Note (return) — Chapter XIII · 50

Jan Both, born in 1610 (?), died in 1650 (?), was another Dutch landscape painter still more spellbound by Italy, 57 which he visited, and where he fell under the influence of Claude Lorraine. Both devoted himself thenceforth to Italian landscape to a greater degree than was practised by any other Dutch painter. He was excellent in drawing and skilful in rendering the golden glories of Italian sunsets. He painted freely and with solidity. The figures of men and animals in his pictures were often introduced by his brother Andreas. Jan Both excelled both in large and small pictures, but he was most uninterestingly uniform in design. He had generally a foreground of lofty trees, and for a background a range of mountains rising step by step, with a wide plain at their feet. Sometimes he introduced a waterfall or a lake. He rarely painted particular points in a landscape. His life was not a long one, so that his pictures do not number more than a hundred and fifty. Occasionally his warm tone of colouring degenerates to a foxy red. One of Both's best pictures—a landscape in which the fresh light of morning is apparent—is in the National Gallery.