Maris - but not those vigorous and boldlyhandled seashores, canals, and grand, massive, cloudy skies, which have made him famous; and Weissenbruch - but not his poetical renderings of the Holland he loved so well, the clear, cool morning skies, the darkening shades of evening, and the mysteries of moonlight he delighted in.

These men are the inheritors, probably through the French, of the principles and methods of Constable, who himself learned from Ruysdael and the other Dutch artists of the seventeenth century, developing their ideas much further and adding to them. So that we see the spirit of the old masters of their country descending through Constable and the French artists on the nineteenth century Dutch painters. That same spirit that made them so keenly alive to the new ideas of their day has fallen on their modern fellow countrymen in full measure.

Constable was the first artist who strove to give the very actual and natural out-of-door feeling in his pictures, showing the very personal way nature affected him. In this he

Edinburgh,
1886.

W. E.
Henley.

inaugurated a new departure in art, and stands out a very prominent figure in its history. He found it necessary to adopt very bold and vigorous brush work, and to paint in the broadest way, leaving out details and all so-called finish to gain the end he wanted. "Memorial "He recorded his experience in terms so perCatalogue." sonal in their masculine directness and sincerity as to make his innovations irresistible. Never had so much nature been set forth in art. He demonstrated once for all the eternal principles of generalization. The results obtained and the conventions through which he obtained them were new and right. They foreshadowed a world of possibilities, the right of way through which was only to be won by close and patient intercourse with nature. They suggested the basis of an art which should deal broadly with man's impressions of the natural appearance of weather, atmosphere, and distance, and their correspondence with his moods."

His work was not appreciated in his lifetime, in his own country, but some of his paintings were exhibited in Paris, and, as has been

already mentioned, produced a strong effect See on the French artists of the Romantic move- Chapter I. ment, and largely influenced the work of the Barbizon school. But the manner of Constable was perhaps too rugged and strong for

Constable

clouds, the mass and

the times, and not exactly suited to the ideas "None since prevalent in France. Though he had a pro- has renfound effect on the artists there, they cannot dered be said to have carried his ideas any further. They adopted them, but the soil was adapted to their growth and development. remained for the artists of Holland to do more

not

gait of them,

the shadow

It and the

light, the mystery and

the wonder

and the

beauty, with such an insight into

essentials,

and such a

than this. It was long ago pointed out by W. E. Henley, in the Memorial Catalogue of the French and Dutch Loan Collection held in Edinburgh in 1886, that James Maris was the great successor of Constable in painting command of skies with masses of moving clouds, and that appropriate and moving the modern Dutch artists were the successors terms, as of the traditions and the greatness of the James French school of 1830. But it is not only in special instances like Edinburgh, that referred to that they show this develop- 1886. ment of the ideas of Constable. For probably Henley. through the works of the Barbizon school,

Maris."

"Memorial Catalogue."

W. E.

which were greatly admired in Holland, the artists there learned his principles and put them into general practice, and carried them further than had been seen before. His main idea was to give the effect of atmosphere and light in nature, and he realized that this could only be done by giving the appearance of great simplicity in his paintings and leaving out all detail that could be dispensed with.

To see how these principles could be developed and applied to figure painting, and to interiors as well as to landscapes, we have only to look at the late work of the Marises, Mauve, Israels, Weissenbruch, and Bosboom, and to notice its great boldness and breadth in execution, and its extreme simplicity in appearance. In the later works of James Maris and of Weissenbruch the generalization of Constable has been carried out to the latest development so far known.

Whatever subjects these modern Dutch artists paint, those who have made a careful study of their works know how completely they are taken up with the fascinating problem of light, and realize the wonderful success