Cuyp
CUYP, the name' of a Dutch family which produced two generations of painters. The Cuyps were long settled at Dordrecht, in the neighbourhood of which they had a country house, where Albert Cuyp (the most famous) was born and bred.
The eldest member of the family who acquired fame was JACOB GERRITSZ CUYP, born it is said at Dordrecht in 1575, and taught by Abraham Bloemaert of Utrecht. He is known to have been alive in 1649, and the date of his death is obscure. J. G. Cuyp's pictures are little known. But he produced portraits in various forms, as busts and half-lengths thrown upon plain backgrounds, or groups in rooms, landscapes and gardens. Solid and clever as an imitator of nature in its ordinary garb, he is always spirited, sometimes rough, but generally plain, and quite as unconscious of the sparkle conspicuous in Frans Hals as incapable of the concentrated light-effects peculiar to Rembrandt. In portrait busts, of which there are signed examples dated 1624, 1644, 1646 and 1649, in the museums of Berlin, Rotterdam, Marseilles, Vienna and Metz, his treatment is honest, homely and true; his touch and tone firm and natural. In portraying children he is fond of introducing playthings and pets a lamb, a goat or a roedeer; and he reproduces animal life with realistic care. In a family scene at the Amsterdam Museum we have likenesses of men, women, boys and girls with a cottage and park. In the background is a coach with a pair of horses. These examples alone give us a clue to the influences under which Albert Cuyp grew up, and explain to some extent the direction which his art took as he rose to manhood.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
