, no one 
 exactly suspected his true grandeur. 
 
 Observe that he is the least Dutch of the Dutch painters, and that 
 if he belongs to his time, he does not wholly belong to it. What his 
 compatriots observed he did not see ; to that from which they turned 
 aside, he returned. They had bidden farewell to the fable, and he 
 came back to it ; to the Bible, and he illustrated it ; to the Gospels, 
 and he delighted in them. He clothes them in his own way, but he 
 extracts from them a meaning unique, new, and universally intelligi- 
 ble. He dreams of St. Simeon, of Jacob and Laban, of the Prodigal 
 Son, of Tobias, the Apostles, the Holy Family, King David, Calvary, 
 the Samaritan, Lazarus, and the Evangelists. He wanders around 
 Jerusalem and Emmaus, ever, as one feels, attracted by the syna- 
 gogue. These consecrated themes he sees appear in nameless sur- 
 roundings, in meaningless costumes. He conceives them, formulates 
 them, with as little care for tradition as slight regard for local truth. 
 And still, such is his creative force, that this mind, so individual 
 and personal, gives to the subjects it treats a general expression, an 
 intimate and typical meaning, which the grand epic thinkers and 
 draughtsmen do not always attain. 
 
 Somewhere in this study I have said that his principle was to 
 extract from things one element among all others, or rather to 
 abstract them all to seize one expressly. He has thus, in all his
 
 REMBRANDT, 3 1 1 
 
 works, performed the labor of an analyzer, a distiller, or, to speak 
 more nobly, of a metaphysician, rather than a poet. Never did 
 reality seize him as a whole. To see the way in which he treated 
 bodies, one might doubt the interest he took in their envelope. He 
 loved women, and has seen them only deformed ; he loved the tissues, 
 and did not imitate them ; but in return, in spite of lack of grace, 
 beauty, pure lines, and delicacy of flesh, he expressed the naked body 
 by suppleness, roundness, elasticity, with a love for substances, a 
 feeling for the living being, which are the delight of artist workmen. 
 He decomposed and reduced everything, color as well as light, so that, 
 while eliminating from appearances everything that is manifold, con- 
 densing what is scattered, he succeeded in drawing without outlines, 
 in painting a portrait almost without apparent features, in coloring 
 without color, in concentrating the light of the solar system into a 
 ray. It is not possible in a plastic art to push farther the curiosity 
 of a being about itself. For physical beauty he substitutes moral 
 expression ; for the imitation of things, their almost entire meta- 
 morphosis ; for examination, psychological speculations ; for clear, 
 learned, or simple observation, the perceptions of a visionary, and 
 apparitions so real that he is the dupe of them himself. By this 
 faculty of second sight, thanks to his somnambulistic intuition, in 
 the supernatural he sees farther than any one soever. Life he per- 
 ceives in a dream, as an accent of the other world which renders real 
 life almost cold, and makes it seem pale. See at the Louvre his 
 Portrait of a Woman, two paces from Titian's Mistress. Compare 
 the two beings, interrogate well the two paintings, and you will un-
 
 312 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 derstand the difference of the two brains. His ideal, as in a dream 
 pursued with closed eyes, is light ; the nimbus around objects, phos- 
 phorescence on a black ground. It is fugitive, uncertain, formed of 
 imperceptible lineaments, all ready to disappear before they are fixed, 
 ephemeral and dazzling. To arrest the vision, place it upon canvas, 
 give it its form and relief, preserve its fragile texture, give it its bril- 
 liancy, and let the result be a strong, masculine, and substantial paint- 
 ing, as real as any other, which would resist contact with Rubens, 
 Titian, Veronese, Giorgione, Vandyck, this is what Rembrandt 
 attempted. Did he accomplish it ? Universal testimony is there 
 to say. 
 
 One last word. Proceeding as he proceeded himself, by extracting 
 from this work, so vast and of such manifold character, what repre- 
 sents him in his principle, reducing it to its natural elements, elimi- 
 nating his palette, his brushes, his coloring oils, his glazings, his thick 
 paints, all the mechanism of the painter, one might finally come to 
 where he could seize the primal essence of the artist in the engraver. 
 Rembrandt is wholly to be found in his etchings. His spirit, ten- 
 dency, imaginations, reveries, good sense, chimeras, difficulties in ren- 
 dering the impossible, realities in the nothings, are revealed by twenty 
 of his etchings ; they give one a presentiment of the painter, and, 
 better still, explain him. There is the same workmanship, the same 
 purpose, the same neglect, the same persistency, the same singularity 
 in execution, the same tormenting and sudden success by expression. 
 Confronting them closely, I see no difference between the Tobias at 
 the Louvre and an engraved plate. There is no one who does not
 
 REMBRANDT. 313 
 
 set this engraver above all others. Without going so far, when it is 
 a question of his painting, it would be well to think often of the Hun- 
 dred Florin Piece, when one fails to understand him in his pictures. 
 It would then be seen that all the dross of this art, one of the most 
 difficult in the world to purify, alters nothing of the incomparably 
 beautiful flame which burns within ; and I think that finally every 
 name that has been given to Rembrandt would be altered to give 
 him opposite names. 
 
