"The Jewel of the Hague."

"The Bull" of Paul Potter, "the jewel of the Hague," is priceless. Paul Potter was only twenty-three years old when he painted it in 1647. He had no teachers that are known, except his father, who gave him nothing but simple advice and no rules. But, until 1647, he lived between Amsterdam and Haarlem, that is between the masters Franz Hals and Rembrandt, in the heart of the most stirring, the most active art, the richest in celebrated masters that the modern world has known outside of Italy. Teachers were not wanting; even Rembrandt had painted his "Night Watch," and was within reach.

But Potter isolated himself in the heart of a rich, crowded school and worked out his own ideals. He had no co-workers, and apparently no friends. He was born in Holland, but no one knows exactly where or when; at fourteen he signed a charming etching; at twenty-two he was a noted painter. He labored steadily at his art; produced work upon work; he accumulated with haste, as though sure of his early death. He married in 1650, and four years later he died, before technically, so to speak, he had learned his trade. Native genius, brave study, close observation; add to this an intuitive conception of color, and to this the gentleness of a meditative mind, the melancholy inseparable from ill health and solitary labor, and you have all that is known of this wonderful young Dutchman.

His masterpiece at the Hague consists of a great bull in a vast plain, under a wide sky. Lying at the base of a scraggy tree a cow and some sheep, in the background a shepherd.

But only the bull is seen; all else is subordinate. The great living animal shows its age, its type, its character, temperament, length, height, joints, bones, muscles, its hide both rough and smooth, tangled and curled, all in perfection. Instead of calling it "Paul Potter's Bull," it should be called "The Bull."