Many people consider Dutch art the most interesting in the world. The artists of Holland did not portray classic gods and prayerful madonnas. They were too practical and matter-of-fact for that. Their minds were serious, and scenes of everyday life attracted them more than they did the artists of Italy or Spain. Portrait painting began very early among the Dutch. This was because the Dutch spirit was essentially commercial. The prosperous burghers liked to have great artists paint them, and they were usually willing to pay pretty well for the privilege. Also the nobility, due to their love of splendor, gave abundant employment to the artists. Some of the earlier Dutch artists who achieved fame are the brothers Van Eyck, Hugo van der Goes, Roger van der Weyden, and Quentin Massys. But greater than any of these is Frans Hals, who was born in 1580. He was a great portrait painter. His marvelous capacity for catching an impression on the instant brought him many patrons. He loved to paint people as they were, and jolly topers and rich burghers were his favorite subjects; but, great artist though he was, he died almost in poverty. Rembrandt Harmanzoon van Rijn, who was born in 1607, the son of a miller of Leyden, has been called the greatest painter of northern Europe. Today his pictures are beyond price. His influence on the Dutch artists that followed him was very great. But he died at the age of sixty-two, alone and neglected. Paul Potter, called the “Raphael of animal painters,” was born in 1625, and died from overwork at the age of twenty-nine. It is said that he painted portraits of animals, and tried to know the character of every beast that he drew. Jan Steen painted all sorts of subjects,--chemists in their laboratories, card parties, marriage feasts, religious subjects, and especially children. Besides being a successful artist, he was a brewer at Delft. He failed in this business and opened a tavern. Hence he has often been called “the jolly landlord of Leyden.” Pieter de Hooch was the most neglected of all Dutch painters; yet in 1876 the Berlin Museum paid $26,000 for one of his paintings. He was born in Rotterdam about 1630, and became one of the most charming painters of homely subjects that Holland has produced. He died at Haarlem about 1681. Meyndert Hobbema was born in Amsterdam about 1638, and was buried there in a pauper’s grave in 1709. Although today he is considered one of the great landscape painters of Holland, his work was not appreciated during his lifetime. Hobbema liked to paint only landscapes. It is said that when it was necessary for him to get a figure in a picture he had another artist do it. All these men were great artists of Holland. And it is a peculiar thing that most of them lived in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Since then Holland has done comparatively little in art. [Illustration: The Mint Tower, Amsterdam] HOLLAND By DWIGHT L. ELMENDORF _Lecturer and Traveler_