OF BARON HUMBOLDT. 41 



Humboldt, landscape-painting gave an im- 

 portant and characteristic impulse to the 

 study of nature. The epoch of the greatest 

 landscape-painters was, as well known, the 

 seventeenth century. In that period lived 

 Claude Lorrain, the successful painter of light ; 

 Ruysdael, great in dark forests and threatening 

 clouds ; Gaspar and Nicolas Poussin, in repre- 

 senting heroic forms of trees ; Everdingen, 

 Hobbema, and Cuyp, in faithful representation 

 of nature. Humboldt considered it a higher 

 step in representing individual forms of nature, 

 which could, however, only be accomplished 

 when our geographical . knowledge, through 

 travels in foreign climates, became more ex- 

 tended, and the ideas of classification and the 

 conception of beauty more elevated and per- 

 fected. We now arrive at the period when 

 single forms of exotic plants, fruits, branches, 

 and blossoms were painted. In this de- 

 partment we recognize John Breughel, the 

 painter of the individual character of the torrid 

 zone ; Franz Post, of Harlem ; Eckhout, and 

 others. 



Although Alexander von Humboldt had ac- 

 complished an amount of labour in the earlier 

 period of his life which was rarely equalled, 