 In truth, his was a brain served by an eye that could see at night, 
 and by an able hand with no great dexterity. This painful labor 
 came from an agile and free mind. This man of no account ; this 
 ferreter, this costumer, this erudite being nourished on extravagances ; 
 this man of the lower levels, of so lofty a flight ; this moth nature, 
 which flies to whatever shines; this soul, so sensitive to certain forms 
 of life, so indifferent to others ; this ardor without tenderness, this 
 lover without visible flame ; this nature of contrasts, contradictions, 
 and double meanings, moved and eloquent, loving and not very lov- 
 able ; this disgraced man so well endowed ; this pretended materialist ; 
 this trivial, hideous person, was a pure spiritualist, or, to express it 
 in a single word, an idealist ; I mean, a spirit whose domain is that 
 of ideas, and whose language is the language of ideas. The key of 
 the mystery is there. 
 
 Taken thus, Rembrandt is wholly explained ; his life, his work, 
 his leanings, his conceptions, his poetry, his methods, his way of 
 working, even to the color of his painting, which is only a bold and 
 studied spiritualization of the material elements of his art.
 
 PART III. 
 
 BELGIUM.
 
 BELGIUM. 
 
 THE VAN EYCKS AND MEMLING. 
 
 BRUGES. 
 
 I AM returning by way of Ghent and Bruges. It is here that 
 logically I should have started if I had thought of writing an accu- 
 rate history of the schools of the Low Countries ; but the chronologi- 
 cal order is not of much account in these studies, which have, you 
 perceive, neither plan nor method. I am ascending the stream instead 
 of descending it. I have followed its course irregularly, with some 
 negligence and many omissions. I have even quitted it far from its 
 mouth, and have not shown you how it finishes ; for after a certain 
 point it ends, and is lost in insignificance. Now I like to think that 
 I am at the source, and that I am about to see the gushing of that 
 first flood of crystalline and pure inspiration, whence issued the vast 
 movement of art in the North. 
 
 For other countries, other times, other ideas, I leave Amsterdam 
 and the seventeenth century in Holland. I leave the school after its 
 great renown ; let us suppose that it is about 1670, two years before 
 the assassination of the brothers De Witt, and the hereditary stadt- 
 holdership of the future King of England, William III. At this date,
 
 3l8 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 of all the fine painters whose birth we have seen in the first thirty 
 years of the century, who remain ? The great ones preceding Rem- 
 brandt or closely following him are dead, or about to die. Those 
 who remain are old men at the end of their career. In 1683, except 
 Van der Heyden * and Van der Neer,f who represent alone an ex- 
 tinct school, not one survives. It is the reign of such as Tempesta,$ 
 Mignon, Netscher,|| Lairesse,^]" and Van der Werff.** All is over. 
 I pass through Antwerp. I see once more Rubens imperturbable 
 and replete, like a great mind which contains in itself good and evil 
 progress and decline, who terminates in his own life two epochs, the 
 preceding and his own. After him I see, as after Rembrandt, those 
 who poorly understand him, have not strength enough to follow him, 
 and who question him. Rubens helps me to pass from the seven- 
 teenth to the sixteenth century. We no longer have Louis XIII. 
 nor Henri IV., nor the Infanta Isabella, nor the Archduke Albert ; 
 nor even have we the Duke of Parma, nor the Duke of Alva, nor 
 Philip II., nor Charles V. We ascend still through politics, man- 
 ners, and painting. Charles V. is not born, nor near birth ; nor is his 
 
 * Jan van der Heyden, an architectural painter who finished pictures with exquisite 
 care. TR. 
 
 t Aart van der Neer, a Dutch landscape painter who excelled in moonlights and con- 
 flagrations. TR. 
 
 J Peter Molyn, called Tempesta from his pictures of sea storms. He was also a good 
 painter of wild animals. Haarlem, 1637-1701. TR. 
 
 Abraham Mignon, Frankfort, 1639-1697 ; an inferior painter of flowers, insects, 
 fruits, etc. TR. 
 
 || Caspar Netscher, Heidelberg, 1639-1684 ; an imitator of Terburg and Metzu ; a fig- 
 ure and genre painter who excelled in portraits. TR. 
 
 1T Gerard Lairesse, called the Poussin of Belgium, born at Liege, 1640-1711. TR. 
 
 ** Adrian van der Werff, Rotterdam, 1659-1722 ; an ideal painter, smooth and care- 
 ful in execution. TR.
 
 THE VAN EYCKS AND MEMLING. 319 
 
 father. His grandmother, Marie de Burgundy, is a young girl, 
 twenty years old, and his great-grandfather, Charles the Bold, has 
 just died at Nancy, when at Bruges, by a series of unparalleled mas- 
 terpieces, comes to an end this astonishing period comprised be- 
 tween the beginning of the Van Eycks and the disappearance of 
 Memling, or at least his presumed departure from Flanders. Placed 
 as I am between the two towns, Ghent and Bruges, between the 
 two names that make them most illustrious by the novelty of their 
 attempts, and the pacific bearing of their genius, I am between the 
 modern world and the Middle Ages ; and I am in the midst of 
 memories of the little Court of France, and the great Court of Bur- 
 gundy, with Louis XL, who wishes to make a France ; with Charles 
 the Bold, who dreams of unmaking it ; with Commines, the diplo- 
 mate-historian, who passes from one house to the other. I am not 
 to speak to you of these times of violence and stratagem, of cun- 
 ning in policy, of savageness in action, of perfidies, treasons, oaths 
 sworn and violated, revolts in towns, massacres upon the battle-field, 
 democratic efforts, and crushing feudalism, of intellectual semi-cul- 
 ture, of unheard-of ostentation. Recall this high Burgundian and 
 Flemish society, that Court of Ghent, so luxurious in its habits, so 
 refined in its elegance, so careless, so brutal, so unclean at bottom, 
 so superstitious and dissolute, pagan in its festivals, and bigoted 
 through it all. See the ecclesiastical pomps, the princely pageants, 
 the holidays, the carousals, their feasts and their drinkings, their 
 scenic representations, and their license ; the gold of chasubles, 
 the gold of armor, the gold of tunics, jewels, pearls, and diamonds ;
 
