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IN THE NETHERLANDS. lili
the new style of art. Pieter Brueghel the elder, or ‘Peasant Brueghel’
(ca. 1525-1569), the earliest representative of this race of paint-
ers, travelled in Italy for the purpose of studying art, but re-
mained faithful to the subjects and treatment of his native land.
His figures are of a purely Flemish type, while his delicate colour-
ing is content to reveal the study of nature in northern climes
alone. Of his two sons, Pieter or ‘Hell-fire’ Brueghel (1564-1638)
and Jan or ‘Velvet’ Brueghel (1568-1625), the latter, who acquir-
ed his surname from his partiality for wearing velvet, is the more
important. He acquired eminence not only in paying homage to
the widely-extended national taste for flower-pieces, but also by
his landscapes, which are distinguished for the tender bluish tone
of their middle distance and background (not, however, always
true to nature), and for the marvellous finish of detail in the small
figures occupying the foreground. The sons of the two brothers bore
the same Christian names as their fathers, followed the same pro-
fession, and perpetuated the manner of the Brueghels down to the
close of the 17th century.
All previous attainments, however, sink into insignificance beside
the extraordinary capacity displayed by the Flemish artists of the 17th
century. The eighty years’ revolt of the Dutch against Spanish oppres-
sion was at anend. Though bleeding from a thousand wounds, the
youthful Republic had triumphantly maintained itself, and con-
quered for itself virtual recognition. Two worlds separate and distinct
from one another were here compressed into their narrow confines.
In the still Spanish Netherlands, forming the Southern division,
the old régime in politics as in faith remained intact; in the States
General of Holland not only was a new form of government estab-
lished, but new political and economical views, and a new form of
faith, were in the ascendant. Both these worlds find in contemporary
art a clearly-defined expression. The art of Peter Paul Rubens
serves to glorify the ancient régime and the ancient faith, and was
by this means in effect assimilated to the art of Italy, and beguiled
by the mythological ideal. Dutch art, on the other hand, grew out
of the new life and the new faith, and thus reflects the provincialism
and civic pretensions which now became the characteristic features of
the body politic. Here the schools of Haarlem, The Hague, Leyden,
Delft, and Amsterdam, possess equal merit. Historical pictures are
superseded by portrait groups of the civic functionaries and rulers;
the veil of mystery is withdrawn from the representation of sacred
subjects, and, in its place, a bare matter-of-fact and modernized treat-
ment is introduced, in conformity with the Protestant views of the
{6th and 17th centuries, which regarded the Bible in a very different
light from the old Church. An historical notice of the condition
of national culture would not in itself serve to throw much light
on the relations of Flemish and Dutch painting of the 17th century,
but is, notwithstanding, not altogether superfluous. Such a study |