International studio (49.1913)

Dutch Pictures for South Africa

human character registers itself whilst he is
perhaps far more consciously bent upon the
expression of mere shape and colour. All this is
at the very root of the success of the Impressionist
movement.
If modern painters are, after all the refinements
to which, with art for art’s sake, they have subjected
their methods, once again looking back to the dream
of making “subject-pictures” it is because in fore-
going everything for technical refinements, art has,
so to speak, gone round after its own tail. Success-
ful expression in art makes us think, and it makes
us think of everything except itself.
In the light of its bearing upon the aims of
modern artists we have allowed ourselves to dwell
thus lengthily upon the influences that begin with
Hals and his school and flow into the varied
sensibility of modern painting. If we had space
there might be shown too the counter-movement
beginning with ancient classic art, never leading on
to this modern art-—which begins in Holland—this
instinctive, emotional if often merely sentimental
art, but opposing it with intellectualism, unim-
passioned correctness, and scorn of the theatricali-
ties of chiaroscuro.
The illustrations of this article represent various
branches of Dutch art which grew out from the
central influence of Hals and Rembrandt. Among
other notable features of the collection must be
mentioned the portrait of the Count of Sodremore
by Van Dyck; a portrait
of Govaert Flinck by him¬
self ; Lady at a Foun¬
tain by Caspar Netscher;
the portrait of A Lady
in grey and red by N.
Maes included among our
illustrations (p. 275); a
portrait of A Man holding
a Glove by Verspronck
(p. 276); a subject paint¬
ing, The Taxidermist, by
Aert de Gelder (p. 277);
a large painting of birds,
A Concert of Birds, by
Frans Snyders, a highly
remarkable work show¬
ing the great painter of
feathered life and ex¬
quisite colourist at his
best (the companion pic¬
ture to this one is in the
Kaiser’s collection at Ber¬
lin) ; a subject painting,
278

A Cat attacking poultry, by Hondecoeter (below) ;
an interior painting, Lnterior of a Church, by
Houckgest (p. 272); an interior painting with figures,
A Musical Party, by Dirk Hals, brother and
pupil of Frans Hals (p. 271); further a delightful
sea-piece by Dubbels ; a flower-piece by Cornells
de Heem ; a portrait by Pieter Nason ; and an
exterior scene by Jan Steen, The Dancing Dog,
formerly in the Poullain collection and illustrated
in Dr. Breduis’s book on “Jan Steen,” the fiddler
in this picture being a portrait of the artist. There
is a very beautiful painting of the interior of the
Oude Kerk at Delft, painted with the peculiar
subtlety that is only characteristic of artists who
have painted for a life-time, signed J. Vermeer,
1651. As the Vermeer was but nineteen at that
date the question arises—was there another
Vermeer with the same initial?
The painters represented in our illustrations all
lived and died in the seventeenth century, except
de Gelder, who died in 1727.
The Max Michaelis gift in all amounts to nearly
fifty pictures, the Hals, the Rembrandt, the re-
markable still-life pieces, alone being priceless
treasures which any gallery should be proud to
possess, while their still more unique value to the
National Gallery of Cape Town has been hinted
at in this article. Before the works leave England
they will be exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery
from May 23 to June 11. T. M. W.




“a cat attacking poultry”

BY MELCHIOR D’HONDECOETER