Page:EB1922 - Volume 31.djvu/415

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HOLLAND
379


There are five humanistic universities; three are State institu- tions, namely at Leiden, Utrecht, Groningen; while one is municipal and one private, both at Amsterdam. The students numbered in 1909-10 3,945 (671 women), and in 1918-9 5,396 (1,263 women). Besides these universities, there are other institutions which, requir- ing similar entrance qualifications, are empowered to grant degrees. One is the State technical university (Hoogeschool) at Delft, con- ferring the degree of " Doctor Ir. " (engineering), and admitting in 1909-10 1,121 students (57 women), and in 1918-9 1,866 (123 women) ; another is the private university of commerce founded at Rotterdam in 1913, conferring the degree of Doctor of Com. and attended in 1918 by 556 (28 women) students. In 1912 the State agricultural school at Wageningen was converted into a State higher agricultural, horticultural and arboricultural school, and in 1918 into an agricultural university (Dr. Agr.), its students then num- bering 222. In 1912 a secondary agricultural school was founded at Groningen and a secondary school of colonial agriculture at Deventer. In addition there are 21 State agricultural and horti- cultural winter schools and a State dairy school at Bolsward. The State veterinary school at Utrecht was raised in 1918 to the status of a university. In addition there are schools of navigation (at Amsterdam and elsewhere), secondary technical schools, academies of plastic art, training schools for teachers, a large number of house- keeping and training schools for girls and institutes for deaf mutes, for the blind and for backward children.

Besides large amounts provided privately the net expenditure on education from the public exchequers (State, provincial and com- munal), after deduction of revenues, totalled in 1910 over 3,550,- ooo and in 1917 nearly 5,580,000. Since " public " and private education have been given equal claims to State support and teachers' salaries have been improved, the total estimated expenses for 1921 were not less than 12,500,000.

Literature. Literary development in Holland was marked by a change about the year 1900 after the violent individualism of " the men of the "eighties." Dogged subjectivity, the principle of "Art for Art's sake" was abandoned, and even under the men of the 'eighties this development attained completion (Gorter, van Eeden) . The lyric and naturalistic epic concentrated in the figure of Marcellus Emants (b. 1848); under the influence of French naturalism, French philosophy and of Ibsen especially he became the delineator of degeneration and of the tragedy of heredity (Waan, Liefdeleven). This modern realism, with a typically Dutch tint, is to be found in Herman Robbers (Roman van een Gezin), Ina Boudier Bakker (Armoede), Top Naeff (Voor de Poort), de Meester (Geertje), Heyermans (Diamantstad) , and Querido (Menschenwee, De Jordaan). Beside it there flourishes a modern romanticism: Arthur van Schendel (Een Zwerver Verd- waald), van Moerkerken (De Bevryden), Adr. van Oordt (War- hold), greatly under the influence of the realism of about :8go.

Louis Couperus abandoned his neurotic milieu of The Hague (Eline Vere) and turned to the semi-historical and highly imaginative (Een berg van Lichl, Antiek Tourisme, Iskander). Many modern poets with socialistic ideals aim at an art for the community (Adama van Scheltema, Henr. Roland Hoist), while P. C. Boutens (Carmina, Praeludien) under the influence of the classics and philosophers produces intellectual lyrics. Among the younger lyric poets are Aert van der Leeuw, P. N. van Eyck, Geerten Gossaert and J. C. Bloem. The poet-singer J. H. Speenhoff deserves special mention.

In the theatre great progress has been made in this period: Heyermans (Ghetto, Op Hoop van Zegen), Mrs. Simons-Mees (De Veroveraar), Schiirmann (De Violiers). As producers, Royaards (Vondel, Shakespeare, Goethe) and Verkade (English Society plays) are well known. The best known actor is Louis Bouwmeester, who, as Shylock, has had great success in London as well as in Paris, Berlin and Vienna.

Dutch critics are Albert Verwey (De Ricliting der Heden- daagsche Poczie), Carel Scharten (Krachten der Toekomsf), Joh. de Meester, Is. Querido and van Eeden (Studien).

