LANDSCAPE PAINTING- OF 16TH AND 17tII CENTURIES. 89 



that of landscape painting appertains undoubtedly to the sev- 

 enteenth. As the riches of nature became more known and 

 more carefully observed, the feeling of art was likewise able 

 to extend itself over a greater diversity of objects, while, at 

 the same time, the means of technical representation had si- 

 multaneously been brought to a higher degree of perfection. 

 The relations between the inner tone of feelings and the de- 

 lineation of external nature became more intimate, and, by 

 the links thus established between the two, the gentle and 

 mild expression of the beautiful in nature was elevated, and, 

 as a consequence of this elevation, beHef in the power of the 

 external world over the emotions of the mind was simultane- 

 ously awakened. When this excitement, in conformity with 

 the noble aim of all art, converts the actual into an ideal ob- 

 ject of fancy ; when it arouses within our minds a feeling of 

 harmonious repose, the enjoyment is not unaccompanied by 

 emotion, for the heart is touched whenever we look into the 

 depths of nature or of humanity.* In the same century we 

 find thronged together Claude Lorraine, the idyllic painter of 

 light and aerial distance ; Ruysdael, with his dark woodland 

 scenes and lowering skies ; Gaspard and Nicolas Poussin, with 

 their nobly-delineated forms of trees ; and Everdingen, Hob- 

 bima, and Cuyp, so true to life in their delineations.! 



In this happy period of the development of art, a noble effort 

 was manifested to introduce all the vegetable forms yielded by 

 the North of Europe, Southern Italy, and the Spanish Penin- 

 sula. The landscape was embellished with oranges and lau- 

 rels, with pines and date-trees ; the latter (which, with the 

 exception of the small Chameerops, originally a native of Eu- 

 ropean sea-shores, was the only member of the noble family 

 of palms known from personal observation) was generally rep- 

 resented as having a snake-like and scaly trunk,^ and long 



* Wilhelm von Humboldt, Gesammelte Werke, bd. iv., s. 37. See 

 also, on the different gradations of the life of natnre, and on the tone of 

 mind awakened by the landscape around, Cams, in his interesting work, 

 Brief en uber die Landschaftmalerei, 1831, s. 45. 



t The great century of painting comprehended the works of Johann 

 Breughel, 1569-1625; Rubens, 1577-1640; Domenichino, 1581-1641; 

 Philippe de Champaigne, 1602-1674 ; Nicolas Poussin, 1594-1655 ; Gas- 

 par Poussin (Dughet), 1613-1675 ; Claude Lorraine, 1600-1682 ; Albert 

 Cuyp, 1606-1672; Jan Both, 1610-1650; Salvator Rosa, 1615-1673; 

 Everdingen, 1621-1675 ; Nicolaus Berghera, 1624-1683 ; Swanevelt, 

 1620-1690 ; Ruysdael, 1635-1681 ; Minderhoot Hobbima, Jan Wynants, 

 Adriaan van de Velde, 1639-1672 ; Carl Dujardin, 1644-1687. 



X Some strangely-fanciful representations of date palms, which have 

 a knob in the middle of the leafy crown, are to be seen in an old pic 



