DOI article:
Wood, T. Martin: The gift of Dutch pictures to South Africa
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43452#0287
Diet ch Pictures for South Africa
tion of the Dutch revelation, with its substantiality
of form which cannot be blown away, and its
simplicity of style.
It is the sensibility of the Dutch and Flemish
artists that is generally overlooked. It is not always
remembered that the mirror-like qualities of their
art represents this sensibility. In their still-life
pieces we only see one aspect of it, it shows itself
more profoundly in a portrait by Rembrandt—in a
receptiveness of attitude on his part towards what-
ever may have been stirring in the mind of his sitter,
which in his own time was absolutely new to art. It
is less sensitive in Hals, but Hals’s eager interest in
his sitter is something to contrast with everything
that preceded it. In a Hals portrait it is Hals
himself who disappears in the revelation of human
character, whereas in all Italian portraiture the
portrait painter seems to stand beside his work
and we are conscious of his artistic personality all
the time. However great the picture, its greatness
is not of that particular kind which excludes from
the mind of the spectator all sense
that the creation has had an artist
creator. Perhaps it is just here
that the long-sought-for distinction
between realistic and idealistic art
could be found. All realism is
impersonal. And if, as in the case
of Hals, the impersonal artist and
his art are sometimes forgotten for
several generations, it is because,
while successful in challenging
reality, his art fails to introduce
that contrast with reality—that ad-
ditional real thing which it is the
privilege of the highest creation to
add to what is already in the
world.
In art the word “ interpretation ”
can be used in a wider or narrower
sense. We have shown the inter¬
pretation the Dutch school put
upon life in the wider sense, but
there is the narrower use of the
the word as it applies to technical
methods employed by the painter in
translating the scene before him.
Hals’s method of interpretation
provides us with the prototype of
the modern impressionist method,
and it was from this fact, and as
the discovery of later artists—and
only afterwards of connoisseurs—
that Hals’s genius was recognised
276
after a long period of oblivion. There is always', of
course, the closest inter-dependence between style
and intention in art, but the most significant in-
tentions of artists may often be almost unconscious.
We are often inclined to credit artistic results with
being more intentional than they really were. Thus
Hals’s method, which is almost entirely the result of
reason and logic when applied again by a Sargent,
was with Hals instinctive, and we might almost say
immoral in its anxiety to arrive at results satisfactory
to an exacting sitter, with the minimum of expendi-
ture of time to Hals. He arrived at breadth of style
less by intention than through the embarrassment
of over-employment. He found the only way
which while meeting the necessity for rapid
spontaneous work did not fail in the expression of
that refinement of vision which was his artist’s
birthright. An Impressionist, which Hals was,
cannot fail to include in his Impression everything
in the order and in the exact degree to which it
impressed him; and Hals’s impressionableness to
PORTRAIT OF A MAN HOLDING A GLOVE
BY JAN VERSPRONCK
tion of the Dutch revelation, with its substantiality
of form which cannot be blown away, and its
simplicity of style.
It is the sensibility of the Dutch and Flemish
artists that is generally overlooked. It is not always
remembered that the mirror-like qualities of their
art represents this sensibility. In their still-life
pieces we only see one aspect of it, it shows itself
more profoundly in a portrait by Rembrandt—in a
receptiveness of attitude on his part towards what-
ever may have been stirring in the mind of his sitter,
which in his own time was absolutely new to art. It
is less sensitive in Hals, but Hals’s eager interest in
his sitter is something to contrast with everything
that preceded it. In a Hals portrait it is Hals
himself who disappears in the revelation of human
character, whereas in all Italian portraiture the
portrait painter seems to stand beside his work
and we are conscious of his artistic personality all
the time. However great the picture, its greatness
is not of that particular kind which excludes from
the mind of the spectator all sense
that the creation has had an artist
creator. Perhaps it is just here
that the long-sought-for distinction
between realistic and idealistic art
could be found. All realism is
impersonal. And if, as in the case
of Hals, the impersonal artist and
his art are sometimes forgotten for
several generations, it is because,
while successful in challenging
reality, his art fails to introduce
that contrast with reality—that ad-
ditional real thing which it is the
privilege of the highest creation to
add to what is already in the
world.
In art the word “ interpretation ”
can be used in a wider or narrower
sense. We have shown the inter¬
pretation the Dutch school put
upon life in the wider sense, but
there is the narrower use of the
the word as it applies to technical
methods employed by the painter in
translating the scene before him.
Hals’s method of interpretation
provides us with the prototype of
the modern impressionist method,
and it was from this fact, and as
the discovery of later artists—and
only afterwards of connoisseurs—
that Hals’s genius was recognised
276
after a long period of oblivion. There is always', of
course, the closest inter-dependence between style
and intention in art, but the most significant in-
tentions of artists may often be almost unconscious.
We are often inclined to credit artistic results with
being more intentional than they really were. Thus
Hals’s method, which is almost entirely the result of
reason and logic when applied again by a Sargent,
was with Hals instinctive, and we might almost say
immoral in its anxiety to arrive at results satisfactory
to an exacting sitter, with the minimum of expendi-
ture of time to Hals. He arrived at breadth of style
less by intention than through the embarrassment
of over-employment. He found the only way
which while meeting the necessity for rapid
spontaneous work did not fail in the expression of
that refinement of vision which was his artist’s
birthright. An Impressionist, which Hals was,
cannot fail to include in his Impression everything
in the order and in the exact degree to which it
impressed him; and Hals’s impressionableness to
PORTRAIT OF A MAN HOLDING A GLOVE
BY JAN VERSPRONCK