IN the Rijks Museum is a portrait by Adriaen van de Velde that represents himself and his family. In a country spot they have alighted from their carriage, and while a groom attends to the handsome horses, the artist and his young wife, a little child, and a nurse with the baby in her arms are grouped in the road. The artist is of refined and gracious mien, while the spirit of the whole scene breathes prosperity and happiness. The portrait is indicative of his art, of the gracious freshness, joyousness, and sweet tranquillity that characterize his landscapes. For, though he painted some Biblical and historical subjects, his true métier was landscape, with the ingratiating addition of groups of figures and animals. So highly appreciated was his gift of treating these groups that many of the landscape artists of Amsterdam employed him to introduce them into their pictures. Hobbema was among the number, as may be seen in that artist’s picture, _The Water Mill_, owned by Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, where the cow and the figures of the man and woman are by Van de Velde.
Born in Amsterdam in 1636, Adriaen belonged to the Van de Velde family of artists, his earliest teacher being his father, the naval painter, Willem the Elder. Then he studied with Jan Wynants at Haarlem and later with Philips Wouwerman. He was also influenced by Potter and Nicolaes Berchem, perhaps gaining from the latter his occasional fondness for the Italianized kind of landscape. But this is mere supposition.
Even Berchem (1620-1683) is only supposed to have visited Italy, because of the character of the subjects he represented. All that is definitely known about him is that he resided in Haarlem and Amsterdam. His treatment, however, of the Italianized landscape, with its goats and cows and peasants, is inferior to the art of Van de Velde. It charms at first by its sunny picturesqueness; but it is discovered by degrees to be a product of routine and mannerism. A studied affectation becomes apparent in the arrangement of the groups, and a monotonous reiteration of the effects of light: some object always placed near the center to catch the chief illumination, while a corresponding formality is repeated again and again in the distribution of the light and shade.