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It was a fine painting by Paul Potter, a Dutch artist of the seventeenth century, who produced excellent works before he was sixteen years old. The boys admired it because the subject pleased them. They passed carelessly by the masterpieces of Rembrandt and Van der Helst, and went into raptures over an ugly picture by Van der Venne, representing a sea fight between the Dutch and English.
Here the ancient and modern Dutch painters are seen at their best, and I know of no richer feast of this sort. Here Rembrandt is to be seen in his glory; here Van der Helst, Jan Steen, Gerard Douw, Teniers the younger, Hondekoeter, Weenix, Ostade, Cuyp, and other names as familiar. These men also painted what they saw, the people, the landscapes, with which they were familiar.
It is also known that Van der Helst at an advanced age married a beautiful girl, for whom there is nothing but praise, and posterity should be grateful to her for having brightened the old age of a great artist. It is true that we cannot speak of all in the same terms.
Sebastian, in effect, found a charm in the thought of that still, drowsy, spellbound world of perpetual ice, as in art and life he could always tolerate the sea. Admiral-general of Holland, as painted by Van der Helst, with a marine background by Backhuizen: at moments his father could fancy him so.
But where to begin, where to end in this high carnival of over three thousand pictures! The ticketed favourites, starred Baedeker fashion, sometimes lag behind their reputation. The great Van der Helst and a prime portraitist he is, as may be seen over and over again is The Company of Captain Bicker, a vast canvas.
Meantime we must turn our attention to Holland, where FRANS HALS, who was born only three years later than Rubens, namely in 1580, was the forerunner of Rembrandt, Van der Helst, Bol, Lely, and a host more of greater or less painters, who made their country as famous in the seventeenth century for art as their fathers had made it in the sixteenth for arms.
He is by far the most renowned of the Dutch portrait-painters of this period. Although nothing is known as regards the master under whom he studied, it is probable that if Hals was not actually his teacher, his works were the models whence Van der Helst formed himself.
Sebastian, in effect, found a charm in the thought of that still, drowsy, spellbound world of perpetual ice, as in art and life he could always tolerate the sea. Admiral-general of Holland, as painted by Van der Helst, with a marine background by Backhuizen: at moments his father could fancy him so.
All this is relieved by the beautiful costumes of the Renaissance, which so admirably combined grace with dignity, those ruffs, jerkins, black cloaks, silken scarfs, ribbons, arms, and banners. Van der Helst, Hals, Govert, Flink, and Bol were masters in this style of art.
Pictures of the nobility, or of celebrities like Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, were more in his line than those of his republican patriots, and consequently he plays no part in the development of the school we are now considering. BARTHOLOMEW VAN DER HELST, born in Amsterdam, 1613, died there 1670.
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