These journeys in Belgium gave Alfonso and Leo enlarged ideas as to the
possibilities of portrait painting. In Alma Tadema, of Dutch descent, and
Millais they saw modern examples of wonderful success, which made clear
to them that the high art of portrait painting once acquired, both fame
and fortune are sure to follow.
Christine de Ruyter had taken lessons of the best masters in Holland,
Italy, and France. Few, if any women artists of her age, equalled or
excelled her. Her conversations on art in the Netherlands charmed her
two artist friends. She said, "The works of art of the fifteenth and
seventeenth centuries in the Netherlands seemed to grow out of the very
soil of the low countries. Our old artists revelled in the varied
costumes and manifold types that thronged the cities of the Hanseatic
League. The artist's imagination was fascinated by the wealth of color he
saw on sturdy laborers, on weather-beaten mariners, burly citizens, and
sagacious traders.
"Rubens delighted often in a concentrated light, and was master of
artistic material along the whole range. He painted well portraits,
landscapes, battles of heroes, gallant love-making of the noble, and the
coarse pleasures of the vulgar.
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