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have attended him; but he spurned these advantages, and preferred low associates as more congenial to his notions of freedom and independence. His subjects, therefore, are boors drinking, smoking, or quarrelling, and in the last he exhibits the most ungovernable expressions of diabolical malice and ferocity. When he rose to subjects of a somewhat higher grade, it was to represent the shop of a barber surgeon operating on a wounded boor, carried thither, probably, from a scuffle which the painter had previously witnessed, and the contortions of the patient are as disgustingly ludicrous as the villanous denotements in the former were horrible to the sense of humanity; soldiers gaming also supplied him with materials and characters with which he could sympathize. But however low in the scale of humanity were his actors, he made the scene, as a work of art, admirable in the eye of a connoisseur. The design, composition, and colouring, approach perfection; in colouring he is not surpassed by any of his class in purity and transparency; and the freedom of his penciling has ever been an object of commendation with the most competent judges. His style of painting is neither strictly Dutch nor Flemish; it fluctuates between Ostade and Teniers, with a strong assimilation to the latter, so much so indeed that many confound the masters: the amateur may be told that there is more of caricature in the expressions of Brauwer than in those of Teniers. The pictures of Brauwer are not numerous, and consequently those that are not obnoxious to censure for vulgarity, and on which he bestowed care in the finishing, command high prices, and are proudly regarded in all select cabinets of Dutch and Flemish productions.

It is painful to dwell on the errors of a man of genius, and in the short life of Brauwer there is nothing recorded to extenuate his errors, save that of his early poverty, the brutality and the evil example of his first master. He quitted the princely mansion of the generous Rubens, went to France, wandered from place to place for some time, then returned to Antwerp, and died in the public hospital, at the age of thirty-two years. He was buried, as an unknown, in an obscure manner; but his body, by the care of Rubens, was afterwards removed and interred in the church of the Carmelites.

SCHOLAR OF ADRIAN BRAUWER.

JOSSE CRAESBECKE, born at Brussels in 1608, became a painter at the age of thirty, by forming an intimacy with Brauwer; he was previously a baker. Brauwer instructed him in the art, and he adopted his master's subjects and manner of painting, with increased vulgarity in the one, and visible inferiority in the other. Still, some of his pictures show considerable talent in the execution, and would be admissible, as works of art, into good collections, were they not inhibited for their grossness. He died in 1668.

JAN STEEN.

WALTER SCOTT has bestowed an epithet on DRYDEN well suited to his character, both as a poet and a writer of prose; he styles him " Glorious John." The same distinctive title is equally applicable to this painter, who has treated every subject, elevated or debased, that occurs in the ordinary course of life, in a manner that shows his thorough acquaintance with human nature, and the working of those propensities by which most of the species are actuated. Glorious Jan is not

a stern moralist, he is the merry laughing satirist; he depicts vicious habits in old or young with ludicrous solemnity, sly allusions, or humorous jocosity. But his laugh is reproving; he "shows vice her own image," and with apparently careless merriment intimates the consequences of indulgence. Jan is superior to all the painters of his class in the variety of his characters, which are as different in countenances as they are in dispositions; he draws each to the life, so that a physiognomist may decide the ruling passion. Jan sometimes attempted history, sacred or profane, and introduced men and women, such as they always are, to tell the story; but by disregarding ancient manners and national costume, and by modern habits and decorations, some droll buffoonery or improper action, he destroyed the dignity of the subject and made it ridiculous: Jan was an observer of human nature, not an antiquary. In the composition of his pictures he may be deemed faultless; if he errs it is by exuberance, and from a desire to diversify his characters by

shades of difference. His drawing is correct, his colouring clean, rich, and transparent; every part is carefully attended to, and all executed with the most perfect freedom of penciling. He was born at Leyden in 1636, and died in 1689.

Smith's Catalogue Raisonné, vol. iv. and Supplement, contains descriptions of more than three hundred pictures by him, many of them with numerous figures, and almost all painted with artistic care and a firm pencil; when these descriptions are perused, the scandalous anecdotes of his general habits can hardly be credited. Constant drunkenness would have induced tremulousness of hand, and destroyed acuteness of observation, indolence would have taken possession of body and mind, poverty would have been the result; and where then would have been the means for gratifying sensual indulgences, such as he has been charged with ?-Three hundred such pictures, painted in about thirty years, (supposing he commenced at twenty,) negatives the idea of an habitual drunkard and follower of dissolute courses. It may rather be apprehended that the compilers and retailers of the scandalous anecdotes took his character from the subjects of his pictures, imagining that he must have been a participator in the scenes he represented so truly; with such, Shakspeare would have been a Richard the Third, a Macbeth, or an Iago.

