Things Seen in Holland
the picture was exchanged by the authorities of Middelharnis for two or three paintings of little worth. Animals have been portrayed to life in the works of Karel du Jardin, Paul Potter, and several others; Willem van de Velde (father and son), Bakhuisen, Stork, and Dubbels are renowned for their marine pictures; while Van der Heist, Hals, Govert Flinck, and Bol are the painters of heroic achievements and of pictures representing doelen.
It has been said that “the first smile of the young Republic was Art, for it was only after the revolt of the Dutch against the Spanish yoke … that painting reached a high grade of perfection.” After the decline of Dutch Art in the eighteenth century, following the flourishing of the great school of the seventeenth century, Art in Holland again had its renaissance in the Hague School of the mid-nineteenth
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