 320 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 imagine below this the condition of souls ; and of this picture which 
 is no longer to be painted, retain but one feature, which is, that 
 the greater part of the primordial virtues were wanting at that 
 time to the human conscience, straightforwardness, sincere respect 
 for sacred things, the sentiments of duty and of country, and among 
 women as among men, modesty. This especially must be remem- 
 bered when in the midst of this brilliant and frightful society is 
 seen to blossom the unexpected art which it seems was to represent 
 its moral foundation and its surface. 
 
 In 1420 the Van Eycks established themselves at Ghent. Hubert, 
 the elder, put his hand to the grand triptych of St. Bavon ; he 
 conceived the idea of it, arranged the plan, executed a part of it, and 
 died at his task about 1426. Jan, his younger brother and his 
 pupil, pursued the labor, finished it in 1432, founded at Bruges the 
 school which bears his name, and died there in 1440, on the 9th 
 of July. In twenty years the human mind, represented by these 
 two men, found in painting the most ideal expression of its beliefs, 
 the most characteristic expression of countenances, not the most 
 noble, but the first correct manifestation of bodies in their exact 
 forms, the first image of the sky, the air, the country, clothes, and 
 exterior richness made by true colors ; it created a living art, invented 
 or perfected its mechanism, fixed its language, and produced imper- 
 ishable works. Everything there was to do was done. Van der Wey- 
 den* has no other historical importance but that he attempted at 
 
 * Roger van der Weyden, pupil of Jan van Eyck, who flourished in the fifteenth 
 century ; official painter to the city of Brussels. He represented the symbolic subjects 
 of the Middle Ages. TR.
 
 THE VAN EYCKS AND MEMLING. 321 
 
 Brussels what was marvellously accomplished at Ghent and Bruges, 
 and then passed later into Italy, to popularize there th'e Flemish 
 way of working, and the Flemish spirit ; but his especial renown is 
 that he left among his works a masterpiece which is unique, I mean 
 a pupil, who is called Memling. 
 
 Whence came the Van Eycks, when they were seen to establish 
 themselves at Ghent, in the midst of a corporation of painters which 
 already existed ? What did they bring there ? What did they find 
 there? What is the importance of their discoveries in the use of 
 oil colors ? What was finally the part of each of the brothers in that 
 imposing page, the Adoration of the Paschal Lamb ? All these ques- 
 tions have been propounded, learnedly discussed, poorly answered. 
 What is probable as to their collaboration is that Hubert was the 
 inventor of the work ; that he painted the upper parts of it, the great 
 figures, God the Father, the Virgin, and St. John, certainly also the 
 Adam and Eve in their minute and hardly decent nudity. He con- 
 ceived the feminine, and especially the masculine type which after- 
 wards served his brother. He put heroic beards upon countenances 
 which in the society of his day wore none ; he designed these full 
 ovals, with their protruding eyes, their fixed look, both gentle and 
 untamed, their curled hair, their haughty and sullen mien, their vio- 
 lent lips, in fine, all those characters, half Byzantine, half Flemish, 
 which are so strongly marked with the spirit of the time and place. 
 God the Father, with his sparkling tiara, with falling ribbons, his 
 hierarchical attitude, his sacerdotal robes, is still the double repre- 
 sentation of the divine idea as it was presented upon earth in
 
 322 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 its two redoubtable personifications, the Empire and the Pon- 
 tificate. 
 
 Already the Virgin has the hooked mantle, the adjusted garments, 
 the round forehead, the very human character, and the physiognomy, 
 wholly without grace, that Jan some years later will give to all his 
 Madonnas. The St. John has neither rank nor type in the social 
 scale whence this painter-observer took his forms. He is a man 
 of no particular class, thin, long, even sickly ; a man who has suf- 
 fered, languished, fasted, something like a vagabond. As to our 
 first parents, they must be seen in the original panels, which appeared 
 too slightly clothed for a chapel, and not in the copy at St. Bavon, 
 which is still more curious on account of the black leather aprons 
 in which they are dressed. It must be well understood that you 
 will find nothing in them which recalls the Sistine Chapel or the 
 Loggie. They are two savages, horribly hairy, both going forth 
 without being intimidated by any feeling of their own ugliness, from 
 I know not what primitive forests, hideous, swollen in body, thin in 
 the legs ; Eve bearing about her the too evident marks of the first 
 maternity. All this in its simple eccentricity is strong, rough, and 
 very imposing. The touch is rigid ; the painting firm, smooth, and 
 full ; the color clear, grave, and already harmonious, from its energy, 
 its restrained radiance, and the brilliancy and consistency of the bold 
 coloring of the future school of Bruges. 
 
