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Lot Essay
The present painting is an early masterpiece by Aert van der Neer that has not been on the market since its purchase by G.J. Gould from Agnew's at the beginning of the last century, when it was seen by that great chronicler of Dutch seventeenth century painting, Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, who described it as an 'early work'.
According to Arnold Houbraken, Aert [Aernout] van der Neer spent his youth in Arkel near modern day Gorkum, a town on the river Waal, east of Dordrecht. There he became a painter, posssibly as a result of meeting the Camphuyzen brothers, Rafael Govertsz. (1597/8-1657) and Jochem Govertsz. (1601/2-59). Aert's earlist known painting is a genre scene dated 1632, now in the Narodni Galerie, Prague, and the following year he executed a landscape that he signed jointly with Jochem Campuyzen (Amsterdam, P. de Boer). Van der Neer's earliest landscapes have strong stylistic affinities with the work of the Camphuyzen brothers, particularly Rafael, but they also reveal the influence of Alexander Kierincx, Gillis Claesz. d'Hondecoeter and Roelandt Savery all artists from the so-called Frankenthal school, who took the idiom of Flemish landscape paintings, paticularly Gillis van Coninxloo, to the Netherlands.
Even in his later paintings, van der Neer continued to use a number of Flemish devices, such as the closing off of a composition by a tree or building in the form of a coulisse or repoussoir, and the placement of isolated figures on meandering paths or frozen rivers (see, for example, his winter landscape of 1643, private collection, Great Britain, illustrated in the catalogue of the exhibition, Dutch Landscape: the Early Years, Haarlem and Amsterdam 1590-1650, The National Gallery, London, September - November, 1986, pp. 222-3; and his winter landscape of circa 1645, private collection, formerly in the collection of Robert Smith, Arlington, VA, illustrated in the catalogue of the exhibition, The Golden Age of Dutch Landscape Painting, Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation Collection, Madrid, pp. 152-3, no.39). In those paintings and in the present example, all of which are likely to be similarly datable, van der Neer's views of skaters on frozen waterways are clearly Flemish in origin, reminiscent of Hendrick Avercamp's rendering of the same subject, painted some fifty years earlier, and themselves in the tradition of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. However, van der Neer lowers the horizon-line allowing for considerably more sky, and opens up his compositions far more than his earlier counterparts, thus making them more convincingly naturalistic. His works from the early to mid-1640s suggest another source of inspiration, too: that of the Haarlem 'tonal' phase of landscape painting, developed in the 1620s and 1630s by the likes of Esiais van de Velde, Pieter Molijn, Salomon van Ruysdael and Jan van Goyen.
But perhaps van der Neer's greatest contribution to Dutch landscape painting, and an area in which some say he is unsurpassed, is his sensitivity to colored light and the rich nuances of atmosphere, matched by his ability to represent light, either with heavy cloud formations, or simply using a subdued pale grey sky as in the present painting, thereby conveying the atmosphere of a brutally cold, and crisp winter day. The artist conveys light through the use of incredibly subtle tonal changes, creating a sense of space and atmosphere. In these paintings he manages to capture the nature of northern light in winter in a way that few other Dutch artists managed to convey with equal success, with the exceptions of Rembrandt (his only known winter landscape of 1646, now in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel), Jacob van Ruisdael, and Jan van der Cappelle (see for example, the painting sold at Christie's, London, 4 July, 1997, lot 16, now private collection, Boston, MA). In the present painting, and others from this period in his oeuvre, there is an emphasis on cool blue hues, alleviated in places by warmer touches of pinks or reds describing clothing and buildings. The bleakness of winter is conveyed by the use of predominantly grey and brown tones, except in the quality of the light, where color is almost totally eliminated and replaced by a monochromatic build-up of browns, greens and pale greys. Quite remarkable in the present painting is the almost calligraphic handling of the paint in the buildings on the left of the composition, which remind one on the one hand of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's technique, and on the other, or the brevity of brushstrokes seen in Rembrandt's work.
Typical of the artist is his preference for lively staffage in his paintings, although in this instance there are not so many people on the ice and they have become very secondary to frigid Nature. However, one can see folk sledding and weaving about on narrow blades of skates. Participants in the game of kolf are also depicted. This game was played by two or four people and with two or four balls, and the aim was to cover a fixed distance or to reach a fixed goal, a post for instance, with as few strokes as possible. Because a smooth surface was necessary, kolf was played in Holland only in winter, on the ice, but this is the origin of the modern game of golf.
