WORKS OF EMINENT MASTERS, IN PAINTING, SCULPTURE, ARCHITECTURE, AND DECORATIVE ART. VOL. I. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY JOHN CASSELL, LUDGATE HILL. 1854, HOUBRAKEN, who was for a short time the contemporary of Jan relates of him such numerous excesses and ludicrous traits of character as to have given him in history the reputation of a VOL. I. confirmed drunkard and buffoon. All those who have spoken of Jan Steen, since Houbraken, have, in imitation of his biographer, repeated the jokes of the celebrated painter, so that they have become proverbial, especially in Holland. But, for want of having carefully studied his works, and in consequence of the practice, common to almost all book-makers, of copying one from the other, without making any sort of independent inquiry or research, the biographers have given us a false idea of the Dutch painter, in describing him as a man who was capable of nothing better than drinking and jesting. His private affairs rather than his art, appear to have engaged their attentionthey concerned themselves too much with what took place in his household, and did not rightly comprehend what passed in his mind. It is, doubtless, quite true that Jan Steen lived at the alehouse, and ended by turning his own dwelling into a tavern. This view of his life should not, however, prevent us from descrying his real merits, or from allowing, that though a free-liver, he was also a philosopher, a profound and acute observer, and able to raise himself without effort to the conception of beauty. Possessed of much comic power, he was skilful in portraying diversities of character, and in reproving the follies of mankind,-not with bitterness, but gaily, as it becomes a man who laughs both at the great and petty miseries of life. Among the numerous biographical works of Arnold Houbraken,-which are for the most part without interest, detail, or colour, that of the life of Jan Steen is remarkable. One B T |