 If, as everything leads us to believe, Jan van Eyck is the author 
 of the central panel and the lower wings, of which unfortunately 
 St Bavon only possesses copies made an hundred years after by
 
 THE VAN EYCKS AND MEMLING. 323 
 
 Coxcien, he had nothing more to do but to develop his mind con- 
 formably to his brother's manner. He joined to it on his own 
 account more truth in the faces, more luxury and minute reality in 
 the architecture, the fabrics, and the gilding. He introduced es- 
 pecially open air, the sight of fertile country, and bluish distances. 
 Finally, what his brother had maintained in the splendors of the 
 myth, and upon a Byzantine foundation, he made descend to the level 
 of terrestrial horizons. 
 
 Times have changed. The Christ is born and dead. The work 
 of redemption is accomplished. Do you wish to know how, plasti- 
 cally, not as a missal illuminator, but as a painter, Jan van Eyck 
 understood the exhibition of this great mystery ? It was thus : A 
 vast lawn all spangled with spring flowers ; in front the Fountain of 
 Life, a pretty fountain falling in sheaves into a marble basin ; in the 
 centre, an altar draped with purple, and upon this altar a white Lamb ; 
 immediately around, a garland of little winged angels, almost all in 
 white, with shades of pale blue and rosy gray. A great open space 
 isolates the august symbol, and upon this untrodden turf there is 
 nothing but the dark green of the thick growth, and hundreds of the 
 white stars of the field daisy. The foreground on the left is occupied 
 by kneeling prophets, and by a large group of men standing. These 
 are those who, believing before the time, predicted Christ, and also 
 the pagans, the doctors, the philosophers, the' unbelievers, from, the 
 ancient bards to the burghers of Ghent ; thick beards, rather flat 
 faces, pouting lips, countenances full of life, little gesture or attitude, 
 a small abstract in twenty figures of the moral world, before and
 
 324 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 after Christ, taken from outside the confessors of the new faith. 
 Those who still doubt, hesitate and reflect ; those who had denied, 
 are confounded ; the prophets are in ecstasy. The foreground on 
 the right, opposite, and with that intentional symmetry without 
 which there would be neither majesty in the idea nor rhythm in the 
 arrangement, the right foreground is occupied by the group of the 
 twelve apostles kneeling, and by the imposing assembly of the true 
 servants of the Gospel, priests, abbots, bishops and popes, all beard- 
 less, plump, pale and calm, scarcely looking, sure of the fact, 
 adoring in a state of beatitude, magnificent in their red robes, with 
 their golden chasubles, their mitres of gold, their crosses of gold, their 
 stoles woven with gold, all loaded with pearls, rubies, and emeralds, 
 the sparkling jewels playing upon this glowing purple, which is Van 
 Eyck's red. In the background, far behind the Lamb, and upon an 
 elevated ground which leads to the horizon, is a green wood, a grove 
 of orange-trees, rose-bushes, and myrtles all in flower and fruit, 
 whence issue on the right the long procession of Martyrs, on the left 
 that of the Holy Women, crowned with roses and bearing palms. 
 These latter, clothed in tender colors, are all in pale blue, blue, rose 
 color, or lilac. The Martyrs, almost all bishops, are in blue mantles, 
 and nothing is more exquisite than the effect of these two distant theo- 
 ries, fine, precise, always vivid, detaching themselves, by these notes 
 of delicate or dark blue, from the austere background of the sacred 
 wood. Finally, there is a line of darker hills ; then Jerusalem figured 
 by the outline of a city, or rather by spires, high towers, and belfries, 
 and for the extreme distance, blue mountains. The sky has the iro-
 
 THE VAN EYCKS AND MEM LING. 325 
 
 maculate serenity appropriate to such a moment ; it is of palest blue, 
 feebly tinged with ultramarine at the top ; it has the pearly whiteness, 
 the morning clearness, and the poetical signification of a beautiful 
 dawn. 
 
 Such is, translated, that is to say, traduced by a cold abstract, the 
 central panel, and the master portion of this colossal triptych. Have 
 I given you an idea of it ? Not at all. The mind can dwell upon it 
 forever, dream of it forever, without finding all that it expresses or 
 evokes. Even the eye can delight in it without exhausting the ex- 
 traordinary wealth of the enjoyment that it causes, or the instruction 
 that it gives us. The little picture of the Magi, at Brussels, is only 
 the delicate amusement of a goldsmith beside this powerful concen- 
 tration of the soul and the manual gifts of a truly great man. 
 
 There remains, to be considered attentively when this has been 
 seen, the Virgin and St. Donatus, at the Museum of Bruges. This 
 picture, of which a reproduction is found at the Antwerp Museum, 
 is the most important that Van Eyck has signed, at least as to the 
 dimensions of the figures. It belongs to 1436, and consequently is 
 four years later than the Adoration of the Lamb. By the arrange- 
 ment, the style, the character of the form, the color, and the work, 
 it recalls the Virgin of the Donor, that we have at the Louvre. 
 It is not more precise in finish, nor more delicately observed in 
 detail. The ingenuous chiaroscuro that bathes the little compo- 
 sition at the Louvre, the perfect truth, and the idealization of all 
 things obtained by care of hand, beauty of workmanship, and the 
 inimitable transparency of the material ; this mingling of minute
 
 326 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 observation and of reveries pursued through half-tints, show supe- 
 rior qualities that the picture of Bruges attains and does not exceed. 
 But here everything is broader, more mature, more grandly con- 
 ceived, constructed, and painted ; and the work thence becomes 
 more masterly, because it enters fully into the aims of modern art, 
 and comes near satisfying them all. 
 
