Frits Lugt

“ Against a sky, of which the blue or the clouds bear a bloom of a silvery hue, the houses show the tone of their bricks going from red-brown to a pale purple in so many deviations that the uniform indication of red would be unjust. The trembling of the lights and shades of water all through the town and the green of so many trees planted along the quays, were of course two conditions which strongly helped in producing a particular colouristic charm and which meant an advantage over so many foreign towns. ”

“ Modern life overshadows the past to such an extent, that one cannot transpose one's self three centuries by simply eliminating the present; there are no ruins which induce us to reconstruct, in our mind, that which has vanished, no population which has arrested its progress at the period of its greatest prosperity. Fortunately the nature of Amsterdam's beauty and originality has not changed and from this fact every newcomer may derive great help in his efforts to rebuild the scenes of bygone times. ”

“ This impression of Amsterdam by a seventeenth century author 1 takes us back to the time when no rivals had yet contested with the town its commercial monopoly,— when its full and radiant display struck the eyes of every visitor. Tempted though we feel to recall this glorious past (the period and direct surroundings of its greatest painter) , we naturally take Amsterdam's present state as a basis, and in doing so painfully notice the loss of precious reminiscences which the course [pg 112] of time has inevitably involved. ”

“ It is the water that lends to the town its peculiar charm, and while some canals had to be filled in to create carriage accommodation in the old parts, most were preserved, and though in their water other house-fronts are reflected, the visitor can reconstruct, without great difficulty, a vision of Amsterdam in Rembrandt's days.
Let us offer some help to the visitor in his efforts to revive the old town in his imagination. Such assistance is needed, because Amsterdam is not a place where one would prefer to be left alone with his dreams. ”

“ Is it to be wondered at that he, the warm-feeling artist, offspring of a school which affected richness and baroque, was no friend of a new tendency, the stateliness and broadness of which were bound to degenerate into coldness and stiffness? Looking through his drawings and etchings (his pictures [pg 122] leave us no town-views taken from nature) , we occasionally meet views of town-gates, old houses alone or crowded together, mills, all obviously sketched on account of a charm akin to Rembrandt's nature but foreign to the greatest part of the lay population of Amsterdam. ”

“ But realising that such loss is not only the consequence of neglect and lack of respect, and that to a large degree modern life with its different requirements and intensity forcibly causes cruel changes, we must conquer our regrets and rather view with open eyes the vitality of the town and the renewed energy of its present existence. Sad indeed is the aspect of towns, known as “dead cities,” which preserve their old architectural appearance, and where all life seems extinguished. ”

“ They are but their own shadows and a perpetual outcry against the reverses of Fate or the relaxation of human energy, which proved unable to carry on the aspirations of preceding generations. Fortunately Amsterdam escaped this disgrace, because its spark of life never quite died out; the burning vigour of its inhabitants, which was instrumental in raising the town's prosperity in the seventeenth century, may seem a high-flaming fire compared to the peaceful existence of its rich population in the eighteenth century ”

“ Then more and more came the alienation, and it is most instructive to compare the different results at which the artist and the intelligent population arrived: the artist, guided by the strength of his immense personality and talent, remained himself, but his fellow-citizens gradually changed their taste and predilections in matters of art and intellect, uncertain as they were of themselves in these matters. ”

“ The large and fertile School of Amsterdam painters, Rembrandt foremost among them, felt this keenly: landscapes of Italy and allegorical and mythological subjects were preferred to the productions of an art intensely national, the sincerity of which failed to impress the Dutch amateurs. ”

“ We, fast-living twentieth-century people, are apt to suppose that life some centuries ago was moving steadily but slowly, that people were spared the enervating excitements of our own days and that they consequently had a much more quiet and regular existence. Contemporary documents prove that this opinion is wrong, at least in so far as Amsterdam is concerned. ”

“ When Motley says, in his “History of the United Netherlands,” that the Dutch Republic was “sea-born and sea-sustained,” we have to apply this, in the first place, to its most important town, Amsterdam, and if we then remember that the suppression of a nation accustomed to maritime pursuits is one of the rarest things in history, we shall arrive at a better understanding of Amsterdam's vitality.
In a town where life so maintained its course, we cannot [pg 113] expect to find whole quarters preserved, just as they appeared in the first half of the seventeenth century ”

“ Being more gifted as traders than as artists, they showed that short-sightedness and narrowmindedness in judging their contemporary artists, which [pg 119] [pg 120] so often repeats itself in history (even in our time!) . They were unable to understand the strength and value of the country's native art, and turned to foreign taste, even to foreign workmanship, as in the case of the commission to Quellinus, the Flemish sculptor, to execute the sculptures in the town-hall, thus emphasizing their preference for the school of Rubens and Van Dyck above the one of Hals and Rembrandt. ”

“ Concentrating our attention rather on colour than shape, we might retain for one moment the comparison with Venice, as it may help us to understand still better the value of what we were just admiring in Amsterdam. ”

“ First of all, let the stranger take into consideration that Rembrandt took up his abode in the town when it [pg 114] was rapidly growing, and when the picturesqueness of its late-mediaeval appearance had to concede to graver conceptions, based on the classics and the Italian renaissance. Let him remember that the threefold girdle of wide canals lined with big houses, which now embraces the old city, was at that time only in course of construction, and that less stately canals preserved a more intimate aspect. ”

“ View of Amsterdam from the East. (reversed) . After the etching by Rembrandt [pg 111] “The city seems to float upon the waters and looks like the sovereign of the deep. It is crowded with merchants of every nation and its habitants are themselves the most eminent merchants in the world. It appears, at first, not to be the city of any particular people, but to be common to all, as the centre of their commerce. ”

