making debauchery hateful by painting it as he did in
repulsive colors, for the same reason that the Spartans showed drunken
Helots to their sons. Others see in his paintings only the spontaneous
and thoughtless expression of the spirit and taste of the artist, whom
they represent as a vulgar debauchee. However this may be, there is no
doubt that in the effects produced Steen's painting may be considered
a satire on vice, and in this he is superior to almost all the Dutch
painters, who restricted themselves to an external realism. Hence he
was called the Dutch Hogarth, the jovial philosopher, the keenest
observer of the habits of his countrymen, and one among his admirers
has said that if Steen had been born at Rome instead of at Leyden, and
had Michelangelo instead of Van Goyen been his master, he would have
been one of the greatest painters in the world. Another finds some
kind of analogy between him and Raphael. The technical qualities of
his paintings are much less admired, his work has not the finish nor
the strength of the other artists, such as Ostade, Mieris, and Dou.
But, even taking into consideration its satirical character, one must
say that Steen has often exceeded his purpose if he really had a
purpose. The fury with which he pursued the burlesque often got the
better of his feeling for reality; his figures, instead of being
merely ridiculous, became monstrous and hardly human, often resembling
beasts rather than men, and he has exaggerated these figures until
sometimes he awakens, a feeling of nausea instead of mirth, and a
sense of indignation that nature should be so outraged. The effect he
produces is generally a laugh,--a loud, irresistible laugh, which
bursts from one even when alone and calls the people away from the
neighboring pictures. It is impossible to carry further than Steen did
the art of flattening noses, twisting mouths, shortening necks, making
wrinkles, rendering faces stupid, putting on humps, and making his
puppets seem as if they were roaring with laughter, vomiting, reeling,
or falling. By the leer of a half-closed eye he expressed idiocy and
sensuality; by a sneer or a gesture he revealed the brutality of a
man. He makes one smell the odor of a pipe, hear the coarse laughter,
guess at the stupid or foul discourses--to understand, in a word,
tavern-life and the dregs of the people; and I maintain that it is
impossible to carry this art to a higher point than that to which
Steen has