Books with title The story of Dutch painting

CHAPTER ITHE END OF THE OLD 'ON the 25th of October, 1555, Charles V abdi-I cated the imperial crown, ceding Spain and the Netherlands to his favorite son, Philip II. The ;vent proved to be the prologue of a drama, which in ts immediate aspects involved the decay of Spain and he growth of Holland, but in its wider significance was o be the beginning of a new era.For the modern world dates from the seventeenth cen-ury, and its pioneers were the Hollanders of that period. Practically everything that we recognize to-day as char-Lcteristic of the modern spirit in politics, religion, sci-ince, society, industry, commerce, and art has its prototype amid that sturdy people; being either the lause or the product of their struggle for independence md their self-development. Nor, in paying honor to the Dutch, need we attempt to suggest that they were the nventors of these characteristics. Most of the latter v^ere, so to say, in the air. In the progress of things theyTHE STORY OF DUTCH PAINTINGhad been evolved. But our debt to the Hollanders is that they attracted them and gave them practical application, and thus set the world upon a definite path of new progress. It is particularly with the newness of their art that we are here concerned, but we will try to study it in its relation to the material and mental environment of the nation itself, of whose newness it was so immediate a product and so manifest an expression.For it is in this way that the art of every country may be studied with most interest and profit. Although there will appear from time to time certain individual artists, whose genius cannot be satisfactorily correlated to its environment, but will indeed, as in the case of Rembrandt's, seem to be actually contradictory to it, yet even they can be more fully comprehended through the very contrast that they offer to the mass of their contemporaries, whose relation to their environment is readily discernible. Apropos of this customary connection between the artist and the spirit of his time, may be quoted that phrase of Richard Wagner's, that all great art is produced in response to a common and collective need on the part of the community. It may serve as an excellent touchstone for testing the quahty of this new Dutch art which we are to study, so let us for a moment examine its face value, leaving the fuller application of its meaning to all the subsequent pages of this book.In Wagner's mind great art, as he conceived it, stood out in clear contrast against a background of less art, of art which is produced in response to some more restricted impulse than that of a conmion and collective need of the people; for example, in catering to the whims of fashion.luch was the major part of the art of France produced 1 the last days before the Revolution. The great mass f the people were too abased by ill rule and exactions to ave any consciousness but that of hunger, any common oUective need but to fill their bellies. The only articu-ite demand to reach the artists was from the ephemeral w'arm of courtiers, sycophants, and, as we should say D-day, "grafters," who buzzed in splendor and profli-acy at court. For a moment the glamour of this life in-pired a great artist, Watteau, who, however, it is to be oted, was a foreigner. What he himself was he owed to •"landers. To him the glamour of the French court was ut a pageant, a spectacle passing before his eyes, leav-ig his heart and conscience untouched. When, however, rtists of French birth, reared in the home environment, ollowed in his steps, they revealed nothing of Watteau's iealistic detachment from the grossness of the theme, ut became purveyors to the shallow profligacy of their latrons. And to this day Van Loo, Boucher, and Fra-:onard have no place with other old masters in the hearts f the people; they are still the favorites of fashion. Nor ras it until the upheaval of the Revolution had precipi-ated the gathering consciousness of a common and ...

A fascinating new history of art, this gloriously illustrated book reveals how materials, techniques, and ideas have evolved over the centuries, inspiring artists to create their most celebrated works. Covering a comprehensive array of topics, from the first pigments and frescos to linear perspective in Renaissance paintings, the influence of photography, Impressionism, and the birth of modern art, The Story of Painting follows each step in the evolution of painting over the last 25,000 years, from the first cave paintings to the abstract works of the last 100 years. Packed with lavish colour reproductions of paintings and photographs of artists at work and the materials they used, it also focuses on key paintings from each period to analyse the techniques and secrets of the great masters in detail. Immerse yourself in the pages of this beautiful book and find yourself dazzled by new colours; marvel at the magic of perspective; wonder at glowing depictions of fabric and flesh; understand cubism; and embrace abstraction. It will transform your understanding and enjoyment of paintings forever.

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. This text refers to the Bibliobazaar edition.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

CHAPTER ITHE STORY OF THE NATIONIN 1492 the Catholic Sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella, entered Granada in triumph. The last stronghold of Moorish dominion, undermined by the dissensions of Islam, fell before the united Christian kingdoms of Leon, Castile and Aragon. Spain became a united country and, in virtue of her protracted struggle of nearly eight hundred years against the infidel, stood forth as the acknowledged and self-conscious Champion of Catholicism. In the same year Columbus, under the patronage of the Catholic Sovereigns discovered the New World. This date, therefore, presents an epoch that completes the past and forms the starting point of a new era. Intimately associated with the subsequent national development and decline is the story of Spanish painting, but it owes most of its peculiar characteristics to the conditions that preceded the country's complete union.It is always interesting and usually illuminating topicture the historical background out of which the arts of a country have been gradually evolved. But in the case of Spanish painting it is essential. For the art of Spain was, bone and spirit, a part of the Spanish character, shaped and inspired as the latter had been by the racial, historical and geographical conditions out of which it was moulded. Without taking all this into account one cannot understand, much less appreciate sympathetically, the consistently individual character of this school of painting.• • •••••••In the first place one must realise the meaning of the fact that Spain is a mountainous country; not only separated from the rest of Europe, but divided against itself by precipitous barriers. They run in a general way from West to East: abrupt colossal walls of volcanic origin, with a grand sweep of bulk, jagged in sky-line and frequently piled with the chaotic debris of glacial moraines. These are the watersheds of rivers that refuse services to navigation; foaming to flood in the rainy season, shrinking in the drought to sluggish pools amid the rocky bed. They intersect tracts of country that vary from narrow valleys, where cultivation huddles in cherished pockets of soil, to broadly stretching vegas, tablelands and plains, from which by unremitting toil generous harvests may be obtained. Here the vistas are of magnificent extent, circling round one in far reaching sweeps of boldly undulating country, rimmed by nobly designed stretches of smoothly beveled foothills that form advance-posts of the ultimate barrier of the sierras.It is a little country, only three times the size of England, contracted within itself by natural restrictions, yet planned by nature on a big scale; one that affects the imagination, prompting even more than mountainous countries usually have done to independence, individualism and hardihood. It is a country that seems made for fighting; where a handful of resolute men could maintain themselves tenaciously against enormous odds. In the past they did it in actual warfare; to-day in the pacific fight which this hardy population perpetually keeps up against the extremes of climatic conditions. Though for the most part they still use the agricultural implements that Tubal Cain devised, they have inherited from the Roman and Moorish occupation a system of irrigation and of terracing that puts to shame the happy go lucky methods of farming in many countries which consider themselves superiorly enlightened. The necessary preoccupation with their immediate surroundings and the exclusion from outside influence, early made of this people a nation of individualists, realists and conservatives. So inbred did these qualities become that when the Spaniard mixed with the outer world, as he did particularly in his conquest of the Spanish Main and in his wars with Europe, it was but to become more fixed in his conservatism at home. When he borrowed from abroad, as in his art, it was but to shape and color the acquired impression to his...