dinary genius
coexisting with his coarse, careless nature and jovial habits, and he
must have worked with great facility, since, in spite of his idleness
and comparatively early death, he left as many as two hundred pictures,
rendered him extremely popular. Besides his favourite subjects, such as
'The Family Jollification,' 'The Feast of the Bean King,' 'Game of
Skittles,' he has pictures in a slightly higher atmosphere, such as 'A
Pastor Visiting a Young Girl,' 'The Parrot,' 'Schoolmaster with
Unmanageable Boys,' 'The Pursuit of Alchemy.' Among the latter a good
example is 'The Music Master' in the National Gallery.

Gerard Dow was born in 1613 and died in 1680. He was a _genre_ painter
of great merit. He belonged to Leyden, and was a pupil of Rembrandt. He
began with portraiture, often painting his own face, and went on to
scenes from low and middle-class life, but rarely attempted to represent
high society. Compared to Jan Steen, however, he is refined. He had a
curious fondness for painting hermits. The lighting of his pictures is
frequently by lantern or candle. They are mostly small, and without
animated action, but are full of picturesqueness. He was a good
colourist, 'with a rare truth to nature and a marvellous distinctness of
eye and precision of hand.' Minute as his execution was, his touch was
'free and soft.' His best pictures are 'like nature's self seen through
the camera obscura.' An instance often given of his exquisite finish is
that of a broom in the corner of one of his pictures. Some contemporary
had remarked how careful and elaborate was the labour bestowed on it,
when the painter answered that he was still to give it several hours'
work. He must have been exceedingly industrious as well as painstaking,
since he left two hundred pictures as his contribution to Dutch art.
Among his finer pictures are 'An Old Woman reading the Bible to her
Husband,' in the Louvre; 'The Poulterer's Shop,' in the National
Gallery. His _chef d'oeuvre_, 'The Woman Sick of the Dropsy,' is in the
Louvre. His candlelight is the finest rendered by any master. There is a
good example of it in 'The Evening School,' in the Amsterdam Gallery.

Peter de Hooch--spelt often, De Hooge--was the _genre_ painter of full,
clear sunlight. The dates of his birth and death can only be guessed by
those of his pictures, which extend from 1656 to 1670. His groups are
generally playing cards, smoking, drinking, or engaged in domestic
occupati