“ Within the leading classes of Amsterdam's population, supported by the great merchants, interest in matters of art and science strongly develops, though as we noticed before, in the case of the town-hall architecture, with a marked preference for classicism and all foreign civilization. ”

“ They were characteristic representatives of the citizens' nature: cool-headedness and a very strong feeling of independence, rooted in their own and their fathers' emancipation from Spanish domination, and in their energetic tradesmanship. We here touch a more abstract subject, not less essential in constituting the general disposition of the town, namely, the nature and spirit of its individuals, forming, so to say, the town's own soul. ”

“ The Jews officiated in their own Synagogues and nowhere enjoyed greater liberty than in Amsterdam.5 The royal road of religious tolerance, rare in those days, was more and more deliberately taken, and it sounds well to hear how in 1660 Governor Stuyvesant, of New-Amsterdam (New York) , receives from his directors in Amsterdam the following admonition to be less rigorous against other sects: “Let everybody remain unmolested as long as he behaves modestly and peacefully, as long as he does damage to nobody and does not oppose the magistrates. ”

“ The facts have nothing astonishing in them if we realise that Holland's commercial ships numbered half of the world's trading-fleet and that Amsterdam harboured most of them.3 No wonder that, in such a [pg 153] town, life was intense and that its strong pulsation was felt everywhere: in crowded streets and quays, in numerous offices and warehouses, on the large exchange, around the Public Weighing Houses, in the shops and market-places, etc. The ease and self-contentment with which the Dutch were so often reproached at the time of the French Revolution, were then unknown ”

“ It is hardly to be imagined, how all the violence and sharpness, which accompanies the differences of religion in other countries, seems to be appeased or softened here, by the general freedom which all men enjoy, either by allowance or connivance. No man can here complain of pressure in his conscience. ”

“ Suffice it to say that those concerning Amsterdam exclusively, were not many and that even the greatest events in the history of the Netherlands were in those times generally accounted by Amsterdam's citizens as secondary to their town's interest as the greatest commercial centre. ”

“ After the drawing by Rembrandt, in the British Museum, London. Salting Bequest. All these thousands of people, business-men, workmen, housewives, small traders, went about in comparatively simple dresses, in which the black and discreet colours predominated. Against this sober background, the multi-coloured garments of the numerous strangers from over-seas were set off sharply: those of the Levantines, Persians, Poles, and others, who congregated in this international mart. What was said of the citizens' dress does not imply that luxurious costumes were unknown in Amsterdam ”

“ We find this change illustrated in the fact that, when Rembrandt bought this house, one of his neighbours was a Jew, called Salvador Rodrigue, the other a Christian fellow-painter Nicolaes Eliasz, but when he left the house, Eliasz had died in 1654 and been succeeded by Daniel Pinto, again a noted Jewish name. These Portuguese Jewish families were a great advantage to the town and should in no way be placed on a par with the poor Jews, mostly of German and Polish descent, now occupying this quarter. The Portuguese Jews were highly cultured, well-to-do, orderly, and clean people ”

“ It is interesting to note here the following opinions of a contemporary, Sir William Temple: “There are some customs or dispositions, that seem to run generally through all these degrees of men among the them; as great frugality, and order, in their expenses. Their common riches lie in every man's having more than he spends ”

“ What frequently is taken for coldness, for insensibility, for haughtiness, appears to be reserve which is put aside only when the Hollander feels very sure of his opinion. To these typical qualities of a trading nation must be added a perseverance of will and a determination to attain, which are often wrongly interpreted as egotism. ”

“ These characteristics do not always strike the foreigner at first sight, hidden as they are by a certain slowness in expression and heaviness in deportment, springing from the Hollander's habit of deliberation. ”

“ Anthoniesdÿk, from which it derived its name; this dike was then and had always been an important way of access to Amsterdam, as it was the only direct route to [pg 140] Diemen, Weesp, and Muiden. In the beginning of the seventeenth century it was inhabited by many aristocratic families, with whom gradually intermingled Portuguese Jewish refugees, as this was a new quarter where they could more easily find living accommodation. As time went on, Jewish occupants began to dominate, and towards the close of the century the street was for that reason rebaptised from St. ”

“ Anthonie-sluis” in Amsterdam, seen from the North. Rembrandt's home (plate 16) stood in the immediate vicinity of this spot. After the drawing by A. Waterloo, in the Fodor Museum, Amsterdam. If from this centre we look a little further around, we find in the same quarter other sites memorable in the artist's life: first of all in the same street, also near the bridge where Rembrandt's own house stood, we recognise the house of Mr. Hendrick Uylenburgh, a noted dealer in pictures and works of art and a publisher, with [pg 142] whom Rembrandt stood in close relation while yet residing in Leyden. ”

“ The peculiar characteristics of this part of the town, due to these conditions of growth, made it into a typical quarter, known as the Jordaan; its population has always been one of modest means, mixing little with the town. So we see that it was very appropriate for the painter's retirement, after his social downfall in the late fifties.
Plate 22. The Inn Called “de Keizers Kroon” In The Kalverstraat, Amsterdam. Here Rembrandt's collections were sold by auction, after his bankruptcy, in 1657 and 1058. After an anonymous drawing in the Archives in Amsterdam. ”

“ Amongst themselves, even in circles where a taste for art and science was well developed, coarse festivals, excessive meals, and gross humour was often met with, peculiarities, however, which the Dutchman had in common with Anglo-Saxons, Germans, and other Northern races at that time. ”