ANALOGISTS OF JAN STEEN.

It is with hesitation that the following painters are introduced as even analogists of Jan Steen, but others have noticed them as imitators, if not scholars, of that great artist. It can only be in the subjects, such as drunken revels, and the pastimes of boors, which he sometimes painted, that they at all resemble him; their style and characters are totally different. This is not intended to depreciate them as painters, for they are good of their class, but they are not Jan Steens nor Adrian Ostades.

RENIER BRAKENBURG, born at Haerlem in 1650, painted interiors with figures, villagers merry-making, boors drinking, smoking, or otherwise amusing themselves. He had a bold pencil, was a good colourist, gave a lively character to his figures, and a degree of finish that renders them very pleasing. His interiors show that he understood well the

principles of light and shade. His chief defect is incorrect drawing. He died in 1702.

MOLENAER. There were three painters of this name, who flourished at the same period, and it would seem painted in conjunction. Pictures of interiors with merry-making by peasantry, bear the name J. Molenaer, and are painted with great spirit and good colouring; winter scenes with figures enjoying the pastime of the season, have also much merit, and truly represent the climate of Holland; other pictures have only the name Molenaer, and some so signed are inferior to the former. These artists lived about the middle of the seventeenth century. See note to the article Molenaer in the enlarged edition of Bryan's "Dictionary of Painters and Engravers."

MICHAEL VAN MUSSCHER, successively a scholar of Vanden Tempel, Metsu, and Adrian Ostade, painted conversations, in some of which he blended the styles of Metsu and Jan Steen. TOORN VLIET. There are pictures bearing this name, that have a striking analogy, both in subject and the style of painting, to Jan Steen's; but there is no satisfactory account of the artist.

GERARD DOU.

THIS incomparable painter of elaborately finished cabinet pictures stands, unquestionably, at the head of his class. Many have endeavoured to follow him, some with considerable success; but none have attained that degree of excellence which his productions exhibit, in the breadth and power given to objects minute in their details, that required immensity of labour to arrive at the accomplishment, and at the same time to prevent that labour being apparent.-Gerard Dou was born at Leyden in 1613, and when he arrived at the age of fifteen was placed with Rembrandt, under whose instruction he remained about three years. Here it was, no doubt, that he acquired the knowledge of the affinity of colours, of their proper blending to preserve transparency, and their union or distribution to produce illusive chiaroscuro. Under such a master he would probably commence with portraiture, and as Rembrandt, at that period, was carefully laborious in what is called finishing, the pupil would

follow the example of the master in copying or imitating his works. Portraits by Gerard Dou, of the authenticity of which there is no doubt, are in existence to verify the supposition. The more masculine and daring style which Rembrandt afterwards adopted, was not congenial to the placid mind of Gerard Dou, who, with all his reverence for his master's knowledge and skill in the application, never attempted to follow his giant steps in a course which probably seemed so hazardous to pursue. He adhered to the principles which he had imbibed, but eschewed the practice when he left the school. He began, on his own account, to paint portraits in small, but the labour he bestowed on them, to satisfy his idea of perfection, was too much for the patience of his sitters, and did not augur a profitable avocation. An artist who required five days to paint the hand of a lady, or rather, as is said, to finish it when others would have considered it completed, made a false estimate of female endurance in such matters, and could hardly expect a suitable pecuniary remuneration for so much labour. He abandoned portraiture, after a short trial, and adopted subjects whereon his own patience alone would be exercised, and he might pursue the even tenor of his way" without disturbing his own equanimity or that of others. In adopting that course he has charmed the whole world, and made his name synonymous with truth of observation, exquisite detail, sweetness of colouring, and the most beautiful execution. With all his devotion to minutiæ, he never loses sight of the great principles of his art; he preserves breadth and harmony, and arranges all the parts so skilfully that the objects seem to be realities viewed through a diminishing medium. It may be supposed that with so much attention to detail, and such elaborate care in finishing, his pictures would be confined in their dimensions, and this is generally the case; but there are what may be termed large compositions by him, filled with numerous and varied objects, on which the same scrupulous care is bestowed, that it is wonderful how, with all his industry, he could produce so many, and at the same time find purchasers at prices commensurate with their merits. But his works were fully appreciated by his contemporaries, and one wealthy and tasteful Dutch gentleman (Mr. Spiering) allowed him a pension of one thousand

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