John Forbes White and Paul George Konody

“ Rembrandt returns to the simplest gamut of colour, but shows his skill in the use of it, leaving on the spectator an impression of absolute enjoyment of the result, unconscious of the means. The plain burghers dealing with the simple concerns of their gild arrest our attention as if they were the makers of history. The live for ever; and we close our eyes to the strange perspective of the table. ”

“ It was then that he painted the great equestrian portrait (No. 1066 of the Madrid gallery) in which the king is represented as a great commander leading his troops—a rôle which Philip never played except in a theatrical pageant. All is full of animation except the stolid face of the king. It hangs as a pendant to the great Olivares portrait—fit rivals of the neighbouring Charles V. by Titian, which doubtless fired Velazquez to excel himself, and both remarkable for their silvery tone and their feeling of open air and harmony combined with brilliancy. ”

“ In 1641, the mother of Six, Anna Wymer, had been painted with consummate skill by Rembrandt, who also executed in 1647 the beautiful etching of Six standing by a window reading his tragedy of Medea, afterwards illustrated by his friend. Now he paints his portrait in the prime of manhood, and in the same year of gloom paints for him the masterly “John the Baptist.” Six, if he could not avert the disaster of Rembrandt’s life, at least stood by him in the darkest hour, when certainly the creative energy of Rembrandt was in full play. ”

“ We have now arrived at the year 1640, the threshold of his second manner, which extended to 1654, the middle age of Rembrandt. During the latter part of the previous decade we find the shadows more transparent and the blending of light and shade more perfect. There is a growing power in every part of his art. ”

“ In all of these pictures the woman is coarse in type and lumpy in form, though the modelling is soft and round, the effect which Rembrandt always strove to Igain. Beauty of form was outside his art. But the so-called “ anae ” (1636) at St Petersburg is a sufficient reiply to those who deny his ability ever to appreciate the beauty o the nude female form. It glows with colour and life, and the blood seems to pulsate under the warm skin. ”

“ The Wallace collection includes an example which is probably a copy by Mazo; but the finest in the United Kingdom is the well-known picture at Grosvenor House, a masterly example of the second manner of Velazquez. The colour is warm and bright, the workmanship solid and fused like enamel, while light and air pervade every corner. The scene is in the riding-school of the palace, the king and queen looking on from a balcony, while Olivares is in attendance as master of the horse to the prince. ”

“ In his old age Rembrandt continued to paint his own portrait as assiduously as in his youthful and happy days. About twenty of these portraits are known; a typical one is to be found in the National Gallery. All show the same self-reliant expression, though broken down indeed by age and the cares of a hard life. ”

“ Next year (1624) he received from the king three hundred ducats to pay the cost of the removal of his family to Madrid, which became his home for the remainder of his life. Weak and worthless as a king, Philip had inherited the art-loving propensities of his race, and was proud to be considered a poet and a painter. It is one of the best features of his character that he remained for a period of thirty-six years the faithful and attached friend of Velazquez, whose merit he soon recognized, declaring that no other painter should ever paint his portrait. ”

“ He saw the world around him teeming with life and objects interesting to the painter, and he set himself to render these. His manner is as national as that of Cervantes. He lived and died racy of the soil. The position and reputation of Velazquez were now assured at Seville. There his wife bore him two daughters—all his family so far as is known. The younger died in infancy, while the elder, Francisca, in due time married Bautista del Mazo. a painter, whose large family is that which is represented in the important picture in Vienna which was at one time called the “Family of Velazquez.” ”

“ Landscape as an expression of art never had attraction for the Spaniards; but Velazquez here shows how great a master he was in this branch. The silvery views of Aranjuez, which at one time passed under his name, are now considered to be the work of his pupil Mazo. After a visit to Naples in 1631, where he worked with his countryman Ribera, and painted a charming portrait of the Infanta Maria, sister of Philip, Velazquez returned early in the year to Madrid. ”

“ The classification of Rembrandt’s etchings adopted till lately was according to the subject, as Biblical, portrait, landscape, and so on; until Vosmaer attempted the more scientific and interesting line of chronology. This method has been developed by Sir F. Seymour Haden and Middleton. But even in 1873 C. Blanc, in his fine work L’Œuvre complet de Rembrandt, still adheres to the older and less intelligent arrangement, resting his preference on the frequent absence of dates on the etchings and more strangely still on the equality of the work. ”

“ Rubens was then at the height of his fame, and had undertaken as a commission from Olivares the large pictures which now adorn the great hall in Grosvenor House (London) . These months might have been a new turning-point in the career of a weaker man than Velazquez, for Rubens added to his brilliant style as a painter the manner of a fascinating courtier. Rubens had a high opinion of the talent of Velazquez, as is attested by Fuensalida, but he effected no change in the style of the strong Spaniard. ”

“ From Herrera’s studio Velazquez betook himself to a very different master, the learned and pedantic Pacheco, the author of a heavy book on painting, and, as we see by his ; works at Madrid, a dull, commonplace painter, though at times he could rise to a rare freedom of handling and to a simple, direct realism that is in direct contradiction to the cult of Raphael preached by him in his writing. A portrait by Pacheco, owned by Sir Frederick Cook, which shows this master’s full power, was exhibited at Burlington House in 1907. ”

“ In Pacheco’s school Velazquez remained for five years, studying proportion and perspective, and seeing all that was best in the literary and artistic circles of Seville. Here also he fell in love with his master’s daughter Juana, whom he married in 1618 with the hearty approval of Pacheco, who praises his hand and heart, claiming at the same time all the credit of having been his master. The young painter set himself to copy the commonest things about him— earthenware jars of the country people, birds, fish> fruit and flowers of the market-place. ”

