productive. There was hardly a painter of rank in Holland during the
whole century. Scorel (1495-1562) was the leader, and he probably got
his first liking for Italian art through Mabuse at Antwerp. He
afterward went to Italy, studied Raphael and Michael Angelo, and
returned to Utrecht to open a school and introduce Italian art into
Holland. A large number of pupils followed him, but their work was
lacking in true originality. Heemskerck (1498-1574) and Cornelis van
Haarlem (1562-1638), with Steenwyck (1550?-1604), were some of the
more important men of the century, but none of them was above a common
average.

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY: Beginning with the first quarter of this century
came the great art of the Dutch people, founded on themselves and
rooted in their native character. Italian methods were abandoned, and
the Dutch told the story of their own lives in their own manner, with
truth, vigor, and skill. There were so many painters in Holland during
this period that it will be necessary to divide them into groups and
mention only the prominent names.

PORTRAIT AND FIGURE PAINTERS: The real inaugurators of Dutch
portraiture were Mierevelt, Hals, Ravesteyn, and De Keyser. Mierevelt
(1567-1641) was one of the earliest, a prolific painter, fond of the
aristocratic sitter, and indulging in a great deal of elegance in his
accessories of dress and the like. He had a slight, smooth brush, much
detail, and a profusion of color. Quite the reverse of him was Franz
Hals (1584?-1666), one of the most remarkable painters of portraits
with which history acquaints us. In giving the sense of life and
personal physical presence, he was unexcelled by any one. What he saw
he could portray with the most telling reality. In drawing and
modelling he was usually good; in coloring he was excellent, though in
his late work sombre; in brush-handling he was one of the great
masters. Strong, virile, yet easy and facile, he seemed to produce
without effort. His brush was very broad in its sweep, very sure, very
true. Occasionally in his late painting facility ran to the
ineffectual, but usually he was certainty itself. His best work was in
portraiture, and the most important of this is to be seen at Haarlem,
where he died after a rather careless life. As a painter, pure and
simple, he is almost to be ranked beside Velasquez; as a poet, a
thinker, a man of lofty imagination, his work gives us little
enlightenment except in so far as it shows a f