Pictures Every Child Should Know Part 18

The first baby girl died and on the birth of another daughter she too was named Cornelia, but that baby girl also died, and next came a son, t.i.tus, named for Saskia's sister, t.i.tia, and then Saskia died. Thus Rembrandt knew the deepest sorrow of his life.

He painted her portrait once again from memory, and that picture is quite unlike the others for it is no longer full of glowing life, but daintier, suggestive of a more spiritual life, as if she were growing fragile.

It is written that "from this time, while he did much remarkable work, he seemed like a man on a mountain top, looking on one side to sweet meadows filled with flowers and sunlight, and on the other to a desolate landscape over which a clouded sun is setting." With Saskia died the best of Rembrandt. He made only one more portrait of himself--before this he had made many; and in it he makes himself appear a stern and fateful man. It was after Saskia's death that he painted the "Night Watch," or more properly, "The Sortie."

Rembrandt's home, where he and Saskia were so happy, is still to be seen on a quay of the River Amstel. It is a house of brick and cut stone, four stories high. The vestibule used to have a flag-stone pavement covered with fir-wood. There were also "black-cus.h.i.+oned, Spanish chairs for those who wait," and all about were twenty-four busts and paintings. There was an ante-chamber, very large, with seven Spanish chairs covered with green velvet, and a walnut table covered with "a Tournay cloth"; there was a mirror with an ebony frame, and near by a marble wine-cooler. Upon the wall of this _salon_ were thirty-nine pictures and most of them had beautiful frames. "There were religious scenes, landscapes, architectural sketches, works of Pinas, Brouwer, Lucas van Leyden, and other Dutch masters; sixteen pictures by Rembrandt; and costly paintings by Palma Vecchio, Ba.s.sano, and Raphael."

In the next room was a real art museum, containing splendid pictures, an oaken press and other things which suggest that this was the workroom where Rembrandt's etchings were made and printed.

In the drawing-room was a huge mirror, a great oaken table covered with a rich embroidered cloth, "six chairs with blue coverings, a bed with blue hangings, a cedar wardrobe, and a chest of the same wood."

The walls were literally covered with pictures, among which was a Raphael.

Above was a sort of museum and Rembrandt's studio. There was rare gla.s.s from Venice, busts, sketches, paintings, cloths, weapons, armour, plants, stuffed birds and sh.e.l.ls, fans, and books and globes. In short, this was a most wonderful house and no other interior can we reconstruct as we can this, because no other such detailed inventory can be found of a great man's effects as that from which these notes are taken: a legal inventory made in 1656, long after Saskia had died and possibly at a time when Rembrandt wished to close his doors forever and forget the scenes in which he had been so happy.

Holland being truly a Protestant country, its artists have given us no great Madonna pictures, although they painted loving, happy Dutch mothers and little babes, but on the whole their subjects are quite different from those of the painters of Italy, France, and Spain.

Rembrandt's studio was different from any other. When he first began to work independently and to have pupils, he fitted it up with many little cells, properly lighted, so that each student might work alone, as he knew far better work could be done in that way. It is said that his pictures of beggars would, by themselves, fill a gallery. He had a kindly sympathy for the poor and unfortunate, and tramps knew this, so that they swarmed about his studio doors, trying to get sittings.

There is a story which doubtless had for its germ a joke regarding the slowness of an errand boy in a friend's household, but which at the same time shows us how rapidly Rembrandt worked. The artist had been carried off to the country to lunch with his friend Jan Six, and as they sat down at the table, Six discovered there was no mustard. He sent his boy, Hans, for it, and as the boy went out, Rembrandt wagered that he could make an etching before the boy got back. Six took the wager, and the artist pulled a copper plate from his pocket--he always carried one--and on its waxed surface began to etch the landscape before him. Just as Hans returned, Rembrandt gleefully handed Six the completed picture.

He was a great portrait painter, but he loved certain effects of shadow so well that he often sacrificed his subject's good looks to his artistic purpose, and very naturally his sitters became displeased, so that in time he had fewer commissions than if he had been entirely accommodating.

His meals in working time were very simple, often just bread and cheese, eaten while sitting at his easel, and after Saskia died he became more and more careless of all domestic details.

