DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61252#0049
INTRODUCTION.
5
lain, and latterly those of the Due de Berri, Talleyrand,
Calonne, have found their way to England, and the ac-
quisitions made by collectors here now comprise some of
the most exquisite and valuable productions of a school
of art which, though more easily comprehended and re-
lished than the ideal creations of the great poet-painters
of Italy, is yet not always well understood or justly appre-
ciated ; not even by those who are astonished, delighted,
or diverted by the power of imitation, the delicate and
minute execution, and the grotesque humour displayed in
some of these marvellous performances.
The Dutch painters, properly so called, are those who
flourished in the Low Countries, particularly at the Hague,
Leyden, Amsterdam, and Haarlem, towards the end of the
sixteenth and throughout the seventeenth century, com-
prising a period of about 120 years: and here, as in the
Italian schools, we find the earliest, the best, and the
latest, the worst painters of their class. In the highest
rank we place Jan Steen, Teniers, and Adrian van Ostade,
as delineators of plebeian character and life; Terburg,
Netscher, and Eglon Vander Neer, as painters of elegant
social life ; Gerard Douw, Gabriel Metzu, and Franz
Mieris, as the most refined portrayers of common life
and domestic incident; De Hooghe, and Vander Heyden,
as imitators of purely natural effects of perspective and
light. Hobbema, Ruysdael, Adrian Vander Velde, and
Cuyp, stand perhaps at the head of a long list of landscape
painters ; Paul Potter was confessedly the greatest cattle
painter, as Wouvermanns was the best painter of equestrian
subjects, in the world; and, for sea pieces merely, Wilhelm
Vander Velde and Ludolf Backhuysen are considered
unrivalled. All these painters, however they might differ
in the selection of their subjects, and in the individual
manner of treatment (easily discriminated by a little
practice and observation), had taken that direction which
5
lain, and latterly those of the Due de Berri, Talleyrand,
Calonne, have found their way to England, and the ac-
quisitions made by collectors here now comprise some of
the most exquisite and valuable productions of a school
of art which, though more easily comprehended and re-
lished than the ideal creations of the great poet-painters
of Italy, is yet not always well understood or justly appre-
ciated ; not even by those who are astonished, delighted,
or diverted by the power of imitation, the delicate and
minute execution, and the grotesque humour displayed in
some of these marvellous performances.
The Dutch painters, properly so called, are those who
flourished in the Low Countries, particularly at the Hague,
Leyden, Amsterdam, and Haarlem, towards the end of the
sixteenth and throughout the seventeenth century, com-
prising a period of about 120 years: and here, as in the
Italian schools, we find the earliest, the best, and the
latest, the worst painters of their class. In the highest
rank we place Jan Steen, Teniers, and Adrian van Ostade,
as delineators of plebeian character and life; Terburg,
Netscher, and Eglon Vander Neer, as painters of elegant
social life ; Gerard Douw, Gabriel Metzu, and Franz
Mieris, as the most refined portrayers of common life
and domestic incident; De Hooghe, and Vander Heyden,
as imitators of purely natural effects of perspective and
light. Hobbema, Ruysdael, Adrian Vander Velde, and
Cuyp, stand perhaps at the head of a long list of landscape
painters ; Paul Potter was confessedly the greatest cattle
painter, as Wouvermanns was the best painter of equestrian
subjects, in the world; and, for sea pieces merely, Wilhelm
Vander Velde and Ludolf Backhuysen are considered
unrivalled. All these painters, however they might differ
in the selection of their subjects, and in the individual
manner of treatment (easily discriminated by a little
practice and observation), had taken that direction which