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lyiii HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ART
and comprehensive as the products of his easel were great in
number and surpassing in quality. Painters of the most widely
differing motives acknowledge him as their master and example
and he has led the way, not only in historical and portrait paintin
put in landscape too, and in the so-called genre painting. In this
respect BARTHOLOMEW VAN DER HELsT, to whom many would assign
a place amongst a foremost realists next to Rembrandt, cannot com-
pare with him. Van der Helst hs born at Haarlem in 1614 or 1642,
and ended his days there in 1670, in the enjoyment of great wealth
and general esteem. Nothing is known of his teachers, nothing of his
relations with Rembrandt, wh« path he appears to be continually
crossing without compromising his independence. He was the favour-
ite portrait-painter ofthe wealthy burghers ofAmsterdam, and confined
himselfalmost entirely to the painting of ‘Regent’ pieces and portraits.
His most celebrated work, the Arquebusiers’ Banquet (1648), is in
the Museum a f Amsterdam (which also possesses the Arquebusiers’
Guild of 1639, and the ‘Doslenstnl? of 1657), and when compared
with Rembrandt’s ‘Night Watch’, admirably illustrates the points
of difference between the two masters. Van der Helst presents to
us Nature as she is, unrelieved, a bare reality. If Nature herself
could paint she would have given us a picture such as Van der
Helst’s. It is otherwise with Rembrandt. Upon all his works he
sets the seal of his individuality. As the reality presents itself to
his eye, so he reproduces it with just that degree of truthfulness
which his intention prescribes. Van der Helst’s are mere imitations,
illusive in their fidelity, but leaving no enduring impression.
Frans Haus, of Haarlem, a somewhat earlier painter, so far at
least as the effects of his training in the great Master’s school are con-
cerned, is more akin to him than Van der Helst. Though of Haarlem
parentag ge, he was born at Antwerp (about 1584). When he returned
to Haarlem is not known. He married in1610, unhappily as the event
proved, forin 1616 he was brought before the Burgomaster forill-treat-
ing his wife, and had to promise to abstain for the future from
‘dronkenschappe’. Of the joys of conviviality which he could so well
depict he freely partook, and thus got into difficulties which his
prolific pencil failed to avert. His goods and chattels were sold by
auction in 1652 to pay his debts, and he became in his old age :
pensioner of the State. His death took place in 1666, at the
of 82, his labours having extended over half-a-century. The earliest
of his paintings known to us bears the date 1616, the Banquet of
Officers of the George’s Guild of Musketeers, in the Museum of Haar-
lem, where the most considerable of this master’s ‘Regent-pieces’
are collected. Amongst these the Assembly of Officers of the An-
dreas Guild (1633), and Assembly of Officers of the Gec orge’s Guild
(1639), are the best. Rembrandt’s influence is still apparent in
pictures of the succeeding decade, without however impairing the
individuality of the artist. The utmost vivacity of conception, |