Flat Scenery with Riders and Cows by Aelbert Cuyp

Aelbert Cuyp
River landscape with riders
ca. 1653-57
oil on canvas
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Aelbert Cuyp
Page with two horses
ca. 1655-60
oil on canvas
Royal Collection, Windsor

Aelbert Cuyp
Cows in a river
ca. 1650
oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

"Gravy-colored" landscapes from the 17th century by "Dutch masters" were often mocked in 19th-century England, but mocked because of their extreme popularity.  It seemed incongruous at the time, and still does, that a coterie of sophisticated and even extravagant aristocrats led by the Prince Regent should pour their sincerest emotions and large reserves of cash into acquiring these small brown pictures. Work by Aelbert Cuyp (1630-1691) in particular was of such desirability that several paintings purchased as his for the Royal Collection at Windsor were later found to be painted by other hands.

follower of Aelbert Cuyp
Cattle near a river
17th century
oil on canvas
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

Aelbert Cuyp
The Valkhof at Nijmegen
ca. 1652-53
oil on panel
Indianapolis Museum of Art

Aelbert Cuyp
Herdsmen with cows
1645
oil on canvas
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

Aelbert Cuyp
Two Cavalry Troopers talking to a peasant
ca. 1650
oil on panel
Royal Collection, Windsor

Aelbert Cuyp
Cavalry Trooper decorating a dappled-gray horse
ca. 1652
oil on canvas
Royal Collection, Windsor

Aelbert Cuyp
River landscape with riders
ca. 1653-57
oil on canvas
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Aelbert Cuyp
The Passage Boat
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Royal Collection, Windsor

Aelbert Cuyp
Road near a river
ca. 1660
oil on canvas
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

Aelbert and Jacob Cuyp
Portrait of a family in a landscape
1641
oil on canvas
Israel Museum, Jerusalem

Aelbert Cuyp
Portrait of the Sam family
ca. 1653
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Aelbert Cuyp
Portait of a young officer
ca. 1640-60
oil on panel
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

People Making Music in European Paintings

Lorenzo Lippi
Allegory of Music
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
private collection 

Gerard ter Borch
The Music Lesson
ca. 1668
oil on canvas
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Pieter De Grebber
Musicians
ca. 1620-23
oil on canvas
Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao

THE USE AND ABUSE OF MUSIC

The rites deriv'd from ancient days
With thoughtless reverence we praise,
The rites that taught us to combine
The joys of music and of wine,
And bade the feast, and song, and bowl,
O'erfill the saturated soul,
But n'er the Flute or Lyre apply'd
To cheer despair, or soften pride,
Nor call'd them to the gloomy cells
Where Want repines, and Vengeance swells,
Where Hate sits musing to betray
And Murder meditates his prey.
To dens of guilt and shades of care
Ye sons of Melody repair,
Nor deign the festive dome to cloy
With superfluities of joy.
Ah, little needs the Minstrel's pow'r
To speed the light convivial hour;
The board with varied plenty crown'd
May spare the luxuries of sound.

– from the Medea of Euripides, translated by the great Samuel Johnson (1782)

Mathieu Le Nain
Musicians
before 1677
oil on canvas
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

Diego Velázquez
The Three Musicians
ca. 1618
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

Anonymous Flemish Tapestry
Musicians in a garden
ca. 1650-1700
silk and wool
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Evaristo Baschenis
Still-life with musical instruments, books and statuette
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Agostino Ciampelli
God the Father surrounded by music-making angels
ca. 1600-1610
drawing
British Museum

from GOD IS NOT CAST DOWN

"If materialism were content to build scaffolding on which to ascend to the nebulae and transform itself into so much mist in the turning of the great cosmic vortex – well, that would be a point in its favor, in my view; but as long as it presents itself as simply a 'fight for survival' or a struggle with Nature, all its victories strike me as meaningless."

– Kasimir Malevich (1920) translated by Jonathan A. Anderson

Carlo Maratti
Figure of Music
ca. 1660-1710
drawing
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Agostino Tassi
Women playing music and a girl dancing
ca. 1610-20
drawing
British Museum

Paul Gauguin
Portrait of Cellist Frédéric Guillaume Schneklüd
1894
oil on canvas
Baltimore Museum of Art

Edgar Degas
Portrait of the cellist Pilet
ca. 1868-69``
oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Edgar Degas
Seated Violin Player
1872
oil on paper
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Gian Paolo Panini
Musical Fête
1747
oil on canvas
Louvre, Paris

Old Master Drawings on Blue Paper

Leonardo da Vinci
Study of woman's head
ca. 1485-90
drawing on blue paper
Royal Collection, Windsor

Paper tinted blue (by papermakers, during manufacture) was a moderately fashionable commodity in Renaissance Europe, in demand for writing, drawing, and even letterpress printing. This blue-paper fashion expanded and peaked during the 18th century. Samples chosen here are fairly well-preserved, though less vivid than they once were. Many such papers have faded to gray or to some indeterminate pale shade.

