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HUYSUM, JAN VAN (1682–1749)

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Originally appearing in Volume V14, Page 23 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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HUYSUM, See also:JAN See also:VAN (1682–1749) , Dutch painter, was See also:born at See also:Amsterdam in 1682, and died in his native See also:city on the 8th of See also:February 1749. He was the son of Justus van Huysum, who is said to have been expeditious in decorating doorways, screens and vases. A picture by this artist is preserved in the See also:gallery of See also:Brunswick, representing See also:Orpheus and the Beasts in a wooded landscape, and here we have some explanation of his son's fondness for landscapes of a conventional and Arcadian See also:kind; for Jan van Huysum, though skilled as a painter of still See also:life, believed himself to possess the See also:genius of a landscape painter. See also:Half his pictures in public galleries are landscapes, views of imaginary lakes and harbours with impossible ruins and classic edifices, and See also:woods of tall and motionless trees—the whole very glossy and smooth, and entirely lifeless. The earliest dated See also:work of this kind is that of 1717, in the Louvre, a See also:grove with maidens culling See also:flowers near a See also:tomb, ruins of a See also:portico, and a distant See also:palace on the shores of a See also:lake bounded by mountains. It is doubtful whether any artist ever surpassed van Huysum in representing See also:fruit and flowers. It has been said that his fruit has no savour and his flowers have no perfume—in other words, that they are hard and artificial—but this is scarcely true. In substance fruit and See also:flower are delicate and finished imitations of nature in its more subtle varieties of See also:matter. The fruit has an incomparable blush of down, the flowers have a perfect delicacy of See also:tissue. Van Huysum, too, shows supreme See also:art in relieving flowers of various See also:colours against each other, and often against a See also:light and transparent background. He is always See also:bright, sometimes even See also:gaudy. See also:Great See also:taste and much See also:grace and elegance are apparent in the arrangement of bouquets and fruit in vases adorned with has reliefs or in baskets on See also:marble tables.

There is exquisite and faultless finish every-where. But what van Huysum has not is the breadth, the bold effectiveness, and the See also:

depth of thought of de See also:Heem, from whom he descends through See also:Abraham See also:Mignon. Some of the finest of van Huysum's fruit and flower pieces have been in See also:English private collections: those of 1723 in the See also:earl of See also:Ellesmere's gallery, others of 1730–1732 in the collections of See also:Hope and See also:Ashburton. One of the best examples is now in the See also:National Gallery (1736–1737). No public museum has finer and more numerous specimens than the Louvre, which boasts of four landscapes and six panels with still life; then come See also:Berlin and Amsterdam with four fruit and flower pieces; then St See also:Petersburg, See also:Munich, See also:Hanover, See also:Dresden, the See also:Hague, Brunswick, See also:Vienna, Carlsruhe and See also:Copenhagen.

End of Article: HUYSUM, JAN VAN (1682–1749)

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