in graphite: 14 heading in green ink: Halt At The Inn

Isack van Ostade, if unfortunate in his early death, must be termed fortunate in that he was born before the tide of degeneration had begun to flow. He then retains the freshness of outlook of a pioneer, and in his landscape-work, is perhaps even more typical of the general artistic attitude of his country than those who, like Ruysdael and Hobbema, pursued more solitary courses. Though like all his country-men, he is attracted to the grey skies and quiet tonality of his native Holland, and is famous above all as a painter of its severe winters, he has never the less the Hollanders' characteristic perception of the fact that a man may be cheerful even where nature is unkind, and that under threatening grey skies when the day is dark, the frost

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