The Dutch art market was different, made up of secular buyers, merchants, traders, and even craftsmen. The canvases turned out by Dutch artists were much smaller. They departed from the Biblical and classical themes of the past. They created a new genre, today known as "genre painting." These genre paintings were scenes of everyday life, often done with a flare of whimsical humor. The Dutch also wanted colorfulul landscape paintings of their nation, their beaches, harbors, cityscapes and still lifes. Portraits became less formal and more lively with flashes of light and personality.

To be brutally honest, the Dutch landscape is rather dull. It has no high ranging mountains or dynamic seacoast and its north coast sky is far from bright. Its low lying flatlands stretch out against an even flatter and grayer sea. Its skies are often dark and cloudy.

But the Dutch art buyers did not want dull. They wanted paintings to brighten things up, reflecting the Dutch sense of adventure. Just as the lives of the Dutch had been vastly improved as a result of world wide trade, a flood of new ideas, new foods, spices and fabrics, they wanted this liveliness in their art. They wanted captivating light in paintings, exquisite reflections dancing on a curved piece of glass, highlights on people's faces filled with personality and humor. They wanted landscapes with patches of sunshine contrasting with their otherwise dark and gloomy landscape.

The Dutch artists provided what the market wanted; a massive quantity of high quality paintings were produced by Dutch artists at relatively low prices. Painting had now become available for common people. Paintings were about them, their lives, and became an expression of their values and interests.

Over the years, our newsletter has covered exhibitions of Dutch paintings at the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and several visiting exhibitions at SF's de Young and the Legion of Honor. Below are some captivating paintings from the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
(at the end of this article are links to our previous Newsletter articles of Dutch paintings)

This transition from Biblical and classical themes to Dutch secular themes was not abrupt. There were a few biblical and classical paintings produced, but these Biblical paintings definitely had a Dutch accent. Their use of lighting is very Dutch. The furnishings, clothing, and props found in these pictures are from the 17th century.

Aelbert Cuyp never traveled to Italy, but he was influenced by Italian paintings. In The Flight to Egypt, The painting includes an imagined Northern Italian setting with figures wearing 17th century costumes.

Rembrandt van Rijn's The Raising of Lazareth, shows Christ rasing his hand over Lazareth much like a marionette master. Although the scene is set inside a cave, the clothing and scabbarded swords hanging on the wall are 17 century Dutch.

Jan Steen's Samson and Delilah probably bears closer resemblance to Cecil B. deMille's 1949 film with Victor Mature and Hedy Lamar than it does the the actual event depicted in the Bible in Judges, chapter 16. Steen's painting shows the late moments of what appears to have been a sumptuous Dutch banquet, a late night scene where a drunken Samson is about to have his hair sheared by deviously minded Delilah.

Dutch scenes of banquet tables are sumptuous and visually appetizing. These tables are set with an array of exotic treats from far away as well as the bounty from the sea brought in from the Dutch fishing fleet. They often featured a carafe or glass of wine with excellently executed light reflecting from a rounded surface. The tables are often draped by exquisitly rendered tablecloths.

Pieter Claesz's Still Life with Herring, Wine and Bread was done in 1647. This looks like a fine savory combination, with imported orange and wine complimenting local herring with capers. Notice all the reflections in the goblet.

Abraham van Beyeren's Banquet Still Life shows exotic foods spread out on a marble table with a Turkish rug. This ostentatious table shows the prosperity surrounding the Dutch Republic and its overseas trade.

If you look closely, a mouse is perched on the silver plate, silhouetted against a ripe light colored peach. The wealth of the Dutch economy even reached down and touched the lives of mice. The color of the lobster, melon and citrus contrasts with the dark interior of the scene.

It's been nearly 400 years since Game Market by Frans Snyders was painted. Apart from its artistic qualities, it shows the huge differences between how meat is processed and sold in the 17th century compared with the 21st. This painting is evidence of the abundance of game in the Dutch countryside. At that time, only noblemen were permitted to hunt and sell game. This retail display of abundance is for wealthy customers. Frans Snyders is known for his still lifes, animal paintings and hunting scenes.

Bouquet of Flowers on a Ledge by Ambrosius Bosschaert shows a glass vase on a window ledge. The arrangement is a mix of both common and exotic flowers, including a prized imported striped tulip. The Dutch love of cultivating, displaying and trading tulip bulbs exists to this day. This bouquet is imagined, because the blossoms displayed bloom at different times of the year. Notice the butterfly on the striped tulip to the left, a feature found in many of Bosschaert's floral paintings.

