DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49256#0052
8
FTÆMISH SCHOOL.
the pictures which belonged to Cardinal Fesch, at Rome, a “ Crowning of Thorns,” in which
Jésus half divested of Iris raiment is ropresented within a military guard-house. lie is seated
on a stone, and bound with cords. “His long liair falls in disorder upon his shoulders, His
liead sinking upon His breast, slightly inclines to the right, and His looks cast down towards
the earth, express, like evcry feature of His face, a decp and resigned sorrow. Ail thc patience
of an insulted God, ail the courageous tenderness of a nian, breathe in that fine countonance
profoundly imprcssed with a mysterious melancholy in which the suffering soûl is ail poured
ont.” Thus speaks of this picture of Teniers’ an appreciator whose word may be taken on the
subject.* The pliability, however, which Teniers the younger bas evinced in this, and which lie
had already displaycd in his pasticcws, does not prevent him front having a character which is
pcrfectly his own, and which is easily recognised, not only by the shapo of onc of his pipes,
according to Greuze, but in the generally inartificial composition of his subjects, and amongst
amateurs by his touch
The touch of Teniers is very remarkable, and it is perhaps of ail his qualifies the most
characteristic. His délicate, transparent, and agrecable colouring, and his silvery tones, would
alone be no doubt sufficient to distinguish him from other pointers ; but in addition to those
excellences, his handling is so free, so light, and so easy, that it is by it that lie is principally
known. His manncr, moreover, appears so natural that we can scarcely suppose at first sight
that there is any other mode of painting than his. The conimon and academical method, which
consists in rubbing in the shadows and laying on the lights with a solid impasto1 is nowhere
practised so simply, so clearly, and with less trouble than in the pictures of Teniers, which
constitute true modcls of manipulation. Endowed with a sure judgment and a délicate feeling,
David Teniers knew always, while preserving his individuality of method, how to so vary his
touch according to the objects he represented as to give them solidity and reality when painting
objects of still life, and the actual appearance of vitality when painting animated beings. His
touch is therefore intelligent in the highest degree ; and if we find it so firm and applied with so
niuch decision and so free a hand, it is because he had reflected deeply, and that his pencil was
guided not by routine, but by au exquisite feeling of forai, of colour, and of the picturesque.
He knows that the ivory of a clarine t ought not to be touched like the glaze of a stoneware
pot ; that the polish of a cuirass or the refiections from kitchen utensils ought not to be treated
like a pimpled nose on the expansive visage of a country fiddler.
But there is a still more important peculiarity to remark in Teniers, which is his feeling for
aerial perspective. His eye was so true, that by the cffect alone of the gradation or strength of
his tints, of the softening or the firmness of his touch, calculated with rare précision, he made
objects advance or retire ; thus avoiding the necessity for a récurrence to those expédients, those
decided sacrifices, those cutting contrasts of light and shade, which no true artist need employ
unless, like Ribera, he reduces his artifices to such a System as to wear the aspect of genius
itself. To throw back, for instance, a figure drcssed in a gaudy colour, or to introduce a red
drapery into his background, Teniers lias no occasion to deaden it with a cloudy gray ; it is
enough for him to give a proper tint to this red,—that is, to iningle with it a just proportion of
that general air tone which learned connoisseurs call the vanishing tint, j-
But even in the absence of colour and of touch, and only looking at Teniers through the
medium of Lebas’ engravings, in which he is so delicately reproduced, this painter still continues
This picture, which would appear to be one of the capital works of Teniers, is minutely described by M. George,
111 his excellent Catalogue raisonné of the gallery of Cardinal Fesch. Rome, 1844.
f This also is the expression made use of by the learned M. Paillot, in his Traité complet de la Peinture, 10 vols.
8vo, with plates. Paris, 1825.
24
FTÆMISH SCHOOL.
the pictures which belonged to Cardinal Fesch, at Rome, a “ Crowning of Thorns,” in which
Jésus half divested of Iris raiment is ropresented within a military guard-house. lie is seated
on a stone, and bound with cords. “His long liair falls in disorder upon his shoulders, His
liead sinking upon His breast, slightly inclines to the right, and His looks cast down towards
the earth, express, like evcry feature of His face, a decp and resigned sorrow. Ail thc patience
of an insulted God, ail the courageous tenderness of a nian, breathe in that fine countonance
profoundly imprcssed with a mysterious melancholy in which the suffering soûl is ail poured
ont.” Thus speaks of this picture of Teniers’ an appreciator whose word may be taken on the
subject.* The pliability, however, which Teniers the younger bas evinced in this, and which lie
had already displaycd in his pasticcws, does not prevent him front having a character which is
pcrfectly his own, and which is easily recognised, not only by the shapo of onc of his pipes,
according to Greuze, but in the generally inartificial composition of his subjects, and amongst
amateurs by his touch
The touch of Teniers is very remarkable, and it is perhaps of ail his qualifies the most
characteristic. His délicate, transparent, and agrecable colouring, and his silvery tones, would
alone be no doubt sufficient to distinguish him from other pointers ; but in addition to those
excellences, his handling is so free, so light, and so easy, that it is by it that lie is principally
known. His manncr, moreover, appears so natural that we can scarcely suppose at first sight
that there is any other mode of painting than his. The conimon and academical method, which
consists in rubbing in the shadows and laying on the lights with a solid impasto1 is nowhere
practised so simply, so clearly, and with less trouble than in the pictures of Teniers, which
constitute true modcls of manipulation. Endowed with a sure judgment and a délicate feeling,
David Teniers knew always, while preserving his individuality of method, how to so vary his
touch according to the objects he represented as to give them solidity and reality when painting
objects of still life, and the actual appearance of vitality when painting animated beings. His
touch is therefore intelligent in the highest degree ; and if we find it so firm and applied with so
niuch decision and so free a hand, it is because he had reflected deeply, and that his pencil was
guided not by routine, but by au exquisite feeling of forai, of colour, and of the picturesque.
He knows that the ivory of a clarine t ought not to be touched like the glaze of a stoneware
pot ; that the polish of a cuirass or the refiections from kitchen utensils ought not to be treated
like a pimpled nose on the expansive visage of a country fiddler.
But there is a still more important peculiarity to remark in Teniers, which is his feeling for
aerial perspective. His eye was so true, that by the cffect alone of the gradation or strength of
his tints, of the softening or the firmness of his touch, calculated with rare précision, he made
objects advance or retire ; thus avoiding the necessity for a récurrence to those expédients, those
decided sacrifices, those cutting contrasts of light and shade, which no true artist need employ
unless, like Ribera, he reduces his artifices to such a System as to wear the aspect of genius
itself. To throw back, for instance, a figure drcssed in a gaudy colour, or to introduce a red
drapery into his background, Teniers lias no occasion to deaden it with a cloudy gray ; it is
enough for him to give a proper tint to this red,—that is, to iningle with it a just proportion of
that general air tone which learned connoisseurs call the vanishing tint, j-
But even in the absence of colour and of touch, and only looking at Teniers through the
medium of Lebas’ engravings, in which he is so delicately reproduced, this painter still continues
This picture, which would appear to be one of the capital works of Teniers, is minutely described by M. George,
111 his excellent Catalogue raisonné of the gallery of Cardinal Fesch. Rome, 1844.
f This also is the expression made use of by the learned M. Paillot, in his Traité complet de la Peinture, 10 vols.
8vo, with plates. Paris, 1825.
24