Giovanni Angelo Canini
Study for fallen Angel
1655
drawing on blue paper
Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf

Albrecht Dürer
Study of feet
1508
drawing on blue paper
Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Agostino Carracci
Kneeling figure
ca. 1582-85
drawing on blue paper
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Annibale Carracci
Study for St Andrew
before 1605
drawing on blue paper
Royal Collection, Windsor

305

Like the sunburst up the white breast of a black-footed penguin
amid infinite quantities of gin
Henry perceived his subject.
It came nearer, like a guilty bystander,
stood close, leaving no room to ponder,
Mickey Mouse & The Tiger on the table.

Leaving the ends aft open, touch the means,
whereby we ripen. Touch by all means the means
whereby we come to life,
enduring the manner for the matter, ay
I sing quickly, offered Henry, I
sing more quickly.

I sing with infinite slowness finite pain
I have reached into the corner of my brain
to have it out.
I sat by fires when I was young, & now
I'm not I sit by fires again, although
I do it more slowly.

– from The Dream Songs by John Berryman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969)

Giorgio Vasari
Annunciation
1545
drawing on blue paper
Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin

Giacinto Calandrucci
Study for figure of Aurora
1680s
drawing on blue paper
Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf

Hendrik Goltzius
The Albani Faun
(ancient statue, restored)
drawing
1590-91
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Domenichino
Study for Ignudo
ca. 1607-1610
drawing on blue paper
Royal Collection, Windsor

Luca Giordano
Young man pulling a rope
ca. 1700
drawing on blue paper
Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

Jean Restout the Younger
Seated Faun
ca. 1753-59
drawing on blue paper
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Wouda Piera
Académie
1780
drawing on blue paper
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Pompeo Batoni
Académie
1765
drawing on blue paper
Philadelphia Museum of Art 

Giovanni Antonio Grecolini
Académie
before 1725
drawing on blue paper
Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf

Harsh Weather

Jean-Honoré Fragonard
Winter
1735
oil on canvas
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Claude-Joseph Vernet
Storm
1765
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

                     
                                                 And over all their heads
The god's king, in abhorred claps, his thunder rattl'd out.
Beneath them Neptune tost the earth; the mountains round about
Bow'd with affright and shooke their heads; Jove's hill the earthquake felt
(Steepe Ida), trembling at her rootes, and all her fountaines spilt,
Their browes all crannied. Troy did nod: the Grecian navie plaid
(As on the sea); th'infernall king, that all things frayes, was fraid,
And leapt affrighted from his throne, cried out, lest over him
Neptune should rend in two the earth, and so his house so dim,
So lothsome, filthy and abhord of all the gods beside,
Should open both to gods and men. Thus all things shooke and cri'd.

– Iliad, xx, 56-66, translated by George Chapman (1611)

John Constable
Stormy Sea, Brighton
ca. 1828
oil on paper mounted on canvas
Yale Center for British Art

Peter Paul Rubens
Stormy Landscape with Philemon and Baucis
ca. 1625
oil on panel
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ludolf Bakhuizen
Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee
1695
oil on canvas
Indianapolis Museum of Art

Eugène Delacroix
Christ on the Sea of Galilee
1854
oil on canvas
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

Eugène Delacroix
Christ on the Sea of Galilee
1841
oil on canvas
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City

Samuel Palmer
Summer storm near Pulborough, Sussex
ca. 1851
watercolor
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Crescenzio Onofri
Man fleeing storm
before 1698
drawing
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

From the heights the Sire of gods
And men rolled dreadful thunder; and beneath
Poseidon made the infinite earth to quake,
And the steep mountain-summits: all the roots
Of many-fountained Ida and all her peaks,
The Trojans' city and the Achæans' ships
Were shaken.  Hades, lord of shades below,
Was scared, and leapt in terror from his throne
And screamed for fear Poseidon earthquake-lord
Should burst apart the earth above his head,
And his abode be bared before the eyes
Of mortals and immortals – his abode
Ghastly and dank, which e'en the gods abhor.
So huge arose the clash of battling gods.

– Iliad, xx, 56-66, translated by Sir William Marris (1934)

Jan Brueghel the Elder
Beach with sailboats and stormy sea
1614
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin

Rembrandt
Cottages under a stormy sky 
ca. 1635
wash drawing
Albertina, Vienna

Johan Christian Dahl
Thunderclouds
1831
oil on paper mounted on canvas
National Gallery of Norway, Oslo

Gaspard Dughet
Mountainous landscape with approaching storm
1638-39
oil on canvas
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

Vincent van Gogh
Wheat-field in rain
1889
oil on canvas
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Childe Hassam
Rainy day, Boston
1885
oil on canvas
Toledo Museum of Art (Ohio)

From high above the father of gods and men made thunder
terribly, while Poseidon from deep under them shuddered
all the illimitable earth, the sheer heads of the mountains.
And all the feet of Ida with her many waters were shaken
And all her crests, and the city of Troy, the ships of the Achaians.
Aїdoneus, lord of the dead below, was in terror
and sprang from his throne and screamed aloud, for fear that above him
he who circles the land, Poseidon, might break the earth open
And the houses of the dead lie open to men and immortals,
ghastly and mouldering, so the very gods shudder before them:
such was the crash that sounded as the gods came driving together in wrath. 

– Iliad, xx, 56-66, translated by Richmond Lattimore (1951)