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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ART
lx
of The Hague, too, his contemporary, Jan van Ravesteyn, can best be
studied, in his fine corporation-pieces of 1616 and 1618. But the
treatment of the ‘Regent? pictures and portrait groups generally was
brought to its highest perfection first by Frans Hals, of Haarlem
(p. lxvii), and more especially by that greatest of all the painters of
the north, Rembrandt.
Among the most important portrait-painters of Amsterdam in
the pre-Rembrandt period are Dirck Barentsz (1534-92), a pupil of
Titian ; Cornelis Ketel (1548-1616); Aert Pieterss (1550-1612; son
of Pieter Aertsen), of whose works the Ryks Museum possesses
large examples dating from 1599 and 1603; Cornelis van der Voort
(1576-1624), highly thought of by his contemporaries; Werner van
Valckert, a pupil of Goltzius, who painted in 1620-27 at Amster-
dam; and Nicolaes Elias (ca. 1590-ca. 1655), master of Van der
Helst, whose fine corporation-pieces are now seen to advantage in
the Ryks Museum.
Slandered and grossly abused as Rembrandt has been by dilet-
tanti scribes of the 18th century, the enthusiastic eulogium bestowed
upon him by the youthful Goethe must be noticed as an ex-
ceptional tribute. It is only in recent times that the researches of
Wilhelm Bode and the Dutch savants, particularly of Scheltema,
Vosmaer, De Roever, and Bredius, undertaken in a spirit of affec-
tionate devotion, haye vindicated the truth concerning him. Rem-
brandt Harmensz van Ryn, the son of a miller of Leyden, was born
on July 15th, 1606. ‘That he first saw light in his father’s mill is
a story for which there is as little foundation as that he first studied
art amongst his father’s flour-sacks, His first instructors were Jacob
van Swanenburgh, who had studied in Italy and was married to a
Neapolitan, and Pieter Lastman (p. 1x), to whose style his first
works (ca, 1627) exhibit an extraordinary resemblance. In 1634
Rembrandt removed to Amsterdam, which had gradually out-
stripped the other towns of the Republic and had become virtually
its capital, ascendant not only in the domain of politics, but
prescribing also the direction to be given to the study of art. A new
and stately architecture, which subsequently exercised extraordinary
influence in Germany, testifies to the splendour of the town at that
period. Vondel and Hooft represent the muse of Poetry, while
numerous engravers and painters, of whom several connected them-
selves later with Rembrandt, such as S. Koninck (p. lxv) and Jan
Lievens, found employment in Amsterdam.
Rembrandt very soon made himself famous as an artist; fortune
smiled upon him, too, in his love affairs. From the year 1633 the
face of a good-tempered, handsome woman appears from time to time
in his pictures. This is Saskia van Ulenburgh, the daughter of a
Friesland lawyer, whom he brought home as his bride in 1634. The
numerous portraits of Saskia, painted by the great artist with evi- |
