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$Title{Rembrandt
Chapter I}
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$Author{Sharp, Elizabeth A.}
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holland
first
europe
spanish
years
prosperity
independence
war
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Title:       Rembrandt
Author:      Sharp, Elizabeth A.

Chapter I

Chapter I - Introduction

     Independence of Holland - Protestantism - Separation from Flanders -
Protection against the sea - Dutch commerce - Growth of Amsterdam - Spanish
oppression - Union of Utrecht - Renewed hostilities with Spain - Thirty Years'
War - Agriculture - Dutch East India Company - The spice trade - Drainage of
the Lake of Beemster - Speculation in tulip bulbs - Leyden University - Growth
of literature and art - Political reformation - Calvin - The Act of
Abjuration.

     Twenty-five years before the birth of Rembrandt the independence of
Holland from the tyrannous rule of the Spanish overlords was declared, in
1581, under the leadership of William the Silent.  Three years after the birth
of the great Dutch painter, that typical representative of Dutch independence,
a truce of twelve years was concluded with Spain.  The cessation of
hostilities, of the long physical and monetary strain, the consciousness of
self-mastery, resulted in an impetuous forward movement in every direction,
material and mental.  In literature and in art there arose a spirit and
tendency racially idiosyncratic, foreign to the aims and temperament of the
great schools of Italy, France, and Spain.  For Holland was the first country
unreservedly to accept the reformed teachings of Protestantism; and Rembrandt
was the first great Protestant painter whose work was the outcome and
expression of sturdy independence in religious and political thought, an
independence that carried Holland of the seventeenth century to the high
position of leadership in Europe; not only in finance, but also in matters of
art and learning.

     To indicate in a measure the national conditions of prosperity, their
possibilities and moulding influences at the time of Rembrandt's birth; the
social and religious environment in which he grew up; the materials upon which
his genius developed - to this end a short historical survey may be
acceptable, not only of political conditions, but also of Rembrandt's
precursors in painting, of those pioneers who made ready the way for the
remarkable outburst of talent and genius that appeared in the beginning of the
seventeenth century.

     The Low Countries, Holland and Flanders, were in earlier mediaeval days
allied in interests of state and commerce, and united, notwithstanding racial
diversities, in matters of defence against a common foe.  They were allied,
too, in the art of painting, each modelled on the early German schools of
Cologne, although, after the introduction of the use of oil as a medium,
Flanders took the lead and held it until the final separation between the two
countries - a separation not only in government, but also in religion. Various
causes led to the desire for independence, to the casting off the restricting
influences of feudal government.  Not the least important was the spirit of
manly strength, the need for united action in the ceaseless fight for
existence that the Dutch people had waged with the elements themselves against
the encroachments of the sea, below whose level much of their land lay, and
against whose onslaughts they fortified their shores with huge dykes, and
further protected their arable land by a system of canals and dams.  Neither
feudal nor papal authority could ensure them against such a foe; by the sweat
of their brow alone could they hold their lands secure. Symbolic, indeed, is
the Dutch insignia of the Lion struggling with the waves, and their national
motto, "Luctor et Emergo" ("I struggle and I rise"); significant of the hardy
people who could conquer the sea, could draw their wealth from the ocean, and
wrest arable land from its grasp.  They were able to become the great water
carriers of Europe; also they did not scruple, when necessary, to break down
the dams, and thus make the sea their protector against invasion that
threatened extinction.  This unique geographical position, which developed the
national ingenuity and mother - wit and prescribed methods of living differing
from those of any other country - not excepting Venice - prepared the Dutch to
make a sturdy stand against the extortion, injustice, and cruelty of their
overlords, spiritual and temporal; made them ready to accept the simpler
integrity of the reformed religion, and finally to free themselves from feudal
thraldom.