Painting. The Hague school has been coming to a close in a number of disciples who miss the great powers and great per- sonality of the Marises (James and William), of Mauve and Weissenbruch. Joseph Israels died in 1911. Breitner (1857- ), who, although he lived in Amsterdam, may still be regarded as one of the Hague school, had done his best work. Matthew Man's, one of the finest and most subtle Dutch artists of the igth century, died in 1917. Antagonistic to the Hague school were the pupils of Allebe, the Amsterdammer. Among them

one finds such well-known portrait painters as Veth and Haver- man, a landscape painter like Voerman, a puintei-littSraleur like Van Looy, painters of fish, Dysselhof, Witsen, etc. Bauer, the great etcher and painter of the East, occupies a place of his own. He is a Romanticist with the technique of the Hague school, just as Isaac Israels in his painting is more nearly related to the French school, as Manet, etc.

The first revolutionary in Holland was Vincent van Gogh (1853-90). He went to France and was affected by the modern masters of that time. Judging him by his best known work he must, without doubt, be considered one of the greatest Pas- sionates that Holland ever possessed. His influence on some of the younger painters is still apparent. After him come two such contrasting masters, Toorop and Van Konynenburg. Toorop (1858- ) is an admirable portrait painter, a sym- bolic draughtsman, rich in imagination, a creator of religious subjects (since he became a Catholic in 1905).

Van Konynenburg (1868- ) has long been an opponent of the Dutch impressionism (the Marises, etc.). He has become, like Toorop, chiefly a figure painter; one of the most psycho- logical portraits of our time, that of Boutens, is his work.

Jan Sluyters (1881- ), called by some the Breitner among the younger men, especially with reference to such work as " The Negro," is a naturalistic limner of excellent child portraits, a painter of still life and of landscapes with figures. Leo Gestel (1881- ) is more refined. Cubist in his landscapes (soft in colour) of Majorca, with melancholy in his sunflowers, he is in his later studies of flowers what might be called normal decora- tive. Sluyters and Gestel arc both Amsterdammers. With them may be mentioned Matt. Wiegman. Schelfhout tends towards the archaic in his dry-points. Roland Hoist is full of good taste, the painter, after Derkinderen, of mural paintings; Alma is developing also in that direction.

Thorn Prikker (1868- ) has always stood apart. He has the most sensitive feeling for line of any Dutch artist.

Architecture. It is to the credit of Dr. P. J. H. Cuypers (1827-1921), a pupil of Viollet-le-Duc, that, aided by his friend Jhr. Victor de Stuers (1843-1916) himself a great art con- noisseur and patron he succeeded in arousing general interest in art and, more especially, in architecture and decoration. Cuypers, inspired both by the Gothic and by the Netherland style of the i6th century, built the State museum at Amsterdam and many churches, in which he was frequently assisted and followed by Joseph Cuypers, Bleys and others. The Dutch 1 7th century Renaissance served as a model to architects such as Gosschalk, Springer, Van Arkel, Van der Steur, etc. Jan Stuyt, De Basel and Leliman turned their attention more to the i8th century. A fresh trend in architecture had emanated from H. P. Berlage, who stresses simplicity and severity of line and the use of brick as a specially suitable material for Holland.

HISTORY. The war period brought a solution of some very important questions in Holland. After the resignation of the Liberal Cabinet of De Meester in 1908, the Government passed into the hands of the "Right" (clerical) Cabinet of Heemskerk (1908-13), which, thanks to the gifted minister Talma, suc- ceeded in passing an act for compulsory insurance. The Heems- kerk Cabinet, in the person of its vigorous Minister for War, Mr. Colyn, was able to carry out a reorganization of the army which made it possible for Holland to mobilize very rapidly in 1914 and to strengthen its forces very considerably during the war. The building of a fortress near Flushing aroused at first some dissatisfaction in Belgium, France and England, owing to fear of German influence; but it appeared that Holland aimed merely at an energetic maintenance of its neutrality on the Western Scheldt in the event of war. The World War showed that Holland's neutrality benefited the Allies by preventing the German invaders in Belgium from using the Western Scheldt for submarine warfare.

In 1913 the Heemskerk Cabinet made way for that of Cort van der Linden, which came into power after the refusal of the Social Democrats to accept seats in the Cabinet and the con- sequent refusal of the Liberal parties to take upon themselves