It is always the room that interests him, as much as the people
in it. The painting of the window with its little coats of arms,
transparent yet diffusing the light, is exquisitely done. A chair with
the cushion upon it, just like that, occurs again and again in his
pictures, the cushion being used as a welcome bit of colour in the
scheme. Most of all, the floors, whether paved with stone as in this
picture, or with brick as in the courtyards, are painted with the
delightful precise care that the Van Eycks gave to their accessories.
In Peter de Hoogh's vision of the world there is the same appreciation
of the objects of daily use as was displayed by the fifteenth-century
Flemish painters whenever their sacred subjects gave them opportunity.
In the seventeenth century it was more congenial to the Flemish and
Dutch temperament to paint their own country, and domestic scenes from
their own lives, than pictures of devotion.
Other artists besides Peter de Hoogh painted people in their own houses.
In the pictures of Terborch ladies in satin dresses play the spinet
and the guitar.
Pages:
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147