     For many years prior to the Spanish accession the commerce and industries
of Holland had been steadily growing.  After the tremendous impulse given to
international trade by the Crusades, the chartered towns with their municipal
authorities had been the means of fostering important industries, for which,
in many cases, the raw material was imported from England, such as wool and
flax, manipulated by Flemish and Dutch weavers to a finer texture than
procurable in England.  Silk, hides, furs, Oriental stuffs, etc., went to the
Netherlands by the great waterway of the Rhine, and Holland was the chief
timber mart of the world.  The great importation of spices was centred in
Holland, especially in Amsterdam - the headquarters also of the great
fisheries.  Thus the Dutch metropolis became, in the heyday of its prosperity,
not only the great storehouse, but also the Bank and Exchange of Europe.

     This powerful city, wrested from the sea, built on piles like Venice,
owed its security largely to the support of the seafaring band of
"Sea-Beggars," out of which grew the fine commercial and naval fleet of
Holland, which eventually demolished the Spanish treasure fleet, and shared
the mastery of the seas with England.

     After the Spanish accession the foreign rulers, aware of the wealth and
growing power of this northern possession, and realising that the growing
Protestantism was a serious menace to the spirit of feudal dependence in the
Dutch, did everything in their power to stamp out the heresy and re-establish
the rule of the Roman Church.  They drained the country's resources with
grievous impositions and established the Inquisition.  Alva and his Bloody
Council in the short space of six years put 18,600 people to death.  His
pitiless rule succumbed before the growing strength of the victorious northern
counties, consolidated in 1574, after the celebrated and prolonged siege of
Leyden.  The counties of Holland and Zealand bound themselves together in a
common cause, re-established Protestantism, and, under William the Silent,
threw off the Spanish yoke.  At the Union of Utrecht, in 1579, the
constitution of the Dutch Republic was virtually agreed upon, and two years
later the independence of the northern provinces of Holland and Zealand was
declared, and the government placed in the hands of the States-General.
Thereupon began an era of prosperity for the Dutch people throughout the
seventeenth century, strengthened by the truce of twelve years.

     The Flemish Netherlands, however, were more vacillating in their policy,
divided in their aims and religious opinions, and thus protracted the rule of
the Spaniards and that of their heirs over them.  In 1621 hostilities
recommenced upon the refusal of the Dutch to renew the truce on terms of
Spanish occupancy, Austrian rule, and re-establishment of Roman Catholicism.
In the renewal of the war Dutch interests and prosperity suffered less than
previously for several reasons.  Holland was united and strengthened at home,
richer and more powerful abroad; the Spanish power on land and sea was on the
wane; its vast Empire was shrinking and passing, in part, into the hands of
its enemy the Dutch; it could no longer lay exclusive claim to the Atlantic.
Much of the struggle was fought away from the original seat of war - was waged
in foreign waters by England and Holland.  Thus the heart of the mother
country lay yet awhile in peace.  Moreover, the terrible Thirty Years' War had
broken out between Teuton and Czechs over questions of Austrian succession,
embittered by an underlying strife between Catholicism and Protestantism, and
was of major importance in European affairs.  And though Holland, as every
other European country, suffered the loss of men and the crushing burden of
overtaxation, nevertheless the country was saved from the horrors of civil war
and from the presence of a foreign enemy on its soil, its cities from
devastation and famine.

     In the days of peace the energy and enterprise of the Dutch showed in
every direction of human affairs.  To this period of their upwelling
prosperity we owe many of the civilising elements that have entered into daily
life - such as the wholesale cultivation of vegetables and the storage of
edible roots for winter use - one great factor in the lessening of the scourge
of leprosy prevalent in Europe.  Given a vigorous race inured to work and
endurance, trained to foresight through opposition, and cramped by the limits
of a small sea-girt land, there results of necessity the overflow of
population into other areas of activity beyond their borders: in other words,
the growth of important colonies.  Thus it was with the Dutch.  Their
commercial relations with Spain prior to and during the war pointed out a road
for enterprise, the possibilities of securing lands for self-expansion beyond
the seas.  Eager minds coveted the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the East
and West Indies.  Roving seamen went to spy out the lands, and their eagerness
was whetted by Linschoten's account of Portuguese Bombay, by his maps and
charts, his observations and notes upon routes.  Eager to find a short route
to China and India, the first exploration to the North Pole was fitted out in
1594, and others to the North and South Poles in 1595-6-8.  In 1602 the Dutch
East India Company was formed and founded the city of Java in Batavia, and in
1605 the Company's third fleet secured the Moluccas, and with it the monopoly
of the spice trade; and in 1607 the Dutch trade flourished in the East and
West Indies, from Newfoundland to the Straits of Magellan, in Africa from the
Tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope.