“ It is impossible not to respect the man who, amid the utter ruin of his affairs, could calmly conceive and carry out such noble work. Yet even in his art one can see that the tone of his mind was sombre. ”

“ But in his religious pictures it is not the costume we look at; what strikes us is the profound perception of the sentiment of the story, making them true to all time and independent of local circumstance. A notable example of this feeling is to be found in the “Woman Taken in Adultery” of the National Gallery, painted in 1644 in the manner of the “Simeon” of the Hague. Beyond the ordinary claims ofart, it commands our attention from the grand conception of the painter who here, as in other pictures and etchings, has invested Christ with a majestic dignity which recalls Lionardo and no other. ”

“ The modelling of the stern impassive face comes near to perfection, so delicate are the gradations in the full light; all sharpness of outline has disappeared; and the features seem moulded by the broad and masterly brushwork. When closely examined, the work seems coarse, yet at the proper distance it gives the very essence of living flesh. ”

“ Rembrandt Harmens van Rijn, Dutch painter, was born in Leiden on the 15th of July 1606. It is only within the past fifty years that we have come to know anything of his real history. A tissue of fables formerly represented him as ignorant, boorish and avaricious. ”

“ That Rembrandt was a frequent visitor at Elsbroek, and that the “Three Trees” and other etchings may have been produced there, may be admitted without requiring us to believe that he had left Amsterdam as his place of abode. The great period of his etching lies between 1639 and 1661, after which the old painter seems to have renounced the needle. In these twenty years were produced his greatest works in portraiture, landscape and Bible story. They bear the impress of the genius of the man. ”

“ The Admiral Pulido Pareja from Lord Radnor’s collection, now at the National Gallery, is said to have been taken by Philip for the living man; nevertheless, A. de Beruete is emphatic in denying Velazquez’s authorship of this picture, which he attributes to Mazo. It has been remarked that the Spaniards have always been chary of committing to canvas the portraits of their beautiful women. Queens and infantas may be painted and exhibited, but ladies rarely. ”

“ But it was reserved for Rembrandt to make it a great picture by the grouping of the expressive portraits and by the completeness of the conception. The colour is quiet and the handling of the brush timid and precise, while the light and shade are somewhat harsh and abrupt. But it is a marvellous picture for a young man of twenty-five, and it is generally accepted as marking a new departure in the career of the painter.
About Joo pictures are known to have come from Rembrandt's own han . It is impossible to notice more than the prominent works. ”

“ Portraits (real and supposed) , Old Testament and New Testament subjects, histories, landscapes, &c. Sir Seymour Haden originated the theory that many of the etchings ascribed to Rembrandt up to 1640 were the work of his pupils, and seems to make out his case, though it may be carried too far. He argues (in his monograph on the Etched Work of Rembrandt, 1877) that Rembrandt’s real work in etching began after Saskia’s death, when he assumes that Rembrandt betook himself to Elsbroek, the country house of his “powerful friend” Jan Six. ”

“ Then, again, in the many portraits of himself painted in his early life we can see with what zeal he set himself to master every form of expression, now grave, now gay-how thoroughly he learned to model the human face not from the outside but from the inner man. Dr Bode gives fifty as the number of the portraits of himself (perhaps sixty is nearer the actual number) , most of them painted in youth and in old age, the times when he had leisure for such work. Rembrandt's earliest pictures were painted at Leiden, from 1627 to 1631. ”

“ In the beginning of the 17th century Holland had entered on her grand career of national enterprise. Science and literature flourished in her universities, poetry and the stage were favoured by her citizens, and art found a home not only in the capital but in the provincial towns. ”

“ It describes the man well-strong and robust, with powerful head, firm and compressed lips and determined chin, with heavy eyebrows, separated by a deep vertical furrow, and with eyes of keen penetrating glance—altogether a self-reliant man that would carry out his own ideas, careless whether his popularity waxed or waned. ”

“ But this year of great achievement was also the year of his great loss, for Saskia died in 1642, leaving Rembrandt her sole trustee for her son Titus, but with full use of the money till he should marry again or till the marriage of Titus. The words of the will express her love for her husband and her confidence in him. With her death his life was changed. Bode has remarked that there is a pathetic sadness in his pictures of the Holy Family-a favourite subject at this period of his life. ”

“ In no picture is he greater as a colourist. The scheme is simple—a harmony of red, bluish-green, grey and black, which are varied and blended with consummate skill.
In 1660 a treaty of peace between France and Spain was to be consummated by the marriage of the infanta Maria Theresa with Louis XIV., and the ceremony was to take place in the Island of Pheasants, a small swampy island in the Bidassoa. Velazquez was charged with the decoration of the Spanish pavilion and with the whole scenic display. ”

“ Although acquainted with all the Italian schools, and the friend of the foremost painters of his day, he was strong enough to withstand every external influence and to work out for himself the development of his own nature and his own principles of art. ”

“ One of Rembrandts greatest portraits of 1633 is the superb full length of Martin Daey, which, witl1 that of Ma ame Daey, painted according to Vosmaer some years later, formed one of the ornaments of the Van Loon collection at Amsterdam. Both now belong to Baron Gustave de Rothschild. From the firm detailed execution of this portrait one turns with wonder to the broader handling of the “ Old Woman " (Frangoise van /Vasserhoven) , aged eighty-three, in the National Gallery, of the same year, remarkable for the effect of reflected light and still more for the sympathetic rendering of character. ”

“ This picture is now by common consent given to Mazo. In the gallery at Madrid there is a portrait of Juana, his wife, holding a drawing-tablet on her knee. There was formerly in the possession of Lord Dudley another portrait of his wife by Velazquez, painted, perhaps, in the first year of their happy marriage. Of this early Seville manner we have an excellent example in “El Aguador” (the Water-Carrier) at Apsley House (London) . Firm almost to hardness, it displays close study of nature. ”