Excerpt from The Gallery of Pictures by the First Masters of the English and Foreign Schools, Vol. 1: With Biographical and Critical Dissertations<br><br>The works of this artist are far from numerous Reynolds, in his tour through Holland, either did not see them or did not feel them; he has not mentioned his name or alluded to his paintings. Maas excels in clear and brilliant colour ing: he is fond too of strong contrasts, sudden gleams of light amid thick dark ness. He never equalled Teniers in his soft, sharp, brilliant touches, nor Jan Steen in his management of light and shadow; but he acquired a name which will be long heard of for vivid presentations of nature, for simplicity of concep tion, and a quiet sly humour. Holland is full of the pictures of her own masters: they are to be found in almost every house. I have only to add, says Sir Joshua, that in my account of the Dutch pictures, which is, indeed, little more than-a catalogue, I have mentioned only those which I considered worthy of attention. It is not to be supposed that these are the whole of the cabinets described; perhaps in a collection of near a hundred pictures, not ten are set down; their being mentioned at all, though no epithet may be added, implies excellence. It is plain from this, that the president considered only such pic tures as he thought excellent worthy of attention; but there are many fine works which approach near excellence, and the Dutch galleries number some from the'hand of Arnold Van Maas among them.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.