JAN WYNANTS, born at Haarlem about 1620, and still living in 1677, was
the first master who applied all the developed qualities of the Dutch
School to the treatment of landscape painting. In general his prevailing
tone is clear and bright, more especially in the green of his trees and
plants, which in many cases, merges into blue. One of his
characteristics is a fallen tree trunk in the foreground, as may be seen
in three out of the six examples in the National Gallery. The
carefulness of his execution explains how it was that in so long a life
he only produced a moderate number of pictures. Smith's catalogue
contains about 214. These differ much according to their different
periods. In his first manner peasants' cottages or ruins play an
important part, and the view is more or less shut in by trees of a heavy
dark green, the execution solid and careful. In his middle time he
generally paints open views of a rather uneven country, diversified by
wood and water. That Wynants retained his full skill even in advanced
life is proved by a picture dated 1672, in the Munich Gallery,
representing a road leading to a fenced wood and a sandhill, near which
in the foreground are some cows (by Lingelbach) being driven along. In
his last manner a heavy uniformly brown tone is often observable.
It is his genuine feeling for nature that makes Wynant's pictures so
popular in England, where we meet with a considerable number of his best
works.
JACOB RUISDAEL (born at Haarlem 1628, died there 1682) is supposed to
have developed under the influence of a school there that was opposing
Van Goyen's tone treatment by local colour. Though not always the most
charming, Ruisdael is certainly the greatest and the most profound of
the Dutch landscape painters. His wide expanses of sky, earth or sea,
with their tender gradations of aerial perspective, diversified here and
there by alternations of sunshine and shadow, attract us as much by the
pathos as by the picturesqueness of their character. His scenes of
mountainous districts with foaming waterfalls; or bare piles of rock and
sombre lakes are imbued with a feeling of melancholy. Ruisdael's work
may be well studied in the six examples at Hertford House, and the
fourteen in the National Gallery. Among his finer works in Continental
collections the following are some of those selected by Kugler for
description. At the Hague is one of his wide expanses--a view of the
country around Haarlem, the town itself looking small on the horizon,
under a lofty expanse of cloudy sky in the foreground a bleaching-ground
and some houses reminding us, by the manner in which they are
introduced, of Hobbema. The prevailing tone is cool, the sky singularly
beautiful, and the execution wonderfully delicate. A flat country with a
road leading to a village, and fields with wheatsheaves, is in the
Dresden Gallery. This is temperate in colouring and beautifully lighted.
Equally fine is an extensive view over a hilly but bare country, through
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