w him a
painter of rare qualities in light, in color, and in atmosphere. He
was a remarkable man for his handling of blues, reds, and yellows; and
in the tonic relations of a picture he was a master second to no one.
Fabritius is supposed to have influenced him.

THE LANDSCAPE PAINTERS: The painters of the Netherlands were probably
the first, beginning with Bril, to paint landscape for its own sake,
and as a picture motive in itself. Before them it had been used as a
background for the figure, and was so used by many of the Dutchmen
themselves. It has been said that these landscape-painters were also
the first ones to paint landscape realistically, but that is true only
in part. They studied natural forms, as did, indeed, Bellini in the
Venetian school; they learned something of perspective, air, tree
anatomy, and the appearance of water; but no Dutch painter of
landscape in the seventeenth century grasped the full color of Holland
or painted its many varied lights. They indulged in a meagre
conventional palette of grays, greens, and browns, whereas Holland is
full of brilliant hues.

[Illustration: FIG. 84.--HOBBEMA. THE WATER-WHEEL. AMSTERDAM MUS.]

Van Goyen (1596-1656) was one of the earliest of the
seventeenth-century landscapists. In subject he was fond of the Dutch
bays, harbors, rivers, and canals with shipping, windmills, and
houses. His sky line was generally given low, his water silvery, and
his sky misty and luminous with bursts of white light. In color he
was subdued, and in perspective quite cunning at times. Salomon van
Ruisdael (1600?-1670) was his follower, if not his pupil. He had the
same sobriety of color as his master, and was a mannered and prosaic
painter in details, such as leaves and tree-branches. In composition
he was good, but his art had only a slight basis upon reality, though
it looks to be realistic at first sight. He had a formula for doing
landscape which he varied only in a slight way, and this
conventionality ran through all his work. Molyn (1600?-1661) was a
painter who showed limited truth to nature in flat and hilly
landscapes, transparent skies, and warm coloring. His extant works are
few in number. Wynants (1615?-1679?) was more of a realist in natural
appearance than any of the others, a man who evidently studied
directly from nature in details of vegetation, plants, trees, roads,
grasses, and the like. Most of the figures and animals in his
landscapes were painted by other