 The Virgin is ugly. The child, a rickety nursling, with thin hair, 
 copied, without alteration, from some poor little half-starved model, 
 bears a bunch of flowers and is caressing a perroquet. On the right 
 of the Virgin is St. Donatus, with a golden mitre and blue cape ; 
 on the left, forming a side scene, St. George, a handsome young 
 man, a sort of androgynous being in chased armor, raises his helmet, 
 salutes the child-God with a strange look, and smiles upon him. 
 Mantegna, when he conceived his Minerva banishing the Vices, 
 with her chiselled cuirass, her golden helmet, and her fair angry 
 face, could not have engraved the St. George I speak of with a 
 firmer burin, or made its border with a more incisive touch, and 
 never could have painted or colored like this. Between the Virgin 
 and the St. George, upon his knees figures the Canon George de 
 Pala (Van der Paele), the donor. It is incontestably the strongest 
 part of the picture. He is in a white surplice ; he holds in his 
 clasped hands his short, square, wrinkled hands an open book, 
 gloves and horn spectacles ; over his left arm hangs a band of gray 
 fur. He is an old man. He is bald ; little scattered hairs play 
 around his temples, of which the bones are visible and hard under 
 the thin skin. His face is thick, his eyes half closed, the muscles
 
 THE VAN EYCKS AND MEMLING. 327 
 
 contracted, hardened, seamed, and furrowed by old age. This great, 
 lank, wrinkled visage is a marvel of characteristic drawing and paint- 
 ing. All the art of Holland is there. Add to the scene its frame, 
 and its ordinary furniture, the throne, the dais with a black back- 
 ground with red figures, a complicated architecture, a few dark 
 marbles, a bit of painted glass, through whose lens-shaped panes 
 sifts the greenish light of the pictures of Van Eyck ; a marble floor, 
 and under the feet of the Virgin, that fine Oriental carpet, that old 
 Persian rug, perhaps well enough copied to deceive the eye, but in 
 any case kept like the rest in perfect subordination to the picture. 
 The whole tone is grave, deep, and rich, extraordinarily harmonious 
 and powerful. The color flows in a broad stream. It is unbroken, 
 but very learnedly composed, and still more learnedly united by subtle 
 values. In truth, when attention is concentrated upon it, it is a 
 picture that makes one forget everything that is not it, and gives 
 reason to think that the art of painting has found its highest expres- 
 sion, and found it at its very first hour. And yet, without changing 
 either theme or manner, Memling was to say something more. 
 
 The history of Memling, transmitted by tradition, is singular and 
 touching. He was a young painter attached, after the death of Van 
 Eyck, to the house of Charles the Bold, perhaps a young soldier of 
 the wars of Switzerland and Lorraine, a fighter at Granson and 
 Morat, who returned to Flanders much disabled ; and one day in 
 January, 1477, on one of the icy days which followed the defeat at 
 Nancy and the death of the Duke, he came and knocked at the door 
 of St John's Hospital, and asked a lodging, rest, food, and care.
 
 328 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 They gave him all. He recovered from his fatigues and his wounds, 
 and on the following year, in the solitude of this hospitable home, 
 in the quiet of the cloister, he undertook the Shrine of St. Ursula, 
 and then executed the Marriage of St. Catherine, and the other little 
 diptychs or triptychs that are seen there to-day. Unfortunately, as it 
 appears, and what a pity it is ! this pretty story is only a legend 
 that must be renounced. According to the true history, Memling 
 was simply a burgher of Bruges, and painted like many another, 
 having learned the art at Brussels, practised it in 1472, lived, not at 
 the Hospital of St. John, but in the Rue St. George as a comfortable 
 proprietor, and died in 1492. Of his journeys to Italy, of his sojourn 
 in Spain, of his death and burial at the Convent of Mirafiori, what 
 is there true or false ? From the moment when the flower of the 
 legend disappears, all the rest must follow. Nevertheless there 
 exists something more than a strangeness in the education, the 
 habits, and the career of this man, a quite marvellous thing, the 
 very quality of his genius, so surprising at such a time and amid 
 such surroundings. 
 
 Moreover, in spite of the contradictions of historians, it is still at 
 the Hospital of St. John, which has preserved his works, that one 
 likes to picture Memling when he was painting them. And when 
 they are found in the depths of this unchanged hospice, between 
 these walls like those of a stronghold, in this damp, narrow, grassy 
 square, only two paces from Notre Dame, it is still there, and not 
 elsewhere, that, in spite of all, their birth was seen. I will say 
 nothing of the Hunting of St. Ursula, which is quite the most cele-
 
 THE VAN EYCKS AND MEMLIXG. 329 
 
 brated of Memling's works, and passes wrongly for the best. It is a 
 miniature in oil, ingenious, artless, exquisite in certain details, infan- 
 tile in many others, a charming inspiration, to tell the truth, quite 
 too minute in detail ; and painting, far from making a step forward, 
 must have retrograded after Van Eyck, and even after Van der Wey- 
 den (see at Brussels his two triptychs, and especially the Weeping 
 Woman), if Memling had stopped there. 
 
