Art-Cuyp-Young Herdsman with Cows TB

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This is one of a series of travel bugs made to recognize paintings seen, and admired by the bug owner. A digital copy of this painting was downloaded from the internet. The copy was reduced in size and proportions cropped to accommodate the laminating materials available to the owner. Regrettably these processes diminish the effort of the artist. One truly must see the original in person to fully appreciate the work. The text below is a mixture of my own observations and material gleaned from the internet (mostly Wikipedia and Web Gallery).

Aelbert Cuyp (1620-1691) was a painter during the Dutch Golden Age, the 17th century. Prior to this time most patrons of the arts were the church and royalty who largely wanted portraits and paintings with religious or allegorical themes. After the Renaissance, northern Europe became a center of commerce and the middle classes prospered to the point that they wanted art to decorate their homes. And, they had broader tastes is subject matter than institutional patrons. To satisfy the demand, the Dutch and Flemish regions developed an amazing number of artists.

Portraiture and religious topics were still important, but landscape, seascape, cityscape, still life and commemorative paintings began to appear. However, another kind of subject matter really flourished at this time, genre paintings. These were scenes from everyday life, depicting people from all classes. Cuyp painted a variety of subjects, but among the ones I have seen, the best are landscapes with cattle. This is a particularly nice example that can be viewed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York. I will note in passing that many Dutch painters also produced works with cows as the chief subject, or at least with them prominently displayed in the fore- or middle-ground.