Six Centuries of Painting

ing the interval of about a century and a half that elapsed between the

nical perfection in touch and finish with most vivid and beautiful colouring. To this original school, however, had succeeded a perverted rage for imitating the Italian masters, which had been introduced into the Netherlands by a few painters of talent, particularly by Jean Mabuse and Bernard van Orley. To display their science by throwing their figures into forced and difficult positions an

and more removed from nature in their desire to rival each other in the forced attitudes of their figures, and in the exhibition of nudity, until at last such disgusting c

le humour and vivacity; or they delineated nature in her commonest aspects with great minuteness of detail; and thus tableaux de genre and landscape originated. Although a few isolated

of the inferior ones which are usually necessary, as one must almost admit, for an alloy that will harden the finer metal for the practical purposes of success. With all his feeling for religion, he was seldom prudish; his amazing

we should have been deprived of much that is most characteristic in his art. He was too big, that is to say, for the flower pot. He needed to be bedded out, so that his exuberant natural gen

sixteen he was placed as a page in the household of the widowed Countess of Lalaing, but as he showed a remarkable love for drawing he was apprenticed first to Tobias Verhaegt, a landscape painter, and then to Adam Van Oort. The latter was so unsuitable a master,

e Archduke to Vincenzio, Duke of Gonzaga, whose palace at Mantua was famous for containing an immense collection of art treasures, a great part of which within the next quarter of a centur

mpous led him to choose that with the elephants carrying the candelabra; but his ardent imagination, ever directed to the dramatic, could not be contented with this. Instead of a harmless sheep, which, in Mantegna, is walki

important to know what sort of foundations underlie the most splendid erections if we wish to understand how they came into existence and what their place is in the history of the arts. A glance through Lemprière's Dictionary may furnish a modern Academician with a sub

of his mother's illness, which induced him to return to Antwerp forthwith.

o remain at Brussels and attach himself to their Court. Another circumstance may possibly have weighed with him; for within a year we find him married to Elizabeth Brant, the daughter of a magistrate of Antwerp, and it was not at Brussels

to copy pictures there for him, he found time to execute a commission which he received from the Archduke Albert to paint three pictures for the Church of Santa Croce di Gerusalamme, namely, the Crowning with Thorns, the Crucifixion, and the Finding of the Cross. A

raternity of S. Ildefonso, at the head of which was the Archduke Albert, commissioned him to paint an altar-piece for the Chapel of the Order of S. James near Brussels. This picture, which is now at Vienna, repre

use he had unwittingly trespassed upon a piece of ground belonging to the Company of Arquebusiers at Antwerp. A lawsuit was threatened, and Rubens, with all the vivacity of his nature, prepared measures of resistance. But when his friend Rockox, a lawyer, had proved him that he was in the wrong, he immediately drew back, and offered to paint a picture by way of compensation. The offer was accepted, and the Arquebusiers asked for a representation of their patron, S. Christo

is the portrait of himself and his bride, which is now in the Munich G

errand, but still as a painter, as we shall se

as a passionate lover of art and easily captivated by men of cultivated intellect and refined manners. Rubens therefore, in whom the most admirable and attractive qualities were united to the rarest genius as an artist, soon su

d come to propose. After the dispersion of the Royal Collection during the Commonwealth this picture was acquired by the Doria family at Genoa, where it was called, oddly enough, Rubens's Family. As a matter of fact the children are those of Balthazar Gerbier. He also painted the S. George and the Dragon, wh

r fifty-three. She belonged to one of the richest and most respectable families in Antwerp, and was by no means unworthy of the com

s time to Holland; and his remaining years were subject to more distres

ly a great painter that was required to raise the art to life, but a great personality as well; and to the influence of Rubens may be attributed much if not all of the extraordinary fertility of the Flemish and Dutch Schools of the seventeenth century. M

XXIV.-

MENT, THE ARTIST'S SECO

re,

gna had sought for as the pagan spirit of fulness and freedom. "I am convinced that to reach the highest perfection as a painter," he himself writes "it is necessary, not only to be acquainted with the ancient statues, but we must be inwardly imbued with the thorough comprehension of them. An insight into the laws which pertain to them is necessary before they can be turned to any real account in painting. This

ievous: for while beginners fancy they can perform wonders if they can borrow from these statues, and transfer something hard, heavy, with sharp outlines and an exaggera

the shading of many parts is moderated, which in sculpture appear hard and abrupt, for the shadows become doubled, as it were, owing to the natural and unavoidable thickness of the stone. To this must be added that certain less important parts which lie on the surface of the human body, as the veins, folds of the skin, etc., which change

m nature; for the natural brilliancy of marble, and its own light, throws o

ublic schools and universities are questioned, and there can be no doubt that for the bulk of the pupils they are questionable. But Rubens shows that the case is exactly the same for painters studying classical art as for scholars acquainting themselves with classical literature. A superficial study of the antique, jus

re at Munich of Castor and Pollux carrying off the daughters of Leucippus is worthy of being first mentioned. The Dioscuri mounted on spirited steeds, one of which is wildly rearing, are in the act of capturing the two damsels. The calm expression of strength in the male, and the violent but fruitless resistance of the female figures, form a striking contrast. Although the former are merely represented as two co

ing off the goddess, who is struggling in his arms. The other is the Battle of the Amazons, in the Munich Gallery, which was painted by Rubens for Van der Geest. With great judgment he has ch

play as the Adoration of the Kings; he has painted this subject no less than twelve times, and his fancy appears quite inexhaustible in the invention of the rich offerings of the eastern sages. Among the subjects of a secular character the history of Marie de'Medici, the triumph of the Emperor Charles V., a

tness-as lions, tigers, wild boars, wolves, horses, dogs-particularly interested him. He paid special attention to animals, seized every opportunity of studying them from nature, and attained the most wonderful skill and facility in painting them. It is related that he had a remarkably fine and powerful lion brought to his house in order to study him in every variety of attitude, and that on one occasion observing him yawn, he was so pleased with

iar character and instinct of animals-their quick movements and manifestations of strength-with such perfect truth and energy that

bold creative fancy and dramatic turn of mind are remarkably conspicuous-even at this early stage in his career. Catherine Brant, his first wife, on a brown horse, with a falcon in her hand, is near her husb

he Louvre. A boisterous, merry party of about seventy persons are assembled in front of a country ale-house

d Madrid may be considered as originals. Several loving couples in familiar conversation are lingering before the entrance of a grotto, the front of w

thers in the most friendly and candid manner, it was natural that young painters of talent

intings in the world, is by Jacob Jordaens, and represents the triumph of Prince Frederick Henry-the object of the whole scheme being the glorification of the House of Or

and still life, Frans Snyders, Jan Fyt, and the brothers Weenix. In pictures of everyday life he gave us Adrian Brouwer and David Teniers; in landscape, Everdingen, Ruisdael and Waterloo. "Thus was the art of painting in the Netherlands remodelled in every departme