(b Leiden, 13 Jan. 1596; d The Hague, 27 Apr. 1656). Dutch painter, one of the foremost pioneers of realistic landscape painting in the Netherlands. His earliest works are heavily indebted to his master Esaias van de Velde, but he then created a distinctive type of monochrome landscape in browns and greys with touches of vivid blue or red to catch the eye. He was one of the first painters to capture the quality of the light and air in a scene and to suggest the movement of clouds. Most of his paintings seem to be based on drawings made as he travelled about the countryside, and he evidently used the same drawings again and again because the same themes and motifs recur repeatedly in his works: gnarled oaks, wide plains, usually seen from a height, low horizons, and clouded skies are typical of his repertoire.