Banquet of Flowers in an Urn by Jan van Huysum is topped off by a "Crown Imperial," a flower highly prized by collectors. This painting was done 105 years after Bosschaert's Bouquet of Flowers. Van Huysum liked to use pastel colors, which foreshadows the rise of the rococo period. Large weighty flowers suspended by long curved steps form graceful arabesques.

At the end of 1631, Rembrandt (then age 26) moved about 30 miles, from Leiden northward to Amsterdam. At the time, Amsterdam was a city rapidly expanding as the new business capital of the Netherlands. He began to practice as a professional portraitist for the first time there with great great success. In his portrait of a prosperous grain merchant Marten Looten, Rembrandt pictures him in conservative Mennonite dress, with his arms, cape and hat enhancing a three dimensional form. The new style in portraits was to show the subject interacting with the viewer. Here, Marten Looten appears to be turning, his lips slightly parted as if speaking to someone in close proximity.

In 1634, Rembrandt traveled from Amsterdam to Rotterdam (50 miles south) to paint the portrait of Dirck Jansz. Pesser, a wealthy brewer. Pesser had been told by his wife and mother-in-law that Rembrandt was Amsterdam's most fashionable portrait painter. Rembrandt here employs the conventional oval format, probably at the client's request. He uses the undulating rim of the hat and white ruff of the collar while carefully highlighting the shadows on Pesser's face to create a lively image that appears to exist in real space.

Frans Hals was born 23 years before Rembrandt. He is best known for his portraits of wealthy patrons. He employed an intimate realism with a radically free approach, capturing aspects of his subject's personality by enlivening their pose and facial expression. He is popular today because his subjects are interesting and relatable. Portrait of Pieter Tjarck, a wealthy silk merchant in Haarlem, strikes a casual pose holding a pink rose. This portrait was a companion portrait of Marie Larp, Tjarck's wife (at the National Gallery, London). The portraits were done on the anniversary of their wedding in 1834.

Laughing Child is an amazing painting. Since seeing it, I have become a Frans Hals fan. It is quite a small painting but has an outsized impact. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art's placard offers no information about this painting other than its title and date. But a similar painting called Laughing Boy is in the Mauritshuis collection in Amsterdam. Their website says Hals captured children's spontaneity with very loose brushstrokes. He was a master at capturing laughter, one of the most difficult expressions to paint.

The premier painter of church interiors was Emanuel de Witte, 1617-1692. He was not religious at all but was artistically attracted by the angles, vertical space, and shadows to be found within church interior's architecture. But he was not the first to paint the interiors of churches.

The painting above, Interior of a Gothic Church by Paul Vredeman de Vries, was painted nearly five years before de Witte was born. It shows the interior of an imagined Roman Catholic Cathedral. After the Netherlands split from Spain's control, there were virtually no Roman Catholics in Holland. The few groups that did exist kept a low profile and met in houses. Sometimes, wealthier Catholics commissioned painters to paint imagined Dutch cathedral scenes for the small Dutch catholic audience. This is one such painting. Another entitled Interior of an Imaginary Catholic Church done in 1868 by Emanuel de Witte resides in the Maritshuis Museum in the Hague.

William the Silent was the hero of Dutch resistance against Spain. He was assassinated in 1584. His tomb is pictured here in de Witte's painting, Interior of Nieuwe Kerk in Delft. The monument over his crypt was a popular national attraction. Notice the dog next to a man with a red cape. Dogs accompanying individuals into churches and other places of business was not an unusual sight in the 17th century. In this painting, de Witte creates an illusion. His painting appears to be of a finished painting, partially covered by a curtain hanging over it.

Today, Oude Kerk is Amsterdam's oldest building. The current stone structure was consecrated in 1306 as a Roman Catholic Church. In 1578, the church was taken over by the Calvinist Dutch Reformed Church when Dutch national hero William the Silent defeated the Spanish in the Dutch Revolt. Rembrandt was a frequent visitor to the Oude Kerk and his children were all christened in it. Emanuel de Witte's Interior of the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, shows a portion of its famed wooden ceiling. Here again, notice the dog next to the man holding a red cape against the pillar in the lower right of the painting. Seeing these paintings side by side, its easy to assume de Witte loved dogs and, as a painter, he loved adding a dash of red to his paintings.

View of the River Maas near Dordrecht, Netherlands is the left half of a long panel showing a panoramic view of Dordrecht from across the River Maas. Aelbert Cuyp was a native of Dordrecht. The right side of this painting hangs in the Museum der Bildenden Kunste in Leipzig, Germany.