Rembrandt finally married again, the second time choosing his housekeeper, a good and helpful woman, who was properly bringing up his little son, and making life better ordered for the artist, but he had grown poor by this time for he was never a very good business man. His beautiful house was at last sold to a rich shoemaker. Every picture latterly reflected his condition and mood. He chose subjects in which he imagined himself always to be the actor, and when his second wife died he painted a picture of "Youth Surprised by Death"; he had not long to live. He became more and more melancholy; and sleeping by day, would wander about the country at night, disconsolate and sad. Finally, when he died, an inventory of his effects, showed him to be possessed of only a few old woollen clothes and his brushes The miracle in Rembrandt's painting is the deep, impenetrable shadow, in which nevertheless one can see form and outline, punctuated with wonderful explosions of light. Nothing like it has ever been seen. It is the most dramatic work in the world, and the most powerful in its effect. Other men have painted light and colour; Rembrandt makes gloom and shadow living things.

This miracle-worker's funeral cost ten dollars; he died in Amsterdam and was buried in the Wester Kirk.

PLATE--THE SORTIE

This picture is generally known as "The Night Watch," but it is really "The Sortie" of a company of musketeers under the command of a standard bearer. Captain Frans Banning-c.o.c.k and all his company were to pay Rembrandt for painting their portraits in a group and in action, and they expected to see themselves in heroic and picturesque dress, in the full blaze of day, but Rembrandt had found a magnificent subject for his wonderful shadows, and the artist was not going to sacrifice it to the vanity of the archers.

This picture was called the "Patrouille de Nuit," by the French and the "Night Watch," by Sir Joshua Reynolds because upon its discovery the picture was so dimmed and defaced by time that it was almost indistinguishable and it looked quite like a night scene. After it was cleaned up, it was discovered to represent broad day--a party of archers stepping from a gloomy courtyard into the blinding sunlight. "How this different light is painted, which encircles the figures, here sunny, there gloomy!... Rembrandt runs through the entire range of his colours, from the lightest yellow through all shades of light and dark red to the gloomiest black." One writer describes it thus: "It is more than a picture; it is a spectacle, and an amazing one... A great crowd of human figures, a great light, a great darkness--at the first glance this is what strikes you, and for a moment you know not where to fix your eyes in order to comprehend that grand and splendid confusion... There are officers, halberdiers, boys running, arquebusiers loading and firing, youths beating drums, people bowing talking, calling out, gesticulating--all dressed in different costumes, with round hats, plumes, casques, morions, iron corgets, linen collars, doublets embroidered with gold, great boots, stockings of all colours, arms of every form; and all this tumultuous and glittering throng start out from the dark background of the picture and advance toward the spectator. The two first personages are Frans Banning-c.o.c.k, Lord of Furmerland and Ilpendam, captain of the company, and his lieutenant, Willem van Ruijtenberg, Lord of Vlaardingen, the two marching side by side. The only figures that are in full light are this lieutenant, dressed in a doublet of buffalo-hide, with gold ornaments, scarf, gorget, and white plume, with high boots, and a girl who comes behind, with blond hair ornamented with pearls, and a yellow satin dress; all the other figures are in deep shadow, excepting the heads, which are illuminated. By what light? Here is the enigma. Is it the light of the sun? or of the moon? or of the torches? There are gleams of gold and silver, moonlight coloured reflections, fiery lights; personages which, like the girl with blond tresses, seem to s.h.i.+ne by a light of their own.... The more you look at it, the more it is alive and glowing; and, even seen only at a glance, it remains forever in the memory, with all its mystery and splendour, like a stupendous vision."

Charles Blanc has said: "To tell the truth, this is only a dream of night, and no one can decide what the light is that falls on the groups of figures. It is neither the light of the sun or of the moon, nor does it come from the torches; it is rather the light from the genius of Rembrandt."

This wonderful picture was painted in 1642 and many of the archer's guild who gave Rembrandt the commission would not pay their share because their faces were not plainly seen. This picture which alone was enough to make him immortal, was the very last commission that any of the guilds were willing to give the artist, because he would not make their portraits beautiful or fine looking to the disadvantage of the whole picture. This work hangs in the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam. He painted more than six hundred and twenty-five pictures and some of them are: "The Anatomy Lesson," "The Syndics of the Cloth Hall," "The Descent from the Cross," "Samson Threatening His Step Father," "The Money Changer," "Holy Family," "The Presentation of Christ in the Temple," "The Marriage of Samson," "The Rape of Ganymede," "Susanna and the Elders," "Manoah's Sacrifice," "The Storm," "The Good Samaritan," "Pilate Was.h.i.+ng His Hands," "Ecce Home,"

and pictures of his wife, Saskia.

x.x.xIV

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS

_English School_ 1723-1792 _Pupil of Thomas Hudson_

When Reynolds was "little Josh," instead of "Sir Joshua" he grew tired in church one day, and sketched upon the nail of his thumb the portrait of the Rev. Mr. Smart who was preaching. After service he ran to a boat-house near, and with s.h.i.+p's paint, upon an old piece of sail, he painted in full and flowing colours that reverend gentleman's portrait. After that there was not the least possible excuse for his father to deny him the right to become an artist.

