IL-ALBERT CUYP.

the usual dispute concerning the precise year having been waged in regard to him as well as to most of the other early Dutch painters; and Charles Blanc, in a sketch of him, writes, "that the same year that gave birth to one of the greatest painters of humanity (Rembrandt), also gave to Holland one of her greatest painters, certainly one of her most versatile. The lives of these two men were passed from their beginning to their close in the midst of a society profoundly stirred by religious quarrels, and likewise a prey to all the horrors of a civil war, yet in their works one finds no trace of the blood shed around them. The one threw the rays of his magic lamp on all the dramas enacted in human life, without apparently considering as worthy of portrayal those which the passing history of his own country was displaying on its stage; the other, apparently seeing nothing of the tragedy of which Holland was the theatre, listening

templated nature, dividing his attention between the landscape and the sea, painting with the same enthusiasm cattle at pasture or vessels under full sail, and portrayed his generally foggy country as illuminated by sunshine, the abode of shepherds leading their flocks, huntsmen at the chase, seamen navigating the tranquil Meuse, and fishermen placidly drawing in their nets."

It does seem surprising that such an entire absorption in art could exist in the midst of such civil discords. When both the great painters were at an impressionable age, Barneveldt, judged by the Synod of Dort, and declared guilty of conspiracy (though, as now known, unjustly accused and sentenced), was beheaded; later came the invasion of Louis XIV.; the tragic death of Jean and Cornelius De Witt at the hands of the mob, while Prince William looked calmly on; and though Cuyp's life was passed among such scenes, they

are in no way reflected in his pictures. The sorrows and sufferings of the people, the political disasters of his country, the blood shed all around him, threw, as far as we know, no shadow on Cuyp's life. While thousands of his contemporaries were suffering and dying violent deaths, and a whole nation was convulsed to its very centre, he quietly studied the habits of the sailor, the efforts of the fisherman, or the effects of lazy summer noons.

It has always been claimed, and there is nothing to disprove it, that Cuyp's only instructor was his father, Jacob Gerritzom Cuyp, one of the founders of the Academy of St. Luke, at Dort, who resembles the greater number of the Dutch painters of the sixteenth century in that they formed their successors, were surpassed by them, and forgotten by succeeding generations. Of Cuyp's life there is literally no record. One knows not whether his youth was one of ease or of struggle; whether the tranquil beauty of his pictures is owing to his having led a peaceful, happy existence, such as tends to long life and a vigorous old age; or whether he suffered, and so found relief from the burdens of his daily life in picturing scenes in which care and anxiety had no place.

In commenting on this scant knowledge, Blanc writes: We are even igno

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rant of the precise date of his death. According to the registry of M. Immerzeel, of Amsterdam, Cuyp was still living in 1680, for we learn from one of his pictures, the 'Salmon Fishing,' now in the museum at the Hague, that he had for a patron the head of the fishermen guild at Dort-a useless piece of knowledge, for it tells us nothing of either patron or protégé. I think myself there was never a life more honest, laborious, and less troubled by contending passions than Cuyp's. He must, even when young, have been able by his talents to provide himself with all the necessaries of life, so that he need never fear want. Of a placid temperament, a gentle yet firm character, he was doubtless on terms of friendship with the leading men of his day. It would appear from the many times he painted 'Maurice of Nassau preparing for the Chase,' that he must have known him, and therefore been of the reformed faith."

Cuyp in the apparently exhaustless variety of his genius was able to represent nature in her entirety. One recognizes Vander Velde, Potter, Wouverman, Ruysdael, etc., not only by their style, but also by the subjects they always chose. Their range was limited; but Cuyp not only equals them, but often surpasses them, as well as other artists, in their own individual line. Figures, animals, still life,

his picturesque effects by painting according to the generally received rules for obtaining such results. The Dort artist paid no heed to the picturesqueness of poverty, or of dim shadowy recesses; he painted men well clad and prosperous, animals full of health and strength, and studied nature under the blaze of a cloudless sky. His horses are well groomed, his cattle sleek and glossy, and he loved the bright sunlight. In these respects he differs from his contemporaries. He viewed and represented the landscape of his native country in the same manner as did Claude the country around Rome, the Bay of Naples, the Cascades of Tivoli, etc. Two of the finest Cuyps are in the Louvre-"The Departure," and "The Return." In "The Departure," the principal figure, clad in scarlet, has just mounted his horse, a dappled gray, while the groom in a green great-coat has stooped to offer the stirrup. The group, in bright light, has for background the sombre castle, whose shadow, falling to the right, is

