CUYP, Aelbert
(b. 1620, Dordrecht, d. 1691, Dordrecht)

River Landscape with Five Cows

c. 1650
Oil on panel, 59 x 74 cm
Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest

Cuyp was not only a landscape painter, although there is no doubt that his most attractive and significant works belong to this genre. His range covered conversation pieces, seascapes, portraits and group portraits, but he most frequently depicted animals and landscapes with human figures engaged in fishing, hunting or riding. The setting is generally the countryside around his native town of Dordrecht, and his pictures show us the Meuse estuary with its low coastline, boats at their moorings and cattle grazing. The pictures are characterized by an atmosphere of serenity and calm, with glistening water, soft clouds, gentle landscape, cattle whose smooth coats shine in the evening light and human figures engrossed in work, all combining in a peaceful harmony.

In the present painting Cuyp portrays several cows quenching their thirst and cooling down in the shallow water. Although the surface of the water is still smooth, the billowing clouds above signal a change in the weather suggestive of the end of a warm day. The scene unfolds along a very low horizon that gives rise to a vast sky. Cuyp's pleasing disposition of the animals also serves to convey their great bovine tranquillity and calm.