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Dividend Two Directory 08
Page 10
Steen (1626?-1679) was almost the opposite of Terburg, a man of sarcastic flings and coarse humor who satirized his own time with little reserve. He developed under Hals and Van Ostade, favoring the latter in his interiors, family scenes, and drunken debauches. He was a master of physiognomy, and depicted it with rare if rather unpleasant truth. If he had little refinement in his themes he certainly handled them as a painter with delicacy. At his best his many figured groups were exceedingly well composed, his color was of good quality (with a fondness for yellows), and his brush was as limpid and graceful as though painting angels instead of Dutch boors. He was really one of the fine brushmen of Holland, a man greatly admired by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and many an artist since; but not a man of high intellectual pitch as compared with Terburg, for instance.
The dicta of his that are preserved vibrate between cynicism, shrewdness, wisdom, and tenderness. "Stop a bit," he said, as the cabinet went downstairs after a dinner to discuss the corn laws. "Is it to lower the price of bread or isn't it? It doesn't much matter which, but we must all say the same thing." Yet, after all, it is the letters and diaries of Queen Victoria that reveal the true secret of Melbourne's charm. His relation to his girlsovereign is one of the most beautiful things in latter-day history. Melbourne loved her half paternally, half chivalrously, while it is evident that the Queen's affection for her gallant and attractive premier was of a quality which escaped her own perception. He humoured her, advised her, watched over her; in return, she idolised him, noted down his smallest sayings, permitted him to behave and talk just as he would. She lovingly records his little ways and fancies--how he fell asleep after dinner, how he always took two apples, and hid one in his lap while he ate the other.
With Duerer and Holbein German art reached its apogee in the first half of the sixteenth century, yet their work was not different in spirit from that of their predecessors. Painting simply developed and became forceful and expressive technically without abandoning its early character. There is in Duerer a naive awkwardness of figure, some angularity of line, strain of pose, and in composition oftentimes huddling and overloading of the scene with details. There is not that largeness which seemed native to his Italian contemporaries. He was hampered by that German exactness, which found its best expression in engraving, and which, though unsuited to painting, nevertheless crept into it. Within these limitations Duerer produced the typical art of Germany in the Renaissance time--an art more attractive for the charm and beauty of its parts than for its unity, or its general impression. Duerer was a travelled man, visited Italy and the Netherlands, and, though he always remained a German in art, yet he picked up some Italian methods from Bellini and Mantegna that are faintly apparent in some of his works. In subject he was almost exclusively religious, painting the altar-piece with infinite care upon wooden panel, canvas, or parchment. He never worked in fresco, preferring oil and tempera. In drawing he was often harsh and faulty, in draperies cramped at times, and then, again, as in the Apostle panels at Munich, very broad, and effective. Many of his pictures show a hard, dry brush, and a few, again, are so free and mellow that they look as though done by another hand. He was usually minute in detail, especially in such features as hair, cloth, flesh. His portraits were uneven and not his best productions. He was too close a scrutinizer of the part and not enough of an observer of the whole for good portraiture. Indeed, that is the criticism to be made upon all his work. He was an exquisite realist of certain features, but not always of the _ensemble_. Nevertheless he holds first rank in the German art of the Renaissance, not only on account of his technical ability, but also because of his imagination, sincerity, and striking originality.
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