Aelbert Cuyp

1620-1691 • Dutch • Painter • Baroque/Classical Phase

"Cattle and a shepherd, by Albert Cuyp, the best I ever saw of him; and the figure is likewise better than usual: but the employment which he has given the shepherd in his solitude is not very poetic: it must, however, be allowed to be truth and nature; he is catching fleas or something worse." - Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1781

Cuyp painted panoramic views of the Dutch countryside-he lived in Dordrecht. He may not have traveled to Italy, but he was influenced by the soft, golden light seen in paintings of the Roman campagna, or countryside (see ELSHEIMER). Besides sunlit landscapes populated by cows, sheep, and small figures of shepherds-disapproved of by Reynolds in the quotation above Cuyp also painted atmospherically still and glistening river scenes, full of sailing craft both large and small, often around sunset (e.g., The Maas at Dordrecht; no date). They will be recollected in the United States some 200 years later, in the marine paintings of LANE.