吃吃喝喝时的读书笔记 7
继续《艺术的故事》。# The mirror of nature – 17th century HollandPortrait paining was the most important branch that could continue in a Protestant community.Frans Hals was the first outstanding master of free Holland (1580 -1666), and belonged to the same generation as Rubens.The following figure dates from near the beginining of his career, and shows the brilliance and originality with which he approached this kind of task.Perhaps we can admire his mastery even more when we look at one of the many individual portraits that brought so little money to Hals and his family. Compared to earlier portraits, it looks almist like a snapshot.Rubens’s portraits, Van Dyck or Velazquez’s painted at that time in Catholic Europe, for all their liveliness and truth to nature one feels that the painters had carefully arranged the sitter’s pose so as to convey the idea of dignified aristocratic breeding. The portraits of Hals give us the impression that the painter has caught his sitter at a characteristic moment and fixed it for ever on the canvas.It is difficult for us to imagine how bold and unconventional these paintings must have looked to the public. The very way in which Hals handled paint and brush suggests that he quickly seized a fleeting impression. Earlier portraits are painted with visible patience- we sometimes feel that the subject must have sat still for many a session while the painter carefully recorded detail upon detail. Hals never allowed his model to get tired or stale. We seem to witness his quick and deft handling of the brush through which he conjures up the image of tousled hair or of a crumpled sleeve with a few touches of light and dark paint.The following painting by specialist in seascape, Simon de Vliger (1601-53), shows how these Dutch artists could convey the atmosphere of the sea by wonderfully simple and unpretentious means.These Dutchmen were the first in the history of art to discover the beauty of the sky. They needed nothing dramatic or striking to make their pictures interesting. They simply represented a piece of the world as it appeared to them, and discovered that it could make just as staisfying a picture as any illustration of a heroic tale or a comic theme.One of these discoveries was Jan van Goyen (1596-1656), from the Hague, who was roughly of the ame generation as the landscape painter Claude Lorrain. It is interesting to compare one of the famous landscape of Claude, a nostalgic vision of a land of serene beauty whith the simple and straightforward painting by Jan van Goyen.The differences are too obvious to need labouring. Instead of lofty temples, the Dutchman paints a homely windmill; instead of alluring glades, a featureless stretch of his native land. But Van Goyen knows how to transform the commonplace scene into a visin of restful beauty.We have seen how the inventions of Claude so captured the imagination of his admirers in England that they tried to transform the actual scenery of their native land and make it conform to the creations of the painter. A landscape or a garden which made them think of Claude, they called picturesque, like a picture. We have since become used to applying this word not only to ruined castles and sunsets, but also to such simple things as sailing boats and windmills. It is Van Goyen who have taught us to see the picturesque in a simple scene. Many a rambler in the countryside who delights in what he sees may, without knowing it, owes his joy to those humble masters who first opened our eyes to unpretentious natural beauty.Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-69), a generatio younger than Frans Hals and Rubens and 7 years younger than Van Dyck and Velazquez, left us an amazing record of his life in a series of self-portraits ranging from the time of his youth. When his first wife died in 1642, she left him a considerable fortune, but Rembrandt’s populatiry with the public declined, he got into debt and 14 years later his creditors sold his house and put his collection up for auction. Only the help of his loyal mistress and his son saved him from utter ruin. But these faithful companions died before him, and when his life came to an end in 1669, he left no other property than some old clothes and his painting utensil.The following portraits shows us Rembrandt’s face during the later years of his life. It was not a beautiful face, and Rembrandt certainly never tried to conceal its ugliness. He observed himself in a mirror with complete sincerity. It is because of this sincerity that we soon forget to ask about beauty or looks. This is the face of a real human being. There is no trace of a pose, no trce of vanity, just the penetrating gaze of a painter who scrutinizes his own features, ever ready to learn more and more about the secrets of the human face.Without this profound understanding Rembrandt could not have created his great portraits, such as the likeness of his patron and friend, Jan Six, who later became burgomaster of Amsterdam. It is almost unfair to compare it with the lively portrait by Frans Hals, for where Hals gives us something like a convincing snapshot, Rembrandt always seems to show us the whole person. He claimed the artist’s right to declare a picture finished- as he said – ” when he had achieved his purpose”, and thus he left the hand in the glove as a mere sketch.But all this only enhances the sense of life that emanates from his figure. We feel we know this man. We have seen other portraits by great masters which are memorable for the way they sum up a person’s chracter and role. But even the greatest of them many remind us of characters in fiction or actors on the stage.They are convincing and impressive, but we sense that they can only represnet one side of a complex human being. Not even the Mona Lisa can always have smiled. But in Rembrandt’s great portraits we feel face to face with real pople, we sense their warmth, their needs for sympathy and also their loneliness and their suffering. Those keen and steady eyes that we know so well from Rembrandt’s self-portraits must have been able to look straight into the human heart.The following shows one of the picture in which he visualized another incident from the Bible which had hardly ever been illustrated before- the reconciliation betwen King David and his wicked son Absalom. When Rembrandt was reading the old testament, and tried to see the kins and patriarchs of the Holy land in his mind’s eye, he thought of the orientals he had seen in the busy port of amsterdam. That is why he dressed David like an Indian or Turk with a big turban, and gave Absalom a curved Oriental sword.His painter’s eye was attracted by the spendour of these costumes, and by the chance they gave him of showing the play of light on the precious fabric, and the sparkle of gold and jewellry. We can see that Rembrandt was as great a master in conjuring up the effect of these shinining textures as Rubens or Velazquez.What could be more moving than the gesture of the young prince in his round array, burying his face on his father’s breast, or King David in his quiet and sorrowful acceptance of his son’s submission Though we do not see Absalom’s face, we feel what he must feel.Jan Steen was Jan van Goyen’s son-in law, (1626-79), and could not support himself with his brush. he kept an inn to earn money. the following painting shows a gy scene from the life of the people- a christening feast.When we examine all the detail we should not forget to admire the skill with which the artist has blended the various incidents into a picture. The figure in the foreground, seen from behind, is a wonderful piece of painting, whose gay colours have a warmth and mellowness one does not easily forget when one has seen the original.Jan Vermeer van Delft (1632-75) was born a generation after Rembrandt.XIUMI扫二维码｜关注我们公众号｜水彩乐章
