In the _Angel and the Shepherds_ of the Louvre there is still less feeling for the scene, except in so far as it offered an opportunity for chiaroscuro. Even the composition is rather perfunctory, the shepherds being huddled on the right, balanced by a cow and sheep on the opposite side of the foreground, while the angel who brings the message of Christ’s birth appears above in the center with cherubs. Nor is the chiaroscuro satisfactory, for while there are some nice passages of color in the lighted parts, the shadows are without quality and seem used only as foils to the light, and not as having individual value. More successful in its recollection of the Rembrandt manner, and altogether a picture of considerable charm, is the classical subject, _Diana and Endymion_, in the Liechtenstein Gallery, Vienna.
In the Dresden Gallery are two of the old-men studies that this artist frequently painted, while a more important example of his fondness for representing old age is shown in the Art-History Museum, Vienna. This _Gray-Bearded Old Man_ suggests, like the others, the influence of Rembrandt, but superficially. It has the venerableness of old age, but not the power of expression that makes Rembrandt’s treatment of this subject so spiritually compelling.
The Louvre has a charming _Portrait of a Little Girl_, in an olive-green dress, holding a spade. In arrangement of costume and choice of color it is quite Rembrandtesque. Again, in the Berlin Gallery is a very pleasing _Portrait of a Young Woman_. But it is in the Rijks Museum that the portraiture of Flinck can best be studied, both in corporation pictures and single figures. They vary in quality from the quite impressive bust portrait (No. 931) of _M. Johannes Wittenbogaert_ (?), with its mellow flesh tints and strong suggestion of character, to the showy but perfunctory _Fête of the Civil Guard, Münster,, 1648_. In this there is no charm of flesh and little of fabrics. The whole is pompously theatrical, done apparently for “business,” with no eye to anything but satisfying the vanity of the subjects.
FERDINAND BOL (1616-1680) in the beginning of his career reproduced the manner of Rembrandt. His coloring was mellow and enriched by chiaroscuro. Later, about 1650, the chiaroscuro became less pronounced and the color insipid. While he is esteemed chiefly for his portraits, he also treated Biblical subjects, as may be seen by three examples in the Dresden Gallery and two in the Rijks Museum. The most pleasing of the Dresden pictures is _Jacob Presented to Pharaoh by Joseph_. There is a very characteristic look of scrutiny in Pharaoh’s face, while his jewel-bespangled cloak, with its broad border of white and black fur, affords a fine mass of scintillating color, juxtaposed to the rich creamy costume of Joseph and the crimson of the old man’s. The picture, indeed, presents a very handsome color-scheme, though one may discover a certain stiffness and theatricality in the gesture of Joseph’s hands. The accompanying picture, _Rest of the Holy Family during Its Flight into Egypt_, is over six feet high and suggests a canvas too large for the material introduced, so that one third of it is filled up with supernumerary articles, such as a saddle and a basket of tools. One suspects that the picture may have been intended as a decoration for some wall-space, as the very large example in the Rijks Museum certainly was. For this, _Abraham Receiving the Angels_ was one of five panels painted for a room in a house at Utrecht, the other four being now in the abbey of Middelburg in Zeeland. A mild reflection of Italian Renaissance feeling is suggested by the _comme il faut_ disposition of the angels’ draperies, but their coloring of golden amber is finely Rembrandtesque; so, too, the glow of the yellowing beech-tree that spires up into the top of the composition, and the plum-gray velvet of Abraham’s robe. The picture, in fact, while shallow in its treatment of the incident, is finely decorative. On the other hand, the _Salome Dancing before Herod_, a work apparently of Bol’s later period, is an absurdly bad picture, bright and flimsy in color and entirely trifling as a study of form.