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The memory of Julius Lange was associated in my mind with every picture of Hobbema, Dubbels or Ruysdael, Rembrandt or Rubens, every reproduction of Italian Renaissance art, every photograph of church or castle. And I myself loved pictures even more ardently than poetry.
From a fact which I have already mentioned, that so many Flemish and Dutch pictures, which we may often come across, are in England, I am sorry that my space will not suffer me to give a few special words to other famous painters of these schools or school, for they merge into one, to Snyders, Jan Steen, Gerard Dow, Ruysdael, Hobbema, Van de Velde, etc., etc.
A few landscapes by Ruysdael are to be here met with, which are distinguished by that boldness of conception, fidelity of execution, and coldness of colouring, which have often been remarked as the characteristics of this powerful master.
He admired not only the decoration, the gilding, the carving, in the most expensive Pompadour style, as it is called, and the magnificent brocades, all of which any enriched tradesman could have procured for money; but he also noted such treasures as only princes can select and find, can pay for and give away; two pictures by Greuze, two by Watteau, two heads by Vandyck, two landscapes by Ruysdael, and two by le Guaspre, a Rembrandt, a Holbein, a Murillo, and a Titian, two paintings, by Teniers, and a pair by Metzu, a Van Huysum, and an Abraham Mignon in short, two hundred thousand francs' worth of pictures superbly framed.
"Yes, with care and a return to graduated doses of the same poison; you know it's the only remedy just now," answered the other. By noon the next day the doctor and his patient had returned to the cabin, but Ruysdael himself carried the helpless Liberty Jones to the spring and deposited her gently beside it. "You may drink now," he said gravely.
He was a painter of portraits and of figure subjects as well as of landscapes, and his little groups of men and cattle are always beautifully drawn. Ruysdael, Hobbema, and many others were landscape painters only, and some had their figures put in by other artists. Often they did without them, but in the landscapes of Cuyp, cows generally occupy the prominent position.
He wrote that the picture would become of greater value to his children if the artist left it hanging upon the walls of the Academy, "till you join the society of Ruysdael, Wilson, and Claude. As praise and money will then be of no value to you, the world will liberally bestow both."
"Aye," responded Peter's cheery voice, "willing heart makes nimble foot and who knows, but it may make strong arms also." "Pete," asked Ludwig, changing the subject, "did you tell me last night that the painter Wouwerman was born in Haarlem?" "Yes, and Jacob Ruysdael and Berghem too. I like Berghem because he was always good-natured.
Two months later, when her only surviving relative, "Aunt Marty," of Missouri, acknowledged the news communicated by Doctor Ruysdael with Scriptural quotations and the cheerful hope that it "would be a lesson to her" and she would "profit in her new place," she left her aunt's letter unanswered.
In the prime of life Jacob Ruysdael in turn fell into extreme poverty, and died an inmate of the Haarlem Almshouse in 1682 a sad record of Holland's greatest landscape painter, for 'beyond dispute' Ruysdael is the first of the famous Dutch landscape painters.
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