| Dutch artists of the Golden Age are known for truthful portrayals of their world,
whether of carousing revelers in a bar, skaters atop a frozen waterway, or lone
windmills in a panoramic landscape. The genius of seventeenth-century Dutch painting
is the elevation of these homely slices of life into subjects worthy of art.
Like most Dutch landscape painters, Aelbert Cuyp carefully observed the details
of the natural world, such as the textures of water and earth and the changeability
of weather conditions. Intriguingly, Cuyp combined his views of Dutch fields, rivers,
and clouds with elements learned from artists returning from study in Italy.
Although
Dutch artists often enjoyed great commercial success, selling their productions
through dealers or at local fairs, the more classical, idealized paintings
carried out by the Italian schools were considered more valuable in the hierarchy
of
painting styles that academic art theorists had created. In Landscape with
Herdsmen, Cuyp uses an Italianate contre-jour, or backlighting, to create
dramatic profiles
of the large-scale, prominently placed cows. In addition, this golden-yellow
lighting has more in common with the Roman campagna than a typical Dutch landscape. . . .
- Suzanne E. May, formerly research assistant
Corcoran Gallery of Art |
Text excerpted from A Capital Collection: Masterworks from
the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
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