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Updated: May 4, 2025
BARTHOLOMEUS VANDER HELST, FECIT Ao, 1648. Yes, indeed, it was a delightful little holiday; it lasted a whole week. With the exception of that little pint of amari aliquid at Rotterdam, we were all very happy. We might have gone on being happy for whoever knows how many days more? a week more, ten days more: who knows how long that dear teetotum happiness can be made to spin without toppling over?
I can't sketch "The Five Drapers" with any ink or pen at present at command but can look with all my eyes, and be thankful to have seen such a masterpiece. They say he was a moody, ill-conditioned man, the old tenant of the mill. What does he think of the "Vander Helst" which hangs opposite his "Night-watch," and which is one of the great pictures of the world?
Particularly is this the case with the portraits of individuals and of civic and gild groups by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Van der Helst and their followers, which form an inimitable series that has rarely been equalled. To realise to what an extent in the midst of war the fine arts flourished in Holland, a mere list of the best-known painters of the period will suffice, it tells its own tale.
Not the greatest picture in the world not a work of the highest genius but a performance so great, various, and admirable, so shrewd of humor, so wise of observation, so honest and complete of expression, that to have seen it has been a delight, and to remember it will be a pleasure for days to come. Well done, Bartholomeus Vander Helst!
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.
For Rembrandt, instead of taking the matter as a man of business, devoted the rest of his life to being an artist, and leaving the business of painting to men like Backer, Helst, and others, betook himself seriously to developing his art irrespective of what the public might or might not think of it.
In this respect, Dou, Mieris, Potter, Van der Helst, and indeed all the Dutch painters in greater or less degree, were famous as prodigies of patience. On the other hand, realism, which imparts to Dutch painting such an original character and such admirable qualities, is, notwithstanding, the root of its most serious defects.
West of the Royal Palace is the picture gallery owned by the state, and by judicious and repeated purchases, the collection of pictures is considered superior to that of the famous gallery in Antwerp. In this gallery the two young artists spent several pleasant half-days comparing the early Flemish and Dutch schools. Especially did they study portrait work by Rubens, Frans Hals, and Van der Helst.
He had the repose and the firm, virile line of the classics, while his vision of actuality has never been surpassed. The Dutch Terburg, Vermeer, Van der Helst, Frans Hals saw as vividly the surfaces of things material; the last alone was the match of Velasquez in brushwork, but not Rembrandt recorded in his Anatomy Lesson the facts of the case as did Velasquez.
We like much more The Pantry, wherein a woman hands a jug to her little girl. The adjoining room, flooded with light, is real. There is one Van der Helst we could not pass. It looks like the portrait of a corpulent woman, but is that of Gerard Bicker, bailiff of Muiden.
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