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света и тени, золотистый тон - все типичные черты караваджизма, переплетаются с
характерными только для Веласкеса чертами.
В последнее десятилетие жизни художник написал три самых известных картины:
"Венера с зеркалом", "Менины", "Пряхи". "Менины" - это, по своей сути, групповой портрет.
Художник, а это автопортрет самого Веласкеса, у мольберта пишет короля и королеву,
отражение которых зрители видят в зеркале. На переднем плане изображена инфанта
Маргарита в окружении фрейлин, карлицы, придворных и собаки. В дверях художник
поместил фигуру канцлера. Композиция картины объединяет черты группового портрета и
жанровой картины. Влияние Веласкеса на искусство последующих веков велико. Он
вдохновлял художников от романтиков до постимпрессионистов.
VI. Summarize the text.
VII. Topics for discussion.
1. Velazquez's realism.
2. Velazquez's artistic heritage.
UNIT XIV THE 'LITTLE MASTERS'
The open market system, under which Dutch pictures were sold, produced artists skilful in
painting a particular type of subject. They specialized in landscapes, riverscapes, seascapes, city-
scapes, travelscapes; skating scenes, moonlight scenes, shipping and naval battles; interiors,
exteriors; gardens, polite conversations, parlour intrigue, housekeeping, tavern brawls; hunting
scenes, churches, still lifes and portraits, single, double, or group.
At least forty of the 'little masters' are very talented.
An early leader of Dutch landscape painting, Jan van Goyen (1596-1656), was one of the
Dutch masters to place human figures to a position in which they could no longer determine the
mood of a scene but merely establish the scale. Van Goyen was fascinated by water. But the
celestial architecture of shifting clouds was even more important than water in his landscapes. In
River Scene, painted by Van Goyen shortly before his death, the land with fishermen's cottages,
windmills, and a distant church, is visible only in tiny patches. All else is clouds and water, save for
two boats moving slowly toward the centre. People are mere spots, as are the flying gulls. An
almost monochromatic vision, limited to translucent browns in the foreground and grey greens
elsewhere, is registered by means of light, shimmering water, and distant land.
A View of Haarlem, of about 1670, by Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/29-82), opens up an immense
prospect from the vantage point of the dunes. The city appears only on the flat horizon, a sparkle of
windmills and spires is dominated by the mass of the Great Church. The immensity of the space is
increased by the light falling from between clouds on the farmhouses and the linens whitening in
the foreground. The birds fly higher and the clouds seem more remote than in Van Goyen's picture.
One of the greatest Dutch landscapes is the Avenue at Middelbarnis, of 1689, by Meyndert
Hobbema (1638-1709), Ruisdael's pupil. Constructed on the humble theme of a rutted country road
plunging into the picture between feathery trees that have long lost lower branches for use as
firewood, the spatial climax is compelling.
Albert Cuyp (1620-91), influenced by Dutch painters who had travelled in Italy, preserves a
similar feeling for space in his Landscape with Cattle and Figures, of about 1650, which is intensi-
fied by the animals and people grouped in the foreground.
The art of Pieter De Hooch (1629-after 1684) glorifies the harmony of the perfect bourgeois
household, with everything in its proper place and respect for cleanliness and order raised almost to
a religious level. The Linen Cupboard, of 1663, is De Hooch's Baroque climax. In this picture,
illuminated by an unseen window, De Hooch depicts the simple act of counting neatly folded sheets
taken from their carved and inlaid cabinet in an interior whose cleanliness matches its perfect
perspective and its clear bright colour; the black-and-white marble floor leads the eye through the
door to the view across the street. By means of pictures on the wall the painter shows that art is a
part of the ideal daily life.