water
Gallery. But Terburg's perfection as regards the clearness and harmony
of his silvery tone is shown in a picture at Cassel, representing a
young lady in white satin sitting playing the lute at a table.

JAN VERMEER OF DELFT (1632-1675) was certainly a pupil of Fabritius, and
thus "grandson" of Rembrandt. To class him with painters of _genre_
seems almost a profanation of the exquisite sense of beauty with which,
almost alone among the Dutch painters, he seems to have been endowed. It
is like classing Walter Pater with art critics. But as Vermeer had to
express himself in some form, it is perhaps fortunate that the school
had developed this kind of poetic portraiture, under Terburg, Metsu and
others, to a point where a genius like Vermeer could use it as the
vehicle of his fascinating self-revelations. In landscape we have the
_View of Delft_, at the Hague, which has shown the nineteenth century
painters more than they could ever see in their more famous
predecessors; but it is in the simple compositions like _The Letter
Reader_ at Amsterdam, _The Proposal_, at Dresden, or the _Lady at the
Virginals_, in the National Gallery, that he displays his greatest power
and charm.

IV

PAINTERS OF ANIMALS

As a link between the painters of _genre_ and the landscapists, we may
here mention some of the numerous artists who either made landscape the
background for groups of figures and animals, or peopled their
landscapes with groups--it matters not which way we put it. Among these
we shall find several of the most famous, or at any rate the most
popular artists of the Dutch School.

PHILIPS WOUVERMAN (1619-1668), whose reputation during the last century
was greater than that of almost any of the Dutch painters except
Rembrandt and Dou, is said to have studied under Hals, but it is more
certain that the master from whom he learnt most, if not all, was Jan
Wynants at Haarlem, whose whole manner in landscape he quickly succeeded
in acquiring, and surpassed him in his facility with horsemen and other
figures.

Wouverman's works have all the excellences that may be expected from
high finishing, correctness, agreeable composition and colouring. It
does not appear that he was ever in Italy, or even quitted the city of
Haarlem, though it would seem probable that his more elaborate
compositions owed something to other influences than those of Hals or
Wynants. In his earlier pictures there are no horses, but later in hi