_Allart van Everdingen_ (Dutch: 1612-1675).
This painter, an elder contemporary and precursor of Ruysdael,
was born at Alkmaar. He studied successively under Roelandt
Savery at Utrecht and Pieter Molyn at Haarlem. In a voyage
which he made to the Baltic he was shipwrecked on the coast
of Norway, and he remained for some time in that country.
On returning to his native land he reproduced the scenes
among which he had dwelt--torrents edged around by huge firs
springing out from sombre masses of rock, and throwing their
spray into large stretches of transparent water. A large number
of studies from nature remain from his hand, and these he
composed into pictures. His works had some vogue in Holland,
where they provided a counter-attraction to the views of the
softer and more smiling country which the "Italianisers" were
offering to the public. If Ruysdael did not himself go to
Norway, it must have been Everdingen's Norwegian scenes that
inspired him. Everdingen's "colouring is simple and pure, his
touch broad and facile, and it is evident that every object
in his pictures was studied from nature." He was also an
accomplished etcher. He died at Amsterdam.