Unit XIV The 'Little Masters'
The open market system, under which Dutch pictures were sold, produced artists skilful in painting a particular type of subject. They specialized in landscapes, riverscapes, seascapes, city-scapes, travelscapes; skating scenes, moonlight scenes, shipping and naval battles; interiors, exteriors; gardens, polite conversations, parlour intrigue, housekeeping, tavern brawls; hunting scenes, churches, still lifes and portraits, single, double, or group.
At least forty of the 'little masters' are very talented.
An early leader of Dutch landscape painting, Jan van Goyen (1596-1656), was one of the Dutch masters to place human figures to a position in which they could no longer determine the mood of a scene but merely establish the scale. Van Goyen was fascinated by water. But the celestial architecture of shifting clouds was even more important than water in his landscapes. In River Scene, painted by Van Goyen shortly before his death, the land with fishermen's cottages, windmills, and a distant church, is visible only in tiny patches. All else is clouds and water, save for two boats moving slowly toward the centre. People are mere spots, as are the flying gulls. An almost monochromatic vision, limited to translucent browns in the foreground and grey greens elsewhere, is registered by means of light, shimmering water, and distant land.
A View of Haarlem, of about 1670, by Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/29-82), opens up an immense prospect from the vantage point of the dunes. The city appears only on the flat horizon, a sparkle of windmills and spires is dominated by the mass of the Great Church. The immensity of the space is increased by the light falling from between clouds on the farmhouses and the linens whitening in the foreground. The birds fly higher and the clouds seem more remote than in Van Goyen's picture.
One of the greatest Dutch landscapes is the Avenue at Middelbarnis, of 1689, by Meyndert Hobbema (1638-1709), Ruisdael's pupil. Constructed on the humble theme of a rutted country road plunging into the picture between feathery trees that have long lost lower branches for use as firewood, the spatial climax is compelling.
Albert Cuyp (1620-91), influenced by Dutch painters who had travelled in Italy, preserves a similar feeling for space in his