Simon de Vlieger was a major Dutch sea scene painter. In View of a Beach, he shows enterprising fishermen who have pulled out their boats to sell their catch while people gather to bid farewell to a fleet of ships departing on a trade expedition half a world away.

In View of a Harbor City, which Adam Pynacker painted when he was in his early 30's, tall flagged masts and sails can be seen in the background while in the foreground, two men wrestle to launch a much smaller vessel. In his late 30's, Pynacker made an extended visit to Italy where he converted to Catholicism in order to marry Eva Maria de Geest. Her father Wybrand de Geest was a famed Dutch portrait painter.

View of the River Lek and the Town of Vianen by Salomon van Ruysdael is a scene dwarfed by an expansive clouded sky. Van Ruysdael was one of the leading landscape painters of his generation. His paintings have tonal elements, a hallmark of Dutch realism. Most of his paintings were done near his home in Haarlem, but he painted throughout Holland. His paintings typically are dominated by their light and atmosphere.

Ships in a Calm by Jan van de Cappelle is representative of many maritime paintings of Dutch trading ships close to shore. He was one of the leading Dutch maritime painters. He was a man of many talents. After buying a home in Amsterdam, he devoted most of his energies to business. Besides being a Dutch painter, he was a major collector of Dutch art. Here too, light and sky dominate this painting.

View of Dordrecht by Jan van Goyen is typical of his tonalist paintings, very interesting clouds with reflections of light on the water silhouetting his subjects and figures in the foreground. He helped popularize paintings focused on local subjects. He was a highly respected painter in the artistic community of the Hague.

View of Arnhem by van Goyen shows the city of Arnhem (just east of Amsterdam) along the River Nederrijn. Here the city is silhouetted against the bright sky and reflections from the river.

Salomon van Ruysdael's River Landscape with a Ferry is similar to View of the River Lek and the town of Vianen. But here, van Ruysdael shows us a typical scene in Dutch life, a ferry crossing a river. The low and flat Dutch landscape is crossed by wide shallow rivers. Ferries were a frequent aspect of Dutch life and were often a subject of van Ruysdael's paintings.

Landscape with Peasants Playing Bowls Outside an Inn by David Tiers the Younger is an homage of sorts to his father, Jan Brueghel the Elder. His father was fond of playing bowls. This painting is typical of David Teniers the Younger with an expanded landscape in the background giving the painting an overall pastoral mood. This is a large painting, probably commissioned by owners of a large estate.

Landscape with Deer Hunters by Salomon van Ruysdael shows a small group of wealthy men hunting deer. As stated in my comments on Game Market pictured above, the hunting of game was restricted to noblemen. Van Ruysdael was wealthy, owning several homes. He was an inventor who came up with a way of making sculpted ornaments which looked like polished marble. The resulting manufactured marble was used as decoration on furnishings and picture frames, and made van Ruysdael relatively wealthy.

Jacob van Ruisdael was the nephew of Solomon van Ruysdael. He is the better known painter of the two. Jacob was known as a most versatile painter of landscapes. His compositions are nearly heroic and his observation of detail was most keen. The Great Oak is a collaboration with Jacob's friend, artist Nicolaes Berchem. Nicolaes did the figures of Italian shepherds, a gentleman and discharged soldiers moving through Jacob's light filled northern landscape. The battered old oak clinging to the sand into which it is rooted dominates this landscape. Nearly a century after this painting done in 1652, it resided in Rome in the famous collection of Cardinal Silvio Valenti Gonzaga.

Jan van der Heyden's View of the Herengracht, Amsterdam, from the Leliegracht shows grand mansions in a wealthy section of Amsterdam as seen from a passing boat on the Leliegracht, one of three major canals which ring the city. This painting has minute detail. Van der Heyden added moss-like lichen to his paint to suggest texture in the leaves along the tree lined canal and bricks in the sunlit face of the buildings.

Landscape with Dunes by Jacob van Ruisdael is a pleasing scene of a roadside crossing a stream beneath a billowing cumulus cloud. Again, van Ruisdael pictured oak trees rooted in the sand, giving dimension to the otherwise low lying dunes.

Likewise, View of Grainfields with a distant town shows the grain catching a glimpse of sunlight underneath voluminous clouds. The neat rows of harvested haystacks give us an understanding of the attentive labor the Dutch farmers gave their crops.

Recently, a new client expressed interest in our John W. Hilton prints. After retrieving the print portfolio from storage I discovered (or rediscovered) these photos, laid out in a collage on the back inside cover.

The annoyance of my error quickly gave way to the thrill of finding more photos from the remarkable life of John W. Hilton.