The father himself was a clergyman with a good education, and he had meant that his son should also be well educated and become a physician; but a lad who at eight years of age can draw the Plympton school house--he was born at Plympton Earl, in Devons.h.i.+re--has a right to choose his own profession.

At twenty-three years of age Sir Joshua was painting the portraits of great folk, and being well paid for it, as well as lavishly praised. His first real sorrow came at a Christmas time when he was summoned home from London where he was working, to his father's deathbed.

After that the artist turned his thoughts toward Italy, but where was the money to come from? Earning a living did not include travelling expenses, but a good friend, Captain Keppel, was going out to treat with the Dey of Algiers about his piracies, and learning that the artist wished to go to Italy he invited him to go with him on his own s.h.i.+p, the _Centurion._ So while the captain was discussing pirates with the dey, Sir Joshua stopped with the Governor of Minorca and painted many of the people of that locality. Thence on to Rome!

Strange to say, Raphael's pictures disappointed the English artist, and he said so; but Michael Angelo was to Reynolds the most wonderful of painters, and he said that his pictures influenced him all the rest of his life. He wished his name to be the last upon his lips, and while that was not so, yet it was the last he p.r.o.nounced to his fellow Academicians in his final address.

It was in Italy that a distressing misfortune came upon Sir Joshua. He meant to learn all that a man could learn in a given time of the art treasures there, and while he was working in a draughty corridor of the Vatican, he caught a severe cold which rendered him deaf. He continued deaf till the end of his life and had to use an ear-trumpet when people talked with him.

When he got back to England, Hudson, his old master, said discouragingly: "Reynolds, you don't paint as well as when you left England." On the whole his reception at home, after his long absence, was not all that he could have wished, but he took a place in Leicester Square, settled down to live there for the rest of his life, and went at painting in earnest.

Although artists criticised him more or less after his return, the public appreciated him and very soon orders for portraits began to pour in upon him, and the flow of wealth never ceased so long as he lived. It was said that all the fas.h.i.+onables came to him that did not go to Gainsborough, but those who were partial to Sir Joshua declared that all who could not go to him went to Gainsborough. The two great artists controlled the art world in their time, dividing honours about equally. It was said that all those women and men sat to Sir Joshua for portraits "who wished to be transmitted as angels... and who wished to appear as heroes or philosophers."

Sir Joshua was a charming man, generous in feeling--as Gainsborough was not--and his closest friend was Dr. Johnson, the most different man from the artist imaginable, but Reynolds's art and Johnson's philosophy made a fine combination, each giving the other great pleasure. Besides Johnson, his friends were Goldsmith, Garrick, Bishop Percy, and other famous men of the time. These and others formed the "Literary Club" at Sir Joshua's suggestion. About that time there was the first public exhibition of the work of English artists, and Sir Benjamin West and Sir Joshua Reynolds built the Royal Academy for that first exhibition, with the help of King George's patronage. Joshua Reynolds was knighted when he was made the first president of that great body.

Soon after the Academy was established, Reynolds began a series of "discourses," which in time became famous for their splendid literary quality, and some people, knowing his close friends.h.i.+p with Burke and Dr. Johnson, declared that the artist got one of them to write his "discourses" for him. This threw Johnson and Burke into a fury of resentment for their friend, and the doctor declared indignantly that "Sir Joshua would as soon get me to paint for him as to write for him!" Burke denied the story no less emphatically. Besides these speeches, which were a great advantage to the members of the Academy, Sir Joshua inst.i.tuted the annual banquet to the members, and King George--who just before had given the commission of court painter to one less talented than Sir Joshua--bade him paint his portrait and the queen's, to hang in the Academy. This was a great thing for the new society and advanced its fortunes very much.

Barry and Gainsborough were both churlish enough to envy Sir Joshua and to quarrel with his good feeling for them, but both men had the grace to be sorry for behaviour that had no excuse, and both made friends with him before they died--Gainsborough on his death-bed.

