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Van Gogh • Artist Biographies • Aelbert Cuyp

Aelbert Cuyp
Birth Year :	1620
Death Year :	1691
Country :	Netherlands

Aelbert Cuyp, a landscape artist who was often called the Dutch Lorrain,

View of the Maas in Winter Aelbert Cuyp Buy From Art.com

was born in Dordrecht. He came from a family of artists; his grandfather and uncle were glass stainers and his father, Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp, was a portraitist. Cuyp studied art with his father and had as his fellow student a young uncle. Upon the death of his parents, Cuyp inherited a considerable fortune and a few years later, in 1659, he married a widow who was a member of a patrician family. He was active in civic and religious affairs in Dordrecht throughout his life, becoming a deacon of the Reformed Community in 1659, an elder of the Church Council in 1667, and a member of the Tribunal of Eight for the Southern Provinces in 1682. Cuyp's wife died in 1689 and he probably spent the last two years of his life at the home of his only daughter and her husband, proprietor of a brewhouse called "le Lis."

Cuyp, who painted still lives, animals, portraits, and landscapes, worked in two distinct styles. Between 1639 and 1645, under the influence of other artists, Cuyp painted naturalistic, diagonal compositions that show a good sense of space and an almost monochromatic yellowish-gray color. His more individualistic style, most evident in his work from the period between 1650 and 1670, is considered his best. Cuyp's paintings are sunny and lively in atmosphere, profound in tonalities, simple in outline, well-balanced in composition, and notable for the large, rich foreground masses. Although his palette tends largely to yellow, pinkish red, warm browns, and olive green rather than blue and silver grey, he is considered a forerunner of Vermeer in his handling of light.

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