# Four Bulls [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [POTTER, Paulus]() - Date: 1601-1650 - Technique: Oil on wood, 58 x 68 cm ## Commentary Like the landscape and the still-life, animal painting became a genre of its own in the seventeenth-century Netherlands, its wealth of cattle being one of the prides of the country. Paulus Potter was the first to specialise in the subject, raising cows, sheep and pigs from the status of incidental embellishments to the rank of principal motif. His works were highly regarded in his own lifetime, and were highly collectable. Potter has captured the appearance of the cattle in anatomically minute detail, the fine brushstrokes giving them an almost tangible materiality. Generally small in format, his works are distinguished by a monumentality of effect generated by the static calm of the motifs. ## Related artworks - [A Husbandman with His Herd \(detail\)]() - [A Husbandman with His Herd]() - [Cattle and Sheep in a Stormy Landscape]() - [Cows in a Meadow by a Farm]() - [Cows in a Meadow]() - [Cows Reflected in the Water]() - [Deer in the Wood]() - [Diederik Tulp]() - [Driving the Cattle to Pasture in the Morning]() - [Figures with Horses by a Stable \(detail\)]() - [Figures with Horses by a Stable]() - [Four Bulls \(detail\)]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()