Toward his last days the artist was attacked with paralysis, but grew better and was able to paint again; then he began to go blind--he was already deaf--and this affliction made painting impossible. Shortly before his death, he undertook to raise funds for a monument to his dead friend, Dr. Johnson, but he grew more and more ill, "and on the 23d February, 1792, this great artist and blameless gentleman pa.s.sed peacefully away."

That he was very painstaking in his work is shown by an anecdote about his infant "Hercules." "How did you paint that part of the picture?"

some one asked him. "How can I tell! There are ten pictures below this, some better, some worse"--showing that in his desire for perfection he painted and repainted.

So untiring was he in seeking out the secrets of the old masters that he bought works of t.i.tian and Rubens, and sc.r.a.ped them, to learn their methods, insisting that they had some secret underlying their work. So anxious was he to get the most brilliant effects of colours that he mixed his paints with asphaltum, egg, varnish, wax, and the like, till one artist said: "The wonder is that the picture did not crack beneath the brush." Many of these great pictures did go to pieces because of the chances Sir Joshua took in mixing things that did not belong together, in order to make wonderful results.

Sir George Beaumont recommended a friend to go to Reynolds for his portrait and the friend demurred, because "his colours fade and his pictures die before the man."

"Never mind that!" Sir George declared; "a faded portrait by Reynolds is better than a fresh one by anybody else."

The same tender, sensitive and devoted nature which caused Sir Joshua's mother to weep herself blind upon her husband's death, belonged to the artist. All of his life he was surrounded by loving friends, and his devotion to them was conspicuous. He, like Drer and several other painters, was a seventh son, and his father's disappointment was keen when he took to art instead of to medicine. So little did his father realise what his future might be, that he wrote under the sketch of a wall with a window in it, drawn upon a Latin exercise book: "This is drawn by Joshua in school, out of pure idleness."

But by the time Joshua was eight years old and had drawn a fine "sketch of the grammar-school with its cloister... the astonished father said: 'Now, this exemplifies what the author of "perspective"

says in his preface: "that, by observing the rules laid down in this book, a man may do wonders"--for this is wonderful.'"

Sir Joshua laid down--even wrote out--a great many rules of conduct for himself. Some of these were: "The great principle of being happy in this world is not to mind or be affected with small things." Also: "If you take too much care of yourself, nature will cease to take care of you."

When Samuel Reynolds, Joshua's father, consulted with his friend Mr. Craunch, as to whether a boy who made wonderful paintings at twelve years of age, would be likely to be a successful apothecary, he told Craunch that Joshua himself had declared that he would rather be a good apothecary than a poor artist, but if he could be bound to a good master of painting he would prefer that above everything in the world. This was how he came to be apprenticed to Hudson, the painter. Young Reynolds's sister paid for his instruction at first--or for half of it, with the understanding that Reynolds was to pay her back when he was earning. At that time Reynolds wrote to his father: "While I am doing this I am the happiest creature alive."

One day, while in an art store, buying something for Hudson, Reynolds saw Alexander Pope, the poet, come in, and every one bowed to him and made way for him as if for a prince. Pope shook hands with young Reynolds, and in writing home, describing the poet, the artist said that he was "about four feet six inches high; very humpbacked and deformed. He wore a black coat and according to the fas.h.i.+on of that time, had on a little sword. He had a large and very fine eye, and a long handsome nose; his mouth had those peculiar marks which are always found in the mouths of crooked persons, and the muscles which run across the cheeks were so strongly marked that they seemed like small cords." This is a masterly description of one famous man by another.

He finally was dismissed from his master's studio on the ground that he had neglected to carry a picture to its owner at the time set by Hudson, but the fact was the older artist had become jealous of the work of his pupil, and would no longer have him in his studio.

Afterwards, while he was painting down in Devons.h.i.+re--thirty portraits of country squires for fifteen dollars apiece--he said: "Those who are determined to excel must go to their work whether willing or unwilling, morning, noon, and night, and they will find it to be no play, but, on the contrary, very hard labour." This shows that Reynolds's idea of genius was "an infinite capacity for hard work."

While Reynolds was on his memorable journey to Rome, he made several volumes of notes about the pictures of great Italian artists--Raphael, t.i.tian, etc. And one of those volumes is in the Lenox Library, New York City. He made a most characteristic and delightful remark in regard to his disappointment in Raphael's pictures. "I did not for a moment conceive or suppose that the name of Raphael, and those admirable paintings in particular, owed their reputation to the _ignorance_ ... of mankind; on the contrary, my not relis.h.i.+ng them, as I was conscious I ought to have done was one of the most humiliating things that ever happened to me."