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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ART
compensating breadth from a masterly management of colour. Last-
man, Moeyaert, Poelenburgh, etc., learned from him.
In the desperate struggle during the 16th century with the two-
fold yoke of Spain, artistic enterprise in the Netherlands was ne-
cessarily crippled. It is principally owing to this circumstance that
so many Dutch painters found their way to Italy, and there com-
pleted the training which their native land, sorely distracted as it
was, could not afford them. But just as the Netherlands finally came
forth from their eighty years’ struggle as glorious victors, and in
corresponding measure secured for themselves wealth and politi-
cal power, while their antagonist, Spain, once mistress of the world
but now hopelessly impoverished, subsided into political insigni-
ficance, Dutch Art received during and at the conclusion of the war
its noblest impulse. It was then that the painters of the Netherlands
were enabled correctly to discern what, amidst all the surrounding
wealth of material, was best suited to their needs, and what form most
strongly appealed tothem ; they created, in a word, a national art. The
war had made a nation of heroes. Stern necessity had steeled their
courage and quickened their sense. Braye men, experienced in war
as well as state affairs, pious of heart yet joyous withal, met the
eye at every turn. To pourtray these, not only as single and im-
pressive personalities, but assembled in groups, in the council-
chamber, or sallying forth to the tilting ground, or engaged in
festive celebrations, was the artist’s favourite task.
Pictures of a peaceful, happy life, the charms of existence
amidst privacy and comfort, were doubly attractive in a time so
heavily charged with fateful events. The pleasurable abandonment
too, which, taking no thought for the morrow, is content to enjoy
the passing hour, captivated the imagination and furnished material
for numerous paintings. But the victorious Netherlanders not only
created for themselves a new field of pictorial matter, in which
national sentiment should find expression; the appropriate form of
expression was also provided. Though nearly all the Dutch painters
are great colourists, some indispensable attributes of the artistic
faculty are wholly wanting in them. The single figures lack ideal
grace, the groups do not conform to the architectonic rules. On
the other hand they know how to impart such an artistic charm by
means of colour alone, as effectually compensates for these defects.
The use of the word ‘compensate’, however, may mislead. It must
not be inferred that any particular means of expression can singly
avail in painting. The Italians are guided by established laws in
the disposal of individual figures, as well as in composition, and
rightly so; for these laws were the product of their particular cul-
ture and habits of mind. With equal right, however, the Dutch
painters framed for themselves rules for the guidance of their art
in harmony with national views and sentiments. It must not be
supposed that these Dutchmen, after they had carefully completed |