classics of their Fatherland. For a whole generation Josef
Israels was at the head of Dutch art. Born in 1827 at Groningen,
the son of a money-changer, he walked every day in his early
years, with a linen money-bag under his arm, to the great banking
house of Mesdag, a son of which became later the famous marine
painter. During his student days in Amsterdam he lived
in the Ghetto, in the house of a poor but orthodox Jewish
family. He hungered in Paris, and was derided as a Jew in
the Delaroche school there. Such were the experiences of
life that formed his character. In Zantvoort, the little fishing
village close to Haarlem, he made a similar discovery to that
which Millet had already made at Barbizon. In the solitude
of the remote village he discovered that not only in the pages
of history, but also in everyday life, there are tragedies. Having
at first only painted historical subjects, he now began to depict
the hard struggle of the seafaring man, and the joys and griefs
of the poor. He commenced the long series of pictures that for
thirty years and more occupied the place of honour in all Dutch
exhibitions. They do not contain a story that can be rendered
into words; they only tell the tale of everyday life. Old women,
with rough, toil-worn hands and good-natured wrinkled faces,
sit comfortably at the stove. Weatherbeaten seamen wade
through the water, splashed by the waves as they drag along
the heavy anchors. A peasant child learns how to walk by the
aid of a little cart. Again, the dawning light falls softly upon
a peaceful deathbed, on which an old woman has just breathed
her last. A sad and resigned melancholy characterizes and
pervades all his works. His toilers do not stand up straight;
they are broken, without hope, and humble, and accomplish
their appointed task without pleasure and without interest.
He paints human beings upon whom the oppressions of centuries
are resting; eyes that neither gaze on the present nor into the
future, but back on to the long, painful past. A Jew, bearing
the Ghetto yet in his bosom, is talking to us; and in his painting
of the lowly and oppressed he recounts the story of his own
youth and the history of his own race.
The younger painters have divided Israels’ subjects among them. Each has his own little field, which he tills and cultivates with industry and good sense; and paints one picture, to be repeated again and again during his lifetime. Christoph Birschop, born in Friesland, settled as an artist in the land of his birth, where the national costumes are so picturesque, with golden chains, lace caps and silver embroidered bodices. As in de Hoogh’s pictures, the golden light streams through the window upon the floor, upon deep crimson table-covers; and upon a few silent human beings, whose lives are passed in dreamy monotony. Gerk Henkes paints the fogs of the canals, with boats gliding peacefully along. Albert Neuhuys selects simple family scenes, in cosy rooms with the sunlight peeping stealthily through the windows. Adolf Cortz, a pupil of Israels, loves the pale vapour of autumn, grey-green plains and dusty country roads, with silvery thistles and pale yellow flowers. The landscape painters, also, have more in common with the old Dutch classic masters than with the Parisian Impressionists. There, on the hill, Rembrandt’s windmill slowly flaps its wings; there Potter’s cows ruminate solemnly as they lie on the grass. There are no coruscation and dazzling brightness, only the grey-brownish mellowness that Van Goyen affected. Anton Mauve, Jacob Maris and Willem Maris (d. 1910), are the best known landscape men. Others are Mesdag, de Haas, Apol, Klinkenberg, Bastert, Blommers, de Kock, Bosboom, Ten Kate, du Chattel, Ter Meulen, Sande-Bakhuyzen. They all paint Dutch coast scenery, Dutch fields, and Dutch cattle, in excellent keeping with the old-master school, and with phlegmatic repose.
A few of the younger masters introduced a certain amount of movement into this distinguished, though somewhat somniferous, excellence. Breitner and Isaak Israels seem to belong rather to Manet’s school than to that of Holland. The “suburb” pictures of W. Tholen, the flat landscapes bathed in light by Paul Joseph Gabriel, and Jan Veth’s and Havermann’s impressionistic portraits prove that, even among the Dutch, there are artists who experiment. Jan Toorop has even attained the proud distinction of being the enfant terrible of modern exhibitions, and his works appear to belong rather to the art of the old Assyrians than to the 19th century. But those who will endeavour to enter into their artistic spirit will soon discover that Toorop is deserving of more than a mere shrug of the shoulder; they will find that he is a great painter, who independently pursues original aims. At the present time all criticism of art is determined by the “line.” All caprices and whims of the “line” are now ridden as much to death, and with the same enthusiasm, as were formerly those of “light.” Toorop occupies one of the first places among those whose only aim consists in allowing the “line” to talk and make music. His astonishing power of physical expression may be noted. With what simple means, for example, he renders in his picture of the “Sphinx” all phases of hysterical desire; in that of “The Three Brides” nunlike resignation, chaste devotion and unbridled voluptuousness. If his mastery over gesture, the glance of the eye, be remarked—how each feature, each movement of the hand and head, each raising and closing of the eyelid, exactly expresses what it is intended to express—Toorop’s pictures will no more be scoffed at than those of Giotto, but he will be recognized as one of the greatest masters of the “line” that the 19th century produced.
See Max Rooses, Dutch Painters of the Nineteenth Century (Eng. ed., London, 1898–1901). (R. Mr.)
Germany
The German school of painting, like that of France, entered on a new phase after the Franco-German War of 1870. An empire had been built up of the agglomeration of separate states. Germany needed no longer to gaze back admiringly at older and greater epochs. The historical painter became neglected. Not the heroic deeds of the past, but the political glories of the new empire were to be immortalized. This transition is particularly noticeable in the work of Adolf von Menzel. At the time of political stagnation he had recorded on his canvas the glories of Prussia in the past. Now that the present had achieved an importance of its own, he painted “The Coronation of King William at Königsberg” and “King William’s Departure for the Army”; and ultimately he became the painter of popular subjects. The motley throng in the streets had a special fascination for him, and he loved to draw the crowd pushing its eager way to listen to a band on the promenade, in the market, at the doors of a theatre, or the windows of a café. He discovered the poetry of the builder’s yard and the workshop. In the “Moderne Cyklopen” (ironworks), painted in 1876, he left a monumental mark in the history of German art; for in this picture he depicts a simple incident in daily life, without any attempt at genre; and this was indeed the characteristic of his work for the next few years. Humorous anecdote, as represented by Knaus (b. 1829), Vautier (1829–1898), Defregger (b. 1835) and Grützner (b. 1846), found little acceptance. Serious representations of modern life were required; resort was made to all the expedients of the great painters, and the ’seventies were years of artistic study for Germany. Every great colourist in the past was thoroughly studied and his secrets discovered. In Germany, Wilhelm Leibl (b. 1844), holds the same prominent place that Courbet does in France. Leibl, like Courbet, (q.v.), showed that the task of painting is not to narrate, but to depict by the most convincing means at its disposal. He even went farther than Courbet in close scrutiny of nature. With loving patience he strove to translate into colour everything that his keen eye observed: he studied nature with the devotion of the medieval artist. No feeling, strictly speaking, is discernible in his work. His greatest pictures are only of quiet life, with human accessories, and his painful accuracy divests his pictures of poetry. But when he first appeared, he was necessary. His painting of “Three Peasant Women in Church” is a grand documentary work of that period, whose first aim was to conquer the picturesque. Leibl taught artists to study detail, to master the secrets of flower, leaf and stalk.
