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Cornugaya Directory 06
Page 06
Steen (1626?-1679) was almost the opposite of Terburg, a man of
sarcastic flings and coarse humor who satirized his own time with
little reserve. He developed under Hals and Van Ostade, favoring the
latter in his interiors, family scenes, and drunken debauches. He was
a master of physiognomy, and depicted it with rare if rather
unpleasant truth. If he had little refinement in his themes he
certainly handled them as a painter with delicacy. At his best his
many figured groups were exceedingly well composed, his color was of
good quality (with a fondness for yellows), and his brush was as
limpid and graceful as though painting angels instead of Dutch boors.
He was really one of the fine brushmen of Holland, a man greatly
admired by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and many an artist since; but not a
man of high intellectual pitch as compared with Terburg, for
instance.
His landscapes, again, were a synthesis of all landscapes, a grouping
of the great truths of light, air, shadow, space. Whatever he turned
his hand to was treated with that breadth of view that overlooked the
little and grasped the great. He painted many subjects. His earliest
work dates from 1627, and is a little hard and sharp in detail and
cold in coloring. After 1654 he grew broader in handling and warmer in
tone, running to golden browns, and, toward the end of his career, to
rather hot tones. His life was embittered by many misfortunes, but
these never seem to have affected his art except to deepen it. He
painted on to the last, convinced that his own view was the true one,
and producing works that rank second to none in the history of
painting.
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