     It is difficult now wholly to realise the importance of the spice trade,
and what in point of wealth its monopoly implied.  But it must be remembered
that in those warlike days, when intercommunication was slow and very
precarious, the food supply was also precarious and little varied.  Till the
seventeenth century luxuries were few, and every form of spice was welcomed
wherewith to make new plats, to tickle the palate of the gourmet, or to
disguise the high flavour of overlong-kept meats.  To raise a sufficient
supply of foodstuffs this ingenious people drained the Lake of Beemster, and
converted 18,000 acres into arable land, and they - the first in Europe -
began to cultivate and store large quantities of roots, potatoes, or turnips,
and winter grasses for animals.  Thus they became by degrees the great
market-gardeners of Europe.  With prosperity, peace, and security, when the
arts of peace turned to the expression of beauty in life, the Dutch gave their
attention also to the growth of flowers; out of this there arose an enormous
industry in roots and bulbs, and to this day the Dutch remain the great
horticulturists of Europe.  So great grew this mania for speculating in tulip
bulbs, that in 1637 enormous fortunes were made and lost in this business,
even at a time when war taxation was very heavy.

     Not only did Holland become the chief commercial centre of Europe, but
also the chief seat of learning.  To commemorate the great siege of Leyden, a
university, which for two centuries ranked first in Europe, was founded in
that city.  Leisure, the outcome of prosperity during the rapid growth of the
virile Republic, stimulated thought to great issues in all departments of
learning - in science, jurisprudence, in physics.  Literature flourished;
Holland was the great printing press of Europe; no ban was laid upon the
publication of books, nor on the free expression of thought.  A fine
expressive literature arose in prose and poetry, rivalled only by the
extraordinary growth of the arts of painting and etching, as exemplified by
Ostade, Jan Steen, Ruysdael, Hobbema, Van de Velde, and Rembrandt.

     Before discussing the condition of art at the date of Rembrandt's birth,
one other point must be considered, the vital cause which more than any other
not only contributed to the strength of Holland, but sounded the first note of
modernity in European government that has had such striking expansion in
England, America, and elsewhere.  The Hollanders, in adopting the reformed
religion, therewith inaugurated a political reformation.  The vital cause that
went to the making of the dignity of the personal freedom of the subject was
the adoption of Calvin's democratic views at the time of the Reformation
instead of those of Luther.  Roman Catholicism upheld the power of the ruler,
the divine right of kings.  As a corollary, the right of the people was
non-existent save as expressed in the right of the king.  Ruling nobles
considered their will - as lieutenants of the king - equally binding on a
people who existed to labour for the welfare of their overlords.  Luther
revolted from papacy, but upheld the power of the king and the teaching that
the people must be of the same religion as their ruler.  Calvin was democratic
in his attitude, and upheld the rights of man as an integral part of his
teaching.

     To quote Mr. Thorold Rogers: "The Act of Abjuration was the first appeal
which the world has read on the duties of rulers to their people. . . .  The
Dutch were the first to justify their action [of revolt] by an appeal to the
first principles of justice.  They were the first to assert and prove that men
and women are not the private estate of princes to be disposed of in their
industry, their property, their consciences, by the discretion of those who
were fortunate enough to be able to live by the labour of others.  They were
the first to affirm that there must be a contract between the ruler and the
people." In short, they were the first "to argue that governments exist for
nations and not nations for governments; the first also to permit and to
acknowledge religious toleration, and to concede it to others.  The logical
outcome of their religious attitude, their political faith, emphasised by the
terrible experiences of the Inquisition, resulted, after the establishment of
Calvinism in Holland, in the spread of a wise tolerance of other faiths to
such an extent that the much-persecuted Jew settled in Amsterdam, took wealth
with him, and did his share in the development of the internal and foreign
commercial relationships and prosperity."