According to Arnold Houbraken, Aert [Aernout] van der Neer spent his youth in Arkel near modern day Gorkum, a town on the river Waal, east of Dordrecht. There he became a painter, posssibly as a result of meeting the Camphuyzen brothers, Rafael Govertsz. (1597/8-1657) and Jochem Govertsz. (1601/2-59). Aert's earlist known painting is a genre scene dated 1632, now in the Narodni Galerie, Prague, and the following year he executed a landscape that he signed jointly with Jochem Campuyzen (Amsterdam, P. de Boer). Van der Neer's earliest landscapes have strong stylistic affinities with the work of the Camphuyzen brothers, particularly Rafael, but they also reveal the influence of Alexander Kierincx, Gillis Claesz. d'Hondecoeter and Roelandt Savery all artists from the so-called Frankenthal school, who took the idiom of Flemish landscape paintings, paticularly Gillis van Coninxloo, to the Netherlands.
Even in his later paintings, van der Neer continued to use a number of Flemish devices, such as the closing off of a composition by a tree or building in the form of a coulisse or repoussoir, and the placement of isolated figures on meandering paths or frozen rivers (see, for example, his winter landscape of 1643, private collection, Great Britain, illustrated in the catalogue of the exhibition, Dutch Landscape: the Early Years, Haarlem and Amsterdam 1590-1650, The National Gallery, London, September - November, 1986, pp. 222-3; and his winter landscape of circa 1645, private collection, formerly in the collection of Robert Smith, Arlington, VA, illustrated in the catalogue of the exhibition, The Golden Age of Dutch Landscape Painting, Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation Collection, Madrid, pp. 152-3, no.39). In those paintings and in the present example, all of which are likely to be similarly datable, van der Neer's views of skaters on frozen waterways are clearly Flemish in origin, reminiscent of Hendrick Avercamp's rendering of the same subject, painted some fifty years earlier, and themselves in the tradition of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. However, van der Neer lowers the horizon-line allowing for considerably more sky, and opens up his compositions far more than his earlier counterparts, thus making them more convincingly naturalistic. His works from the early to mid-1640s suggest another source of inspiration, too: that of the Haarlem 'tonal' phase of landscape painting, developed in the 1620s and 1630s by the likes of Esiais van de Velde, Pieter Molijn, Salomon van Ruysdael and Jan van Goyen.
But perhaps van der Neer's greatest contribution to Dutch landscape painting, and an area in which some say he is unsurpassed, is his sensitivity to colored light and the rich nuances of atmosphere, matched by his ability to represent light, either with heavy cloud formations, or simply using a subdued pale grey sky as in the present painting, thereby conveying the atmosphere of a brutally cold, and crisp winter day. The artist conveys light through the use of incredibly subtle tonal changes, creating a sense of space and atmosphere. In these paintings he manages to capture the nature of northern light in winter in a way that few other Dutch artists managed to convey with equal success, with the exceptions of Rembrandt (his only known winter landscape of 1646, now in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel), Jacob van Ruisdael, and Jan van der Cappelle (see for example, the painting sold at Christie's, London, 4 July, 1997, lot 16, now private collection, Boston, MA). In the present painting, and others from this period in his oeuvre, there is an emphasis on cool blue hues, alleviated in places by warmer touches of pinks or reds describing clothing and buildings. The bleakness of winter is conveyed by the use of predominantly grey and brown tones, except in the quality of the light, where color is almost totally eliminated and replaced by a monochromatic build-up of browns, greens and pale greys. Quite remarkable in the present painting is the almost calligraphic handling of the paint in the buildings on the left of the composition, which remind one on the one hand of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's technique, and on the other, or the brevity of brushstrokes seen in Rembrandt's work.
Typical of the artist is his preference for lively staffage in his paintings, although in this instance there are not so many people on the ice and they have become very secondary to frigid Nature. However, one can see folk sledding and weaving about on narrow blades of skates. Participants in the game of kolf are also depicted. This game was played by two or four people and with two or four balls, and the aim was to cover a fixed distance or to reach a fixed goal, a post for instance, with as few strokes as possible. Because a smooth surface was necessary, kolf was played in Holland only in winter, on the ice, but this is the origin of the modern game of golf.