There were some painters in Holland in the seventeenth century who
made animals their chief study. Theretofore it had been rare to
introduce them into pictures, except as symbols, like the lion of St.
Jerome, or where the story implied them; or in allegorical pictures,
such as the 'Golden Age.' But at this later time animals had their
share in the increased interest that was taken in the things of daily
life, and they were painted for their handsome sakes, as Landseer
painted them in England fifty years ago.
Thus the seventeenth century in Holland shows an enlargement in the
scope of subjects for painting. Devotional pictures were becoming rare,
but illustrations, sacred and secular, portraits, groups, interiors,
and landscapes, were produced in great numbers. Dutch painters
outnumbered those of Flanders, but among the latter were at least two
of the highest eminence, Rubens and Van Dyck, and to these we will
next direct our attention.
CHAPTER XI
VAN DYCK
The great painter Rubens lived at Antwerp, a town about as near to
Amsterdam as Dover is to London.
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