These "newly discovered" photos show the two most important women in John's life, his second wife Barbara (Macgillavery) Hilton and his mother Blanche Hilton. They also show John painting a mural at Santa Ana's once swank Saddleback Inn, home to the Western Art Gallery, the Orange County place to find fine desert art by the best desert painters.

What I know of Barbara Hilton and Blanche Hilton was gleaned mostly from John W. Hilton's biography, The Man Who Captured Sunshine by his friend Katherine Ainsworth, 1978.

The foreword of The Man Who Captured Sunshine, was written by John's close friend James Cagney. Cagney expresses so well why he and so many others were drawn to John and were proud to call him their friend.

Cagney wrote, "John Hilton is completely unique. His strong interest in everything that comes within his ken (his range of sight) has served all who know him very well. His painting, done in a style that only he has perfected, has brought extreme pleasure to thousands who, in their lives, had never been near a desert. His love and appreciation of desert beauties and wonders have made many see things they might easily have neglected to observe. He makes one aware of the power of simple things like the potentials of a drab piece of rock which with some applied skill, his, becomes a startling gem. His knowledge of plant life fills us with an awareness of our own ignorance and makes us resolve to get a move on and learn, learn, learn. When one can teach as John does, we should all sit back and listen, and I do."

John counted many people his friends, from notables like President Eisenhower, General Patton, James Cagney and industrialist Howard Hughes to local folk, including native Americans, Hispanics, business and trades people, and kids.

His artistic friends included a Who's Who of the Southwest's best desert painters: Jimmy Swinnerton, Maynard Dixon, Clyde Forsythe, Nicolai Fechin and hosts of others. John was at the center of the desert painters school, often serving as the self appointed social director. He arranged for many a joint painting expedition to Monument Valley, the Grand Canyon and other desert locales.

Barbara was the true love in John's life. He first saw her on a chance meeting when John had stopped in at his old gem shop in Thermal, California, just to pick up a few things and take them to his new home in Twentynine Palms.

John noticed an old customer who had bought some of John's paintings walking across the road from Valerie Jean's Date Shop. A woman in curlers and a scarf was with him. As they got closer, John was enchanted by the woman. Clumsy small talk gave way to continued conversation, and in short order, John and Barbara courted and were married.

In Hollywood, Barbara had worked as an assistant dance director for Seymor Felix and Busby Berkley. She had the beauty, grace and tone of a dancer with big blue eyes framed by arrogant eye brows -- so said Hilton of his first sight of Barbara. But beyond beauty and a dancer's disciplined work ethic, she was sharp and inventive. She soon managed Hilton's career and sales increased. John was becoming a better painter too. He began using a new approach to the use of color. Katherine Ainsworth described it as "capturing sunlight's radiant rosy glow." It proved most pleasing to buyers.

In short order, John went from a painter who was satisfied to sell a painting or two now and then to being represented by the best galleries, being asked to become a member of New York's Salmagundi Club, having a one man show at the prestigious Grand Central Gallery, and presenting one of his paintings to President Eisenhower on the occasion of his second inauguration in January, 1957.

With Barbara at his side, John had arrived.

John's mother, Blanche Hilton was a woman of steel. Between 1908 and 1914, she, her husband George and her son John (aged 3-10) served as missionaries in Northern China.

Early in 1908, Blanche and her three-year-old son Johnny accompanied her husband George, an ordained preacher of the Church of the Brethren, on a mission to northern China. China was in turmoil, just seven years after the Boxer Rebellion and just before the Sun Yat Sen Revolution. The Chinese were fearful of warlords and foreigners.

The diminutive woman (pictured to the right) is Blanche Hilton. In this photo, she appears to be rather benign as her son John dedicates one of his paintings as a gift to the Church of the Brethren Seminary.

In mid 1909, Blanche was not only mothering a 5 year old son, she was responsible for her family's upkeep and welfare and worked as her husband's chief mission assistant. When George suffered a debilitating knee injury and had to return to the United States for surgery, Blanche tended to the details to make the long trip home possible.

Blanche booked passage, a steamship Pacific crossing to Seattle and a then long train ride to Rochester, Minnesota, where George received knee surgery. The family then briefly stayed with Blanche's parents in Surrey, in north central North Dakota just east of Minot where George recovered. In the midst of a North Dakota winter, little Johnny Hilton began his love for the desert. How does one learn to love the desert in winter in North Dakota? Little Johnny swore he would never be cold again.

By the Spring of 1911, Rev. George Hilton had recovered and the family sailed from Seattle again on the S.S. Minnesota. They arrived in Tien Tsin just in the middle of the Sun Yat Sen Rebellion. The Hiltons were not allowed to proceed to the interior to their mission station, but were sequestered with other missionary families in a missionary compound. When George was enlisted to go and help out in a region of Southern China where famine was present, Blanche and Johnny (now 7 years old) endured in the missionary compound for months.

