DOI Kapitel:
David Teniers The Younger
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62914#0294
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DAVID TENIERS.
of Icarus: although the subjects just noticed must
have cost him infinitely more time and labour than his
usual pictures, they are of much less value in public
estimation. There is yet one branch of the art in which
the versatile genius of this artist manifested itself with
admirable success, namely, in pasticci, or imitations of
the Italian masters, chiefly those of the Venetian school.
In this endeavour he seems to have taken a peculiar
delight, having left many examples in the style of
Titian, Bassan, Tintoretto, and Giorgione. These pos-
sess much of the breadth of handling, richness of colour,
and force of effect peculiar to the works of those mas-
ters ; their principal deficiency is in expression, and in
this may be traced their Flemish origin. The Writer
has taken considerable pains to ascertain, identify, and
authenticate the early works of this master ; and, so far
as he has been able to learn, they invariably partake of
a brown tone of colour ; and such appear to have been
painted previously to his 30th year, about which period
he gradually quitted these predominant brown tints, and
adopted a much more clear, and what is termed silvery
manner of colouring. Many of his finest works are
dated 1647. In his latter time his handling became
feeble and tremulous, and his colouring less transparent,
with a tendency to a yellow brown. The vehicle, or
medium, used by him, in painting, was evidently of the
same kind as that with which Rubens, Breughel, and
other artists of that school worked; and, whatever this
medium may have been, it is plain that it possessed two
very important qualities, namely, of giving transparency
to the colours, and being a convenient texture for its
application ; for nothing short of these, in conjunction
DAVID TENIERS.
of Icarus: although the subjects just noticed must
have cost him infinitely more time and labour than his
usual pictures, they are of much less value in public
estimation. There is yet one branch of the art in which
the versatile genius of this artist manifested itself with
admirable success, namely, in pasticci, or imitations of
the Italian masters, chiefly those of the Venetian school.
In this endeavour he seems to have taken a peculiar
delight, having left many examples in the style of
Titian, Bassan, Tintoretto, and Giorgione. These pos-
sess much of the breadth of handling, richness of colour,
and force of effect peculiar to the works of those mas-
ters ; their principal deficiency is in expression, and in
this may be traced their Flemish origin. The Writer
has taken considerable pains to ascertain, identify, and
authenticate the early works of this master ; and, so far
as he has been able to learn, they invariably partake of
a brown tone of colour ; and such appear to have been
painted previously to his 30th year, about which period
he gradually quitted these predominant brown tints, and
adopted a much more clear, and what is termed silvery
manner of colouring. Many of his finest works are
dated 1647. In his latter time his handling became
feeble and tremulous, and his colouring less transparent,
with a tendency to a yellow brown. The vehicle, or
medium, used by him, in painting, was evidently of the
same kind as that with which Rubens, Breughel, and
other artists of that school worked; and, whatever this
medium may have been, it is plain that it possessed two
very important qualities, namely, of giving transparency
to the colours, and being a convenient texture for its
application ; for nothing short of these, in conjunction