Hendrick Avercamp – Winter Landscape with Skaters (c.1608)

Description

This work of art has been digitally enhanced without erasing signs of ageing for the sake of authenticity. Digital paintings are very popular right now as an affordable and stylish way to decorate and personalize your home and office.

Hendrick Avercamp – Winter Landscape with Skaters (c.1608)

“This is not only one of Avercamp’s early works but is also the largest and most ambitious winter landscape he ever painted. He was the first Dutch artist to depict winter and its recreations, and in doing so he built on the example set by his southern Netherlandish predecessors. The high horizon, the quite complex buildings making up the village, and the prominent bare trees that serve as repoussoirs, recall the work of Flemish immigrants in Amsterdam like Hans Bol and David Vinckboons.

The tall trees in the left and right foreground act like stage flats by drawing the eye into the composition. The recession into depth along the frozen river that has burst its banks is suggested by the succession of buildings and trees, and in the middleground by the wooden posts marking the route taken by the ferry. The transition of the colours, ending with almost white tints merging with the sky in the distance, creates an aerial perspective. Rising up behind the farmhouses in the middleground on the right is the unrealistic detail of a barely visible white mountain with a flour mill on top. Although the narrative and anecdotal nature of the scene can be found on a more limited scale in the work of his Flemish contemporaries, Avercamp’s pronounced realism gives his paintings a character all their own. He took a rare delight in depicting events on the ice, which he did with a great feeling for variety: children and adults are out for a stroll on the frozen river, people play kolf, the forerunner of golf, there are sleighs and, in the distance, ice-boats. One picturesque detail on the left is the fisherman with his eel spear over his shoulder. The meticulously detailed costumes show that the figures are from all classes of society.

The prominent building in the left foreground with the two lions from the Antwerp coat of arms is thought to be a brewery or an inn called The Half Moon (‘De Halve Maan’ are the words on the sign board). Here, too, there is a mass of narrative detail, such as the bare buttocks on the lavatory on the left, the amorous couple on the haystack, and so on. In the left foreground is the half eaten carcass of a horse with crows and a dog around it, and there is a bird trap surrounded by footprints in the snow. Avercamp took the latter detail from Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Landscape with Skaters and Bird Trap of 1563, which he could have known from one of the many copies, in which there is the same high horizon and similar silhouetted trees.”

After purchase you will have access to a PDF document with a link to these files available for download: 5×7”, 8×10”, 9×12”, 11×14”, 16×20″, 18×24″, 24×36″ and A1.

All files are in JPG format and at 300 PPI/DPI resolution. Please note that colours on your screen may be slightly different from the actual print.

This is not a physical item therefore nothing will be shipped to you.

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