The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1900-01-26
MISS SHOWS ART TALKS
Study of the Flemish School Continued
With Sketch of
Teniers the Younger.

httlet vi suptTlOT pOW6Ts mere were
many painters of minor note, but all
their effort was so affected by the
declining italian methods that any
real advance, except for one salient
factor, would have been impossible.
This element was the introduction of
landscape and genre painting in the
middle OF the sixteenth century, an
outgrowth of the love of realiem
which is so strong feature of Dutch
character and all its expressions
Previous to this time landscape had
been painted only by way of back
ground and that very imperfectly
and with very little feeling. Figures
had been the only thing worthy OF
the work and these had been of ex.
allied and ideal station. Now the
aspects of Nature began to be- studied
and initiated for their own sake, and
all the phases Of common life APP
pealed to artistic sympathy and found
some fitting exposition.
Rubens was the master who finally
brought Flemish art into its own
again. A full and buoyant nature
and most prosperous career gave
aim every opportunity, and while
the influence of Spanish rule and the
Catholic religion emphasized the his
tOric phase IN all his work his
characteristics were very strongly
marked by the genius of his country
and his time. His great versatility
and his love of large designs link him
on the one hand with Angelo, but his
facility in detail, and the choice OF all
sorts of hcmely subjects connect him
with the Little Masters
VanDyck, his celebrated pupil, is
not so essentially affected by native
influences. In his peculiar line of
protrait painting he is always the
aristocrat. The life at his feet had
little interest for him, and perhaps
these things made his religious works
more expressive of separate spiritual
ideas than such creations by the older
masters.
The VanEycks had fore-shadowed
the golden mean that comes from the
blending ofspiritual truth and practi-
cal experience but it could not he fully
comprised until the realistic tenden-
eies of the time had reached their
furthest limit. Exaggeration al
ways accompanies growth.
Thus the real exponent of the time
lie rather Teniers the Younger than
either Rubens or VanDyck. He was
the last of the great trio which marks
the period, and he established no
school. But he was part Of the power
which impelled Franz Halls in Hol-
land, and as Rubene forms the link
with the historic Italians and the
classic elements beyond them, Teniers
carries us forward to the birth Of
liberty that came with the Reforma-
tion and the expansion of modern
teaching
Born in Antwerp which had become
so great an art center with it's Won
derful commerce and guilds OF all
fine crafts, David Teniers had the
teaching of his father, who was also
David Teniers, and who was painter
of considerable power. lie soon out
stripped him, however, and though
never pupil OF Rubens he was in his
early manner greatly influenced by
h 10 Tod Of ha
ter, daughter of Vel Vet Brueguel,
and this family of painters who de-
voted themselves entirely to genre
pieces, often of the coarsest subjects,
aud to flower pictures of rare beauty,
found in the new 'bro,her-in-law a
very congenial nature.
He had been early made free of the
guild of st. Lukes and he soon be-
came a very popular painter of tavern
scenes and drinking bouts, peasant
toll and grotesque fancies, animals OF
all sorts and landscapes of every con-
Gition. He did not lack imperial
patronage, and he grew rich and
courted, his facility being so great
that he declared "it would take a
gallery two leagues long to hold all
his pictures, His pictures were
usually of small size and some of them
were called latter dinner pieces" be-
cause he would paint them between
dinner and bedtime.
He was fond of aristocratic bear.
ings and lived part OF the time in
great state In q chateau called "Thret
Towers" whose picturesque features
and surrounding landscape he was
never weary of reproducing, and il
Rubens was thorough man of the
world of the courtier-diplomatic type
he was thorough Belgian, of the
iolly. good natured. independent