 The Marriage of St. Catherine, on the contrary, is a decisive page. 
 I do not know whether it marks a material advance upon Van Eyck ; 
 that is to be examined : but at least it marks, in the manner of feel- 
 ing and in the ideal, a quite personal impulse, which did not exist 
 in Van Eyck, and that no art whatever manifests so deliciously. 
 The Virgin is in the centre of the composition, on a platform, seated 
 and enthroned ; on her right she has St. John the Forerunner, and 
 St Catherine with her emblematic wheel ; on her left, St. Bar- 
 bara ; and above, the donor, Jan Floreins, in the usual costume of 
 a brother of the Hospital of St. John. In the middle distance fig- 
 ure St. John the Evangelist and two angels in priestly robes. I 
 neglect the Virgin, who is very superior as a choice of types to the 
 Virgins of Van Eyck, but very inferior to the portraits of the two 
 saints. 
 
 The St. Catherine is in a long, training, clinging petticoat with 
 a black ground flowered with gold ; the sleeves of crimson velvet, 
 and the bodice closely fitting and clinging ; a little diadem of gold 
 and jewels circles her rounded brow. A veil, transparent as water, 
 adds to the whiteness of her complexion the paleness of an impal-
 
 330 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 pable fabric. Nothing can be more exquisite than this infantile and 
 feminine face, so delicately framed in her head-dress of jewels and 
 gauze ; and never did painter, in love with a woman's hands, paint 
 anything more perfect in gesture, in design, in contour, than the 
 long, well-shaped hand, so slender and pearly, which extends a fin- 
 ger for the betrothal ring. 
 
 The St. Barbara is sitting. With her pretty erect head, her 
 straight neck, with the nape high and smooth, with firm ligaments, 
 her tightly closed and mystical lips, her beautiful pure eyelids down- 
 cast over a glance that can be divined, she reads attentively in a 
 mass-book at the back of which is seen a bit of the blue silk cover. 
 Her bosom is outlined under the closely fitting corsage of a green 
 robe. A dark red mantle clothes her rather more amply with its 
 large folds, which are very picturesque and very learned. 
 
 Had Memling made but these two figures, and the Donor 
 and the St. John are also works of the first rank of merit, and of 
 the same interest as to their spirit, it might almost be said that 
 he had done enough for his glory at first, and especially for the as- 
 tonishment of those who study certain problems, and for the delight 
 that is experienced in seeing them solved. Observing only the form, 
 the perfect drawing, the natural, unaffected gesture, the clearness of 
 the tints, the satin softness of the skin, its unity and suppleness ; 
 considering the draperies in their rich colors, so true and character- 
 istic in their cut, it might be called Nature herself observed by an 
 eye admirably sensitive and sincere. The backgrounds, the archi- 
 tecture, and the accessories have all the sumptuousness of the ar-
 
 THE VAN EYCKS AND MEMLING. 331 
 
 rangements of Van Eyck. There is a throne with black columns, 
 .a marble portico, and a marble floor ; under the feet of the Virgin a 
 Persian carpet ; finally, for a perspective, a fair country, and the 
 Gothic outline of a town with belfries bathed in the tranquil gleam 
 of an Elysian light ; the same chiaroscuro as in Van Eyck, with 
 new suppleness ; better indicated distances between the half-lights 
 and the lights; in all, a work less energetic and more tender, 
 such is, summing it up at a glance, the first aspect of the Mystical 
 Marriage of St. Catherine. 
 
 I shall speak neither of the other little pictures so respectfully 
 preserved in this same old hall in the Hospital of St. John, nor of 
 the St. Christopher of the museum at Bruges, any more than I have 
 spoken of the portrait of the Wife of Van Eyck, and his {amous 
 Head of Christ exhibited at the same museum. These are fine or 
 curious works, which confirm the idea that one should form of Van 
 Eyck's way of seeing, and Memling's way of feeling ; but the two 
 painters, the two characters, the two geniuses, are more powerfully 
 revealed than elsewhere in their pictures of St. Donatus and St. 
 Catherine. It is upon the same ground and in the same accepta- 
 tion that they can be compared, opposed, and made clearly evident 
 each by the other. 
 
 How were their talents formed ? What superior education could 
 have given them so much experience? Who bade them see with 
 this strong simplicity, this moved attention, this energetic patience, 
 this always equable sentiment, in a labor so studied and so slow? 
 Both formed so early, so quickly, and so perfectly ! The first Ital-
 
 332 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 ian Renascence has nothing like it ; and in this particular order of 
 expression of sentiment, and of subjects introduced, it is agreed that 
 no school of Lombardy, Tuscany, or Venice ever produced anything 
 that resembles this first bursting forth of the school of Bruges. 
 The handiwork itself is perfect. The language has since been en- 
 riched, has become more supple, and has been better developed, that 
 is, before it was corrupted ; but it has never recovered either this 
 expressive conciseness, or this appropriateness of method, or this 
 splendor. 
 
 Consider Van Eyck and Memling by the externals of their 
 art, and it is the same art which, applied to august objects, 
 renders them by what is most precious. Rich fabrics, pearls and 
 gold, velvets and silks, marbles and wrought metals, the hand 
 occupies itself only with making the luxury and beauty of these 
 materials felt by the luxury and beauty of labor. In that painting 
 is still very near its origin, for it seems to understand that it strug- 
 gles with the resources of the art of jewellers, engravers, and en- 
 amellers. On the other hand, we see how far it is from that. With 
 regard to methods, there is no very apparent difference between 
 Memling and Jan Van Eyck, who preceded him by forty years. 
 One might ask which advanced the more rapidly, and the farther. 
 And if the dates did not show us who was the inventor and who 
 the disciple, one would imagine, by this still greater security of result, 
 that Van Eyck had rather profited by the lessons of Memling. At 
 first one would think them contemporaries, so identical are their 
 compositions, so identical their method, their archaisms being of the 
 same period.
 