life and vigor, "of the tranquillity of the prosperous ones of life, and of the warmth and splendor of day." With the exception of the dogs, painted with feebleness, the picture is a most admirable exponent of Cuyp's strength. Yet compare his riders and horses with those of Wouverman. The men who in Wouverman's pictures appear as elegant proud cavaliers, mounted on mettlesome horses ready to prance and rear, Cuyp saw as though in a different age and of a different nation. His pictures bear traces of his own individuality. His riders seem like the rich burghers of the seventeenth century, who lead the lives of "grands seigneurs" without being able to assume their dégagé air. Wouverman's cavaliers are free, bold riders, ready for either love or war, wearing gay plumes, gilded spurs, knee-boots, pistol at the saddle-bow. But Cuyp's riders are different in every way. They are men of grave, calm mien, richly dressed, but with no coquetry; their horses are strong, docile, and well groomed, ready

The animals of Potter, Berghem, Vander Velde, or Vander Does resemble each other; but Cuyp treats his animals differently, painting them from that point where there are the fewest broken lines, and which displays their best develop ment.

Cuyp's marines, like his landscapes, bear the stamp of truthfulness; and of one, "The Canal at Dort," M. Waagen writes: "It would be impossible to describe the pervading transparency of the morning sunlight, or the delicacy of the aerial perspective in the gradation of a succession of vessels lying one behind another."

Cuyp was no imitator of other artists. He painted Nature as he saw her, and as she exists in Holland, never seeking to arrange a landscape so as to make it picturesque, but reproducing with fidelity the country near Dort as it lay spread before him. It is true he hated sombre skies and dark shadows, and we always see his Holland in her most attractive garb. So strong was his predilection for the cheerful in nature, that even when painting a winter landscape, with streams covered with ice, snow whitening the roofs of the cottages, and sharply defining the bare tree branches, he makes the fog break away scatteringly at the horizon, so that the cold but transparent rays of the winter's sun may give some gleams of brightness. This is seen in his picture of "Fishing under the Ice," owned by the Duke of Bedford, and engraved by Fittler, before which M. Blanc tells us he remained gazing for an hour, and adds: "Many times has Cuyp painted fishermen breaking the ice to cast their lines, sledgers, and skaters, but he has never painted that sad gray winter sky which hangs over the earth as a marble cover over a tomb. A singular artist, and almost alone in this truth, that he knew the art of painting winters without coldness, and moonlights without melancholy."

Lebrun tells us that the English were the first to estimate Cuyp at his proper value, for a long time the French failed to esteem his works, and that fully nine-tenths of his works are owned in England. Blanc insists it is because of the sunlight in them that the English admire them. "It is not surprising that enthusiasm should be excited by him in a people who so love the

our Claude, it is because in his marines and landscapes he has painted with a ray of that luminary. For watery England it was a consolation to see sunlight, if only in a picture; and it was M. Ralp, in a note accompanying the collection of engravings published by J. Boydell in 1769, who first gave Cuyp the name of the Dutch Claude-a name well deserved, for these two masters, so different, are both of them true. The difference between the countries they lived in makes the difference in their genius. Claude had at the service of his brush a nature much more rich in inspiration for an artist in love with light. In Holland, on the contrary, the sky has its rare and fleeting days of splendor; it fights almost the entire year, as did the ancient Ormuzd against the clouds; and yet in Cuyp's works we find no traces of this contest between day and night which evidently so strongly affected the genius of Rembrandt."

There are eight engravings known to have been done by Cuyp, of which good copies have been made by Bagelaar, and the National Library of France owns six of these.

His pictures are very rarely offered for sale, and on such rare occasions are eagerly contended for. Critics vary much in their estimate of his genius. Blanc, as we have seen, has nothing but praise. Kugler writes: "Of Cuyp's works their principal charm lies in the beauty and truthfulness of their peculiar lighting. No other painter, with the exception of Claude, has so well understood how to represent the cool freshness of morning, the bright but misty light of a hot noon, or the warm glow of a clear sunset, in every possible gradation, from the utmost force in the foreground to the tenderest tone of the distance...... But, on the other hand, his animals, and more especially his cattle, have a certain uniformity; their heads are somewhat narrow; while his execution, generally speaking, does not extend to any nicety of detail...... Cuyp varies; the pictures of his earlier days have a certain heaviness of tone; the fleshtints are of a hard red; the aerial perspective deficient; and his execution, though careful and fused, is hard in outline. Later the gradation becomes more true, the coloring clearer, especially the warm flesh-tints, and the solid treatment always more broad and free."