_Jan Wynants_ (Dutch: about 1615-1679).
Wynants--spelt also Wijnants--the painter of the sandy wayside,
was one of the founders of the Dutch school of landscape, and
was an artist of much originality. Out of a few docks and
thistles, it has been said, a tree, and a sandbank, he could
make a picture. "In the choice of his subjects Wijnants shows
a preference," says Sir F. Burton, "for open scenery, where,
under a sky of summer blue broken by illuminated cloud-masses,
the undulating soil reveals its nature through beaten tracks
and rugged roads with their shelving sides of gold-coloured
sand, while trees are scattered thinly on the slopes. Or he
loves the borders of the forest, where mighty tree-trunks,
smitten by past storms, still extend some gnarled branches
across the sky, or a fallen stem lies half imbedded amongst
tall grasses and large-leaved plants. In such scenes Wynants is
particularly attractive. They give us the poetry of form and
light, as Ruisdael's deep pine-forests give us that of gloom
and solitude." Of his life little is known. He was probably
born about the year 1615, as his earliest pictures bear the
dates 1641 and 1642. He was still living in 1679, as one of his
paintings in the Hermitage of St. Petersburg bears that date.
In October 1642 the registers of St. Luke's Guild at Haarlem
mention a Jan Wijnants as dealer in works of art; this probably
refers to the painter. He resided at Haarlem, and afterwards
at Amsterdam. Wouwerman and A. van de Velde were among his
scholars, the latter artist and others inserted figures in his
pictures, for Wynants painted only landscape. The visitor will
find good examples of him at Dulwich and Hertford House.
The picture is signed (on the trunk of the felled tree) and dated 1659.
The figures in this and the next picture are ascribed to A. van de
Velde.