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IN THE NETHERLANDS. lvii
master of the whole range of artistic material. To the greatest fer-
tility in the domains of ecclesiastical art he adds an intelligent and
enthusiastic appreciation of the ancient gods and heroes. He looks
upon these latter more with the eye of a Virgil than of a Homer, and
often depicts them in the spirit of an orator rather than in that of
a poet. He shows that he has most affinity for the fleshy figures
of the Bacchic myths, and paints them with a freshness and energy
possessed by none of his contemporaries. His brush is as much at
home in important historical compositions as in the richly-coloured
allegories, by which his age tried to make up to itself for the want
of genuine poetic sensibility. He paints alike portraits and land-
scapes, the battles of men and the fighting of brutes, the gallant
love-making of the noble and the coarse pleasures of the vulgar.
This versatility is peculiarly his own, although he possesses cer-
tain characteristics in common with his contemporaries, just as he
shares with them the same national atmosphere and the same tra~-
ditionary precepts.
Rubens (d. 1640) occupied this field along with several other
painters. No wonder, then, that similar characteristics are observable
in his works and those of others, and that they so closely resemble
one anot jonally to be confounded. Abraham Janssens
(1567-1632) comes very near to Rubens in freedom of brush and in
the impassioned action of his figures. Indeed there were few of
Rubens’ contemporaries who escaped his influence, pervading as it
did the whole field of art, inspiring in an especial manner the
engraver. The most notable of Antwerp artists who were contempo-
raries of Rubens are Gerard Seghers or Zegers (1591-1651); Theodore
Rombouts (4597-1637); Cornelis de Vos (1585-1651), one of the
first portrait-painters of the time; Gaspar de Crayer (1582-1669),
who evinced in his quiet compositions a charming vein of thought;
Lucas van Uden (1595- ca. 1672), who painted in many instances
the landscape in the background of Rubens’ pictures; and, finally,
Frans Snyders (1579-1657), who placed his extraordinary talent
for animal painting at the disposal of the great chief.
Of Rubens’s most distinguished disciple, Anthony Van Dyck
(born at Antwerp 1599, died in London 1641), owing to the
shortness of his sojourn in his native city, few important works are
retained. After being initiated in painting first by Henry van Balen,
later by Rubens, he visited Italy in his 24th year, where Venice
and Genoa especially fascinated him, as they had done his master
before him. From 1626 to 1632 he lived at Antwerp, after that
in London, in the service of Charles I. It was not only the
fashion then prevailing in aristocratic circles which engaged Van
Dyck in portraiture. Portraiture made the strongest appeal to his
proclivities as an artist. He does not shine in the invention of
gorgeous or stirring scenes; but in the refined and animated pour- |