Dutch landscape and marine painter. He worked with Savery in Utrecht and Molyn in Haarlem. In the 1640s he visited Scandinavia, where he developed a taste for subjects inspired by the scenery there - above all mountain torrents - and helped to popularize such themes in the Netherlands. Jacob van Ruisdael, in his pictures of majestic waterfalls, was one of the artists influenced by him. Allaert was also a fine etcher. His elder brother Caesar (1617-78), who painted portraits and historical pictures, was attracted by the south not the north. Although he never went to Italy, he captured the spirit of Italian art better than many of his countrymen who crossed the Alps: witness his beautiful Four Muses with Pegasus (c.1650), part of the decoration of the royal villa - the Huis ten Bosch - at The Hague. //