large size of the canvas was
censured, the commonplace nature of the subject, the poverty of the
light effects, for the light is equally diffused and everything is
placed in relief without the contrast of shadow,--the stiffness of the
legs of the bull, the crude coloring of the plants and animals in the
background; the mediocrity of the shepherd's figure. But, for all
this, Paul Potter's bull was crowned with glory as one of the noblest
examples of art, and Europe considers it as the greatest work of the
prince of animal-painters. An illustrious critic very rightly said
that "Paul Potter with his bull has written the true idyl of Holland."

Herein is the great merit of the Dutch animal-painters, and of Potter
above all, that they have not only depicted animals, but have revealed,
and told in the poetry of color, the delicate, attentive, almost maternal
love with which this Dutch agricultural people cherish their cattle.
Potter's animals interpret the poetry of rural life. By them he has
expressed the silence and the peace of the meadows, the pleasure of
solitude, the sweetness of repose, and the satisfaction of patient toil.
One might almost say that he had succeeded in making himself understood by
them, and that they must have put themselves in positions to be copied. He
has given them the variety and attractiveness of human beings. The
sadness, the quiet content which follows the satisfaction of physical
needs, the sensations of health and strength, of love and gratitude toward
mankind, all the glimmerings of intelligence and the stirrings of
affection, all the variety of nature--all these he has understood and
expressed with loving fidelity, and he has further succeeded in
communicating to us the feelings by which he was animated. As we look at
his pictures a strange primitive instinct of a rural life is gradually
roused in us--an innocent desire to milk, to shear, to drive these gentle
patient animals that delight the eye and heart. In this art Paul Potter is
unsurpassed. Berghem is more refined, but Potter is more natural; Van de
Velde is more graceful, but Potter is more vigorous; Du Jardin is more
amiable, but Potter is more profound.

And to think that the architect who afterward became his father-in-law
would not at first give him his daughter, because he was only a
painter of animals! and if we may believe tradition his celebrated
bull served as a sign to a butcher's shop and sold for twelve hundred
and sixt