Smith, John: A catalogue raisonné of the works of the most eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French painters: in which is included a short biographical notice of the artists, with a copious description of their principal pictures : a statement of the prices at which such pictures have been sold at public sales on the continent and in England; a reference the the galleries and private collections in which a large portion are at present; and the names of the artists by whom they have been engraved; to which is added, a brief notice of the scholars & imitators of the great masters of the above schools (Part 6) (London: Smith and Son, 1835)

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JOHN WYNANTS.

and rivers, embellishing the lovely scene with a rich
variety of objects, such as sandy banks, winding roads,
withered trees, and wild plants. Occasionally his views
are more confined, and the eye is entertained with
a faithful picture, composed of a clayey bank, a rugged
road, an old tree, wild ssowers, herbage, and a sedgy
pool. Such, with few deviations, compose the views of
the whole of his productions ; but, notwithstanding
the similarity of the scenes represented, there is a great
disparity in their quality; those of his middle time
being clear and luminous in effect, and delightfully
delicate in the execution. No artist furnished more
luxuriantly the fore-grounds of his pictures, or gave
greater variety of form and tint to the soil, in which
the dock, the thistle, and the bramble, seem to be
indigenous. In the latter years of his life, he appears
to have lost the high feeling for the art which at one
period inssuenced him, and to have degenerated into
a species of indifference, or negligence; for his execu-
tion is frequently coarse, and his colouring brown and
heavy; defects by no means compensated by the great
practical knowledge and masterly handling which such
pictures at all times possess.
Wynants painted figures very indifferently, and this
defect he felt so severely, that he is said to have used
every means in his power to conceal it: to this keen sense
of his deficiency may be attributed the extraordinary
pains he took with his pupils, Philip Wouwermans, and
Adrian Vander Velde, to make them masters of so
necessary an embellishment to landscape scenery. The
eminence to which these artists arrived in their profes-