To give you a sense of the instability of the region, across from the missionary compound was an empty lot where executions were carried out. Little Johnny, through cracks in boarded up windows, witnessed beheadings. He never talked about that experience much, but it was something he told Katherine Ainsworth and she put it in his biography, even including a memory of prisoners being bound, the stroke of the sword, and spurting fountains of blood. As John told Katherine of those memories, she writes, "Hilton shook his head as though trying to rid himself of those dark memories."

When George finally returned from the famine in Southern China, he was a ghost of the man who had left them. The experience was hard on him and the tough life and death decisions he had had to make. He was shrunken from his robust 200 lbs, now down to 120. His eyes were sunken, his hair had turned white, and he was suffering from dysentery, termed "Famine Fever." But again, George Hilton slowly recovered and afterward, the family was allowed to proceed to their mission.

By 1914, after having labored in the mission field for 3 years, the family returned on the S.S. Minnesota. On their voyage home, the stopped in Honolulu and John (now 10 years old) remembered riding the horse-drawn street car across Honolulu with Blanche. When they arrived in Seattle, the family was met by a Church of the Brethren preacher who hosted them, driving them to his Seattle home in his automobile, John Hilton's first thrilling ride in a car.

For John, it was a remarkable childhood. His experiences living in another culture, his ability to speak and understand Mandarin, his exposure to Chinese philosophy, and his lessons in art taught by Chinese teachers, all were foundational for the man and artist he was to become. Throughout his life, John W. Hilton was a curious and eager learner in all kinds of things associated with the desert. He was a self taught botanist, zoologist, geologist, writer, and historian. His early experiences with his parents in China helped nurture his curiosity and ability to learn. And through it all, Blanche was there guiding little Johnny every step of the way.

The Saddleback Inn's Murals isn't as interesting a story as his early days as a missionary child in China or the exciting romance he shared with Barbara, but it does bear testament to John's place and prestige in the world of desert painting within the greater Los Angeles art market.

In the 1960's, the Saddleback Inn was the major gathering place for Orange County. Local notables such as John Wayne and Walt Disney were frequent visitors at local dinners and events. The Inn's Western Art Gallery was the place to buy western art. In the booming region, there were many buyers for works by Jimmy Swinnerton, Clyde Forsythe and John W. Hilton.

Bill Riffle, manager of the Western Art Gallery, commissioned John Hilton to paint two large mural sized paintings to be displayed in the hotel's large banquet room. John knew full well that attendees to these banquets would see the paintings and then visit the Western Art Gallery. Sales were to be made, not only for John but for all his artist friends.

The glory days of the Saddleback Inn were numbered, though. Long after John W. Hilton's death in 1983, and after a sale or two, years of neglect and deferred maintenance took their toll. The once glorious Western hotel faded, was abandoned, became blighted and eventually burned to the ground. In 2012, the charred remains were demolished and the site was cleared.

So far, I've been unable to find out what happened to Hilton's large banquet room paintings. If you know, or if you have a lead as to what happened to these paintings or know of a photo of them, please let me know.

Recently, we looked back at the phenomenal Edward Hopper exhibition held at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008. Now, a new major Edward Hopper exhibition is to be held in New York. Hopper lived in New York for almost 60 years. This exhibition at the Whitney Museum looks at Hopper's paintings of New York. And yes, Night Hawks will be there!

In the late summer of 2019, Linda and I visited Los Angeles. Whille there, we took in the Ernie Barnes: A Retrospective exhibit at the California African American Museum in Exposition Park just steps away from the LA Coliseum. WOW! Previously, we knew little of Ernie Barnes, but his art was captivating, fresh and vibrant! He captured the grace of movement found in African American culture, its dance, its music and its athleticism. At the time, I couldn't help but describe it as "visual jazz." Our September 2019 article | Read more on Artnet News

Jack loved Sonoma County's beauty and found great pleasure in painting his virbrant interpretaions of the Sonoma landscape.

Ten years ago Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery hosted a Jack Stuppin Exhibition, Songs of the Earth, the Color of Joy. It was quite the event, Jack was on hand to meet his friends and fans, offering signed limited edition prints on canvas along with calendars and cards.

Jack was a good friend and graciously hosted me on a tour of his Coffee Lane home. His passion for painting and Sonoma County will be missed. (Press Democrat link)

Bentonville, AR
Crystal Bridges
Museum of American Art

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