Aert van der Neer possessed a remarkable ability to convey the activities and atmosphere of a winter’s day. In this bright scene, men and women, young and old gather on a winding, frozen river. Nestled between the snow-dusted cottages and tall, gnarled trees lining the riverbanks, they skate, sled, ride in horse-drawn sleighs, and socialize under a cloudy, light blue sky. Among the most amusing vignettes is an intense game of colf (or kolf, a cross between modern-day hockey and golf) underway in the foreground, in which one of the players, hunched over and gripping his club, attempts to hit his target with his friends watching closely. In another charming moment, a handsome couple dressed in their finest—he with a copper-colored ensemble and a sword hanging from his belt, she in her Brabant huik, an old-fashioned headdress consisting of a flat, round disc with a small upstanding spike and floor-length black veil—greet equally elegant friends standing at the riverbank nearby. While the rutted, icy terrain of the riverside path indicates that winter is well underway, the sentiment of the scene is convivial and carefree—a testament to the enormous pleasure being on the ice gave to people of all ages during the 17th century.
Signed and dated 1645, Winter in Holland: Skating Scene belongs to a transitional moment in Van der Neer’s career. Although he had been active as a landscape painter since the early 1630s, his first dated winter landscape came only in 1642. Van der Neer’s early paintings (most of whose whereabouts are unknown) bear remarkable compositional similarities to winter scenes by Hendrick Avercamp (Dutch, 1585 - 1634) and his closest follower, Anthonie Verstraelen (1594–1641). Like the works of Avercamp and Verstraelen, they tend to feature a frozen river receding into the distance with groupings of diversely dressed figures scattered across the picture plane. Seen from a high vantage point but with a low horizon line, the early paintings take a broad view over the river with cottages and churches stretching along both sides, though usually only one of the banks is visible in the immediate foreground.
What inspired Van der Neer to begin painting winter landscapes similar to those of Avercamp and Verstraelen is not clear, but it may have been a simple matter of opportunity. Van der Neer had been living in Amsterdam since at least 1629, having relocated from the small town of Gorinchem not far from Rotterdam. When he arrived in Amsterdam, the influence of Avercamp, who had been active there before returning to his hometown of Kampen around 1613, was still quite strong. Indeed, Verstraelen, who also moved from Gorinchem around 1628, immediately began working in Avercamp’s manner and quickly established himself as his successor, soon becoming one of the city’s most sought-after winter landscape painters. Verstraelen’s career, however, was short-lived. He died in 1641, which was, as far as we know, around the time Van der Neer began painting winter landscapes. With the absence of Verstraelen, Van der Neer may have seen an opportunity to make his foray into the winter genre.
Van der Neer’s earliest winter landscape of 1642 adhered more closely to the tradition established by Avercamp and continued by Verstraelen. However, Winter in Holland: Skating Scene signals the beginning of a shift away from their formulae. The painting maintains the single-bank view in the foreground, but the recession of space is achieved more gradually, and the figures are more numerous and densely grouped. They have also been distributed horizontally across the foreground, effecting a gentler integration of the human presence within the space of the landscape.
Infrared reflectography reveals that these compositional changes did not come easy to Van der Neer, in particular the effort to realize figural harmony. Although an overall underdrawing is not visible, there are several changes to the staffage, including a group of figures around the short, craggy tree that he either painted out or never completed. By omitting these figures, Van der Neer opened the path in the left foreground, which helps lead the eye into the depth of the painting more organically.
While Winter in Holland: Skating Scene reveals Van der Neer’s evolving effort to more naturally incorporate the human presence in nature, it also betrays his fascination with light. His selection of a bright, wintry day enabled him to experiment, for example, with how he might use selective layering of paints to convey sunlit forms and textures. Van der Neer prepared his panel with an off-white ground, which he then coated with an extremely thin tan layer. Using this layer as a base color, Van der Neer articulated trees and the paneled sides of cottages with only touches of brown, while indicating the snow atop their forms using white accents. His incredibly economic painting technique also allowed him to capture various atmospheric effects. Brushing a thin, pale blue-gray across the tan layer on the near stretch of the river as well as the rutted dirt path, he conveyed the shimmery translucency of ice and frost as they catch the light. Selective touches of white impasto give texture and depth to patches of untrodden snow along the riverbank.
Around the time Van der Neer executed Winter in Holland: Skating Scene, he was also developing a specialty in nocturnes, or night scenes, evidently advancing his keen interest in light and atmosphere. Although the Gallery’s winter scene portrays a bright, midday view totally unlike the mysteriously dark, moonlit pictures that would follow, it represents an important focus in this artist’s innovative and productive career.
Alexandra Libby
December 9, 2019