 THE VAN EYCKS AND MEMLING. 333 
 
 The main differences which appear in their execution are differ- 
 ences of blood, and depend upon the shades of temperament in 
 the two natures. 
 
 In Van Eyck there is more body, muscle, and flow of blood, hence 
 the striking virility of his faces, and the style of his pictures. He 
 is in everything a portrait painter of the family of Holbein, precise, 
 sharp, penetrating even to violence. He sees more truly, and also 
 sees men stouter and shorter. The sensations he receives from the 
 aspect of things are more robust ; those which come from their tint, 
 more intense. His palette has a' plenitude, an abundance, and sever- 
 ity that Memling's lacks. His gamut is more equably strong, and 
 better maintained as a whole, and is composed of more learned 
 values. His whites are more unctuous, his red is richer, and the 
 indigo blue the fine blue of the old Japanese enamel, which is his 
 own is more sustained by coloring principles, and of thicker sub- 
 stance. He is more strongly impressed by the luxury and the high 
 price of the rare objects which abound in the luxurious habits of 
 his time. Never did Indian Rajah adorn his clothes with more gold 
 and jewels than Van Eyck puts into his pictures. When a picture 
 by Van Eyck is fine, and that of Bruges is the best example of 
 this, it might be called jewel work enamelled on gold, or one of 
 those fabrics of varied colors whose warp is gold. Gold is felt every- 
 where, above and below. When it does not play over the surface, 
 it appears under the tissue. It is the bond, the base, the visible 
 or latent element, of this the most opulent painting in the world. 
 Van Eyck is also more adroit, because his copyist hand obeys his
 
 334 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 marked preferences. He is more precise, he asseverates more ; he 
 imitates admirably. When he paints a carpet, he weaves it with a 
 choice of the best tints. When he paints marbles, he is very near 
 the polish of marble, and when in the shadow of his chapels he 
 makes the opaline lenses of his colored glass gleam, he absolutely 
 deceives the eye. 
 
 In Memling there is the same power of tone and the same bril- 
 liancy, with less ardor and real truth. I would not dare to say 
 that in the marvellous triptych of the St. Catherine, in spite of 
 the extreme resonance of the coloring, its gamut is as sustained 
 as that of his great predecessor. On the other hand, he already 
 has misty and melting passages, and half-tints that Van Eyck never 
 knew. The figure of the St. John and that of the Donor indicate, 
 in the way of sacrificing, in the relations of the principal light to 
 the secondary ones, and in the connection of things with the plane 
 they occupy, an advance since the St. Donatus, and, above all, a 
 decided step beyond the triptych of St. Bavon. The very color of 
 the vestments, one of dark maroon, the other a rather dull red, 
 reveals a new art in the composition of a tone seen in shadow, 
 and combinations of the palette, already more subtle. The handi- 
 work is not very different. Still it differs in this : everywhere that 
 he is sustained, animated, and moved by sentiment, Memling is as 
 firm as Van Eyck. Everywhere, where the interest of the object 
 is less, and particularly where the value affectionately attached to it 
 is less, relatively to Van Eyck, he may be said to be more feeble. 
 Gold is in his eyes only an accessory, and living nature is more
 
 THE VAN EYCKS AND MEMLING. 335 
 
 studied than still life. To the heads, hands, necks, the pearly pulp 
 of a rosy skin, he applies himself, and in them he excels, because, 
 in fact, as soon as they are compared from the point of view of senti- 
 ment there is no longer anything in common beween him and Van 
 Eyck. A world separates them. In forty years, which is very little, 
 there has taken place, in the way of seeing and feeling, believing and 
 inspiring belief, a strange phenomenon, which here bursts forth like 
 light. 
 
 Van Eyck saw with his eye, Memling begins to see with his mind. 
 One thought well and truly ; the other has not so much the air of a 
 thinker, but his heart beats quite differently. One copied and imi- 
 tated ; the other also copies, imitates, and transfigures. The former 
 reproduced, without any care for the ideal, human types, especially 
 the masculine types which passed under his eyes in all ranks of the 
 society of this time. The latter dreams while he looks at Nature, 
 imagines while he translates her, chooses what is most lovely and 
 delicate in human forms, and creates, especially as a feminine type, 
 an elect being, unknown till then, and who has since disappeared. 
 They are women, but women seen as he loved them, and according 
 to the tender predilection of a mind turned towards grace, nobility, 
 and beauty. Of this unknown image of woman, he made a real person 
 and also an emblem. He did not embellish her, but he perceived in 
 her what no one else had seen. It might be said that he paints her 
 thus only because he discovers in her a charm, an attraction, and a 
 conscience that no one else had suspected. He adorns her physically 
 and morally. In painting the fair face of a woman, he paints a lovely
 
 336 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 soul His application, his talent, the carefulness of his hand, are 
 only forms of his regard, and of the tender respect he has for her. 
 
 There is no uncertainty about the epoch, the race, or the rank to 
 which belong these fragile blond creatures, pure and yet of this world. 
 They are princesses of the best blood ; they have the delicate liga- 
 ments, the indolent white hands, and the pallor contracted in a se- 
 questered life. They have a natural way of wearing their clothes and 
 diadems, of holding their missals and reading them, that is neither 
 borrowed nor invented by a man who is a stranger to the world 
 and to this society. 
 
