Neer, Arnold Vander

, a landscape painter, was born at Amsterdam in 1619, and is well known to the connoisseurs in painting, by a peculiarity of style, and also by the handling and transparence of his landscapes. His subjects are views of villages, or the huts of fishermen, oiv the banks of rivers and canals, by moon -light, generally finished 2 with a remarkable neatness of pencilling. His touch rsextremely light, free, and clean, and his imitation of nature true; particularly in the lustre of his skies about the moon, and the reflection of the beams of that luminary on the surface of the waller. His figures are usually well designed, and their actions and attitudes are well adapted to their employments and occupations. In all parts of Europe his pictures are still in good esteem, but are seldom found uninjured, owing to the simplicity of his manner, and his painting very thin. This artist died in 1683, leaving a son, Eglon Hendrick Vender Neer, who was born at Amsterdam in 1643. He was at first a pupil to his father, and afterwards of Jacob Vanloo. He had an extensive talent, and executed subjects drawn from various branches of the art, with an equal degree of merit. His portraits, in large and small, are well coloured, and touched with spirit and delicacy; in history he designed with correctness, and composed with ingenuity; his conversations have the manner, the breadth, and the finish, of Terburg; his landscape is varied and well chosen, but too much loaded, and too anxiously discriminated in the fore-grounds. The portrait of this artist, painted by himself, and inscribed “Eglon Hendric Vander Neer f. 1696,” has a place in the gallery of Florence. He died in 1703, aged sixty. 2

2

D’Argenville, vol. III.—Deschamps, vol. III.—Pilkington, by Fuseli.

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