Dutch Art in the Nineteenth Century. Gerharda Hermina Marius

of painting pure and simple and l' Art pour l' art for once became a misplaced maxim.

      And then think of the makeshifts with which Pieneman had to content himself. Burdened by an early marriage, he painted his Quatre-Bras in a small upper-part in the Nes, where he had to roll up one half of his enormous canvas, crammed with life-size equestrian figures, in order to paint the other half He must have possessed a certain strength of will, a remarkable power of representation, to complete a work of this kind in circumstances such as these. And yet, though he was honoured in his time and distinguished by his sovereign, though he was socially esteemed and lived in "a stately house on a canal," though one may say of him that he was a great man in a slack time, he will never occupy a place in the ranks of our great painters nor even stand among our "little masters." His chief services to art were rendered as director of the Amsterdam Academy. Israëls describes him as an excellent drawing-master, thoroughly acquainted with the mathematics of the nude and unrivalled in the suggestion of an outline with a bit of chalk or charcoal. And it is certain that, as the master of Jozef Israëls, who drew for seven years under his guidance and never speaks of him other than with respect and esteem, he deserves an honourable place in the memory of us all.

       Nicolaas Pieneman, his son and pupil, was born at Amersfoort in 1810, died in 1860 and enjoyed - chiefly at the Hague, where he lived - an even greater favour than his father, thanks to his many portraits of the royal family. It is a pure delight to hear Jozef Israëls reply, when asked how the younger Pieneman painted:

      "Klaas Pieneman was a courtier; at an exhibition, he used to walk arm in arm with William the Third!"

      He had neither his father's temperament nor vigour and, possibly by way of a reaction against the latter's frequent want of polish, he painted in a soapy and feeble style, especially his royal portraits, which are smooth and insipid and devoid of all life. On the other hand, he must not be judged entirely by his royal portraits: the portrait of his father in the Rijksmuseum and a Head of a Man in the Municipal Museum of Amsterdam are better, although in these too he misses the naturalness that distinguished his father. And, if he had not that charming Portrait of a Child in the Fodor Museum standing to his credit, there would be little say about him but that he was greatly liked and lived in a fine house in the Hague. This portrait, however, places him in a different category and we will gladly forgive him his smooth official portraits for the sake of the great feeling in this little picture.

       The Surrender of Diepo Negoro - N. Pieneman (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)

       His contemporaries judged differently. Kramm writes:

      "It is a pleasure to me to be able to write a page in the history of art which greatly increases the fame of the Dutch school of painting of our own times. It concerns the brilliant talent of that celebrated painter, Nicolaas Pieneman, who has achieved an European reputation with his many famous master-pieces."

      He mentions a whole array of royal presents, of gold snuff-boxes richly adorned with brilliants and enamels, and enumerates an endless series of portraits of King William II., of the Crown-prince, afterwards William III., of the latter's sons the Princes William and Alexander, of Princess Sophie, of the suites of the King and the Crown-prince. Nicolaas Pieneman was the first painter to receive the Order of the Netherlands Lion; and it must be added that he was honoured not only in his own country, but also - or was it his royal models? - in Paris, for, at the International Exhibition of 1855, he was given the Legion of Honour for his life-size portrait of William III., in naval uniform, and of his royal father.

       Portrait of a Child - N. Pieneman (Fodor Museum, Amsterdam)

      Jean Augustin Daiwaille was born at Cologne in 1789 and, as a child, accompanied his parents to Holland, where he was educated for a painter by Adriaan de Lelie. Although his little genre-pieces met with considerable favour in their time, he was valued by his contemporaries mostly as a painter of portraits distinguished for their breadth of execution and their resemblance to the originals. He became director of the Amsterdam Academy of Plastic Arts and resigned his appointment in order to accompany an agent of the Dutch Trading Company to Brazil. Upon maturer consideration, he abandoned this plan and founded a lithographic establishment. Later, he settled at Rotterdam, where he occupied himself with portrait-painting until his death in 1850.

      There is a certain want of definiteness about this short biography by Immerzeel and it is repeated in the account of Daiwaille's pupil, Cornelis Kruseman, who is said to have learnt his broad brushwork from Hodges, whereas Daiwaille, who was never satisfied with his work and never succeeded in finishing it, is supposed to have taught him only how not to paint. However, it often happens that later generations pass a different judgment; and many will discover finer qualities in the hesitations of this painter and pastellist than in the work of his over-praised pupil. Daiwaille's Portrait of Himself in the Rijksmuseum confirms the first impression: it shows us the melancholy face of one whose nature was his own worst enemy. The modernity of the analysis is astonishing in the pale-blue eyes; and the whole face is painted with a sincerity which none but a sensitive character would offer. The Portrait of Himself at Boymans' Museum is a more pleasant picture; and the same museum contains his very dainty Portrait of a Woman, in pastel. His best portrait, however, is that of H. van Demmeltraadt.

       H. van Demmeltraadt - J. A. Daiwaille (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)

      Although Cornelis Kruseman dates back to the end of the eighteenth century (he was born in 1797 and died in 1854), he can hardly be considered a man of Jan Pieneman's generation. Not that the elder Kruseman helped Dutch painting forward: on the contrary, while Pieneman preserved, if not the artistic culture, at least the simplicity of the eighteenth century, Kruseman, endowed with less temperament, a greater desire for refinement and less vigour, displayed a hankering after more pronounced forms and, in the absence of a natural gift of colour, employed hard tones for his biblical or Italian subjects and, in general, turned the art of painting into an uncouth classicism.

      Meanwhile, it appears that Kruseman showed a decided aptitude for painting at a very early age; anyway, in 1819, he made a great success at an exhibition at the Hague with a picture representing a blind beggar, lighted by a paper lantern, whose appearance had always impressed him as he went down the Spui of an evening. People thought that they had found a Dou, a Schalcken Redivivus; and he received many orders for candle-light effects, all of which he refused, because it was not his object in life to imitate candle-light and he took no pleasure in such things. He strove to express the loftier matters in human nature and he felt offended that it had not been recognized at once that he had painted this picture only because of the venerable head of the beggar. He aimed further than the Dutch genre-painters, whose manner he considered insignificant and undignified. This was the time when David was decking out his heroes in the form and garb of antiquity; it was also the time when Italy was regarded as the land of promise, as the cradle of art and when Raphael's smooth outlines were held to possess a distinction by comparison with which Rembrandt was often considered vulgar: an opinion shared by some of the younger literary men until as late as 1880.

       Christ with Martha and Mary - Cornelis Kruseman (The property of Mrs. Labouchère, Zeist)

       In 1821, Kruseman went viâ Paris to Italy, stayed three years in Rome and came back confirmed in his predilections. He began by painting biblical subjects and Roman peasants, the latter supplying him with the classical models which he had sought in vain in his own country. Nevertheless, he sacrificed himself in his turn to the national enthusiasm which had made the elder Pieneman the history-painter of Quatre-Bras and Waterloo and which drove Kruseman to paint a later episode: H. R. H. the Prince of Orange at the moment