 But if nature was thus, whence comes it that Van Eyck did not 
 see it thus, he who knew the same world, was placed in it probably 
 in still higher station, and lived in it as a painter and gentleman of 
 the bedchamber of John of Bavaria and later of Philip the Good, in 
 the heart of this more than royal society ? If such were the little 
 princesses of the Court, how is it that Jan van Eyck has not given 
 us any idea of them that is delicate, attractive, and beautiful ? Why 
 did he only see the men truly ? Why was there always something 
 strong, squat, rough, or at least ugly, when he undertook to pass from 
 masculine attributes to feminine ? Why has he not visibly embel- 
 lished his brother Hubert's Eve ? Why is there so little decency 
 above the Mystic Lamb, while we find in Memling all the adorable 
 delicacy of chastity and modesty, pretty women with the air of 
 saints, fine honest brows, pure temples, lips without a fold ; all 
 innocence in flower, every charm enveloping the purity of angels; 
 a beatitude, a tranquil softness, an inward ecstasy, which is found
 
 THE VAN EYCKS AND MEM LING. 337 
 
 nowhere else ? What grace of heaven had descended upon this young 
 soldier or rich burgher to fill his soul with tenderness, purify his 
 eye, cultivate his taste, and open to him, at the same time in the 
 physical and moral worlds, such new perspectives ? 
 
 Less celestially inspired than the women, the men painted by 
 Memling resemble, no more than they, those of Van Eyck. They 
 are gentle and sorrowful persons, rather long of body, of bronzed 
 complexion, with straight noses, thin light beards, and pensive 
 looks. They have fewer passions, but the same ardor. They have 
 a less prompt and masculine muscular action, but there is found in 
 them I know not what that is grave and tried, which gives them 
 the look of having passed through life suffering and reflective. 
 The St. John, whose fine Evangelical head, lost in the half-tint, is of 
 such velvety execution, personifies once for all the type of masculine 
 figures as Memling conceives them. It is the same with the Do- 
 nor, with his Christlike face and pointed beard. Note, I beg, that 
 his saints, both men and women, are manifestly portraits. 
 
 They live a deep, serene, and recollected life. In this art, which 
 is so human, there is not a trace of the villanies and atrocities of 
 the time. Consult the work of this painter, who, however he may have 
 lived, must have known his age ; you will find in it not one of those 
 tragic scenes which it has pleased men to represent since. No 
 quarterings, nor boiling pitch, except incidentally, as an anecdote, 
 or medallion ; no wrists hewed off, no skinning of naked bodies, 
 no ferocious arrests, no assassin judges, and no executioners. The 
 Martyrdom of St. Hippolytus, that is to be seen at the Cathedral 
 
 22
 
 338 THE OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 
 
 of Bruges, and is attributed to him, is by Bouts, or Gerard David 
 Old and touching legends, like St. Ursula or St. Christopher, the 
 Virgins, the Saints wedded to Christ, believing priests, and saints 
 who make one believe in them, a passing pilgrim under whose 
 features the artist is recognized, these are Memling's figures. In 
 all there is a good faith, a simple goodness, an ingenuousness, which 
 are something like a prodigy ; a mysticism of sentiment betrayed 
 rather than shown, whose perfume is felt without any affectation 
 breathed into the form ; a Christian art, if you will, exempt from 
 all mingling of pagan ideas. If Memling escapes his own age, he 
 forgets the others. His ideal is his own ; perhaps he announces 
 the Bellini, Botticelli, and Perugino, but not Leonardo, nor Luini, 
 nor the Tuscans, nor the Romans of the true Renascence. Here 
 is no St. John that might be mistaken for a Bacchus; no Virgin 
 nor St. Elizabeth, with the strangely pagan smile of a La Joconda ; 
 no prophets resembling antique gods and philosophically confounded 
 with the sibyls ; no myths nor hidden symbols. There is no need 
 of a very learned exegesis to explain this sincere art, full of good 
 faith, ignorance, and belief. He says what he wishes to say with 
 the candor of the simple in heart and mind, with the naturalness 
 of a child. He paints what was venerated and believed, as it was 
 believed. He retires to his interior world, shuts himself in, there 
 his soul is lifted up and there he expands. Nothing of the exterior 
 world penetrates into this sanctuary of souls in deep repose, neither 
 what is done, nor thought, nor said there, and not in the least what is 
 there seen.
 
 THE VAN EYCKS AND MEM LING. 339 
 
 Imagine, amid the horrors of that age, a sanctuary, a sort of 
 angelic retreat, ideally silent and sequestered, where passions are 
 silent, where troubles cease, where men pray or worship, where every- 
 thing is transfigured, physical ugliness and moral hideousness, where 
 new sentiments are born, where, like lilies, grow ingenuousness, gen- 
 tleness, a supernatural mildness, and you will have an idea of the 
 unique soul of Memling, and of the miracle he performed in his 
 works. 
 
 It is a singular thing ; but to speak worthily of such a soul, out of 
 regard to him and to one's self, peculiar terms must be used, and 
 in our language a sort of virginity must be reconstructed for the 
 occasion. In this way only can he be made known ; but words have 
 been put to such uses since the time of Memling, that there is 
 great difficulty in finding any which befit him.
 
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