A Wanderer in Holland by E. V. (Edward Verrall) Lucas
page 44 of 321 (13%)
page 44 of 321 (13%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
superb, often united, as in the portrait of Dirck van der Waeijen at
Rotterdam, to a delicate charm for which Rembrandt cared little. His portrait of an astronomer in our National Gallery is a great work, and at the Ryks Museum at Amsterdam his "Roelof Meulenaer," No. 543, should not be missed. Bol's favourite sitter seems to have been Admiral de Ruyter--if one may judge by the number of his portraits of that sea ravener which Holland possesses. By a perversity of judgment Dort seems to be more proud of Ary Scheffer than of any of her really great sons. It is Ary Scheffer's statue--not Albert Cuyp's or Nicolas Maes's--which rises in the centre of the town; and Ary Scheffer's sentimental and saccharine inventions fill three rooms in the museum. It is amusing in the midst of this riot of meek romanticism to remember that Scheffer painted Carlyle. Dort has no right to be so intoxicated with the excitement of having given birth to Scheffer, for his father was a German, a mere sojourner in the Dutch town. The old museum of Dort has just been moved to a new building in the Lindengracht, and in honour of the event a loan exhibition of modern paintings and drawings was opened last summer. The exhibition gave peculiar opportunity for studying the work of G. H. Breitner, the painter of Amsterdam canals. The master of a fine sombre impressionism, Breitner has made such scenes his own. But he can do also more tender and subtle things. In this collection was a little oil sketch of a mere which would not have suffered had it been hung between a Corot and a Daubigny; and a water-colour drawing of a few cottages and a river that could not have been strengthened by any hand. Another artist of Dort was Jan Terween Aertz, born in 1511, |
|