Winter fun takes over Rijksmuseum

The new IJspret (The Little Ice Age) exhibition at the Rijksmuseum shows 30 paintings by ice master Hendrick Avercamp.

The crowded winter landscape is a common, and popular, historical genre in Dutch art. Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634) can be credited with establishing it. Every museum with a section devoted to the Dutch masters has at least one of his paintings on display and his scenes are often used as Christmas cards.

The familiarity of the flat Dutch landscapes covered in snow and ice, and the touching nature of the depicted scenes, are key to Avercamp's paintings' popularity. The winter landscape in the Netherlands has changed very little since his days. Whenever winter is cold enough, as it was this year, the Dutch still love to dash, stumble and chat on frozen lakes and ditches, and they still fall through cracks and throw snowballs at each other. Only ice hockey and competitive speed skating are recent additions to the wintry repertoire.

The cute little figures depicted by Avercamp often confused foreigners. Were these the same Dutch people who successfully rejected Spanish rule, controlled Europe’s waterways, and developed a trade network stretching all the way to Asia? Looking at the small, cheerful characters Avercamp depicted it hardly seemed possible.

Avercamp was one of the earliest landscape painters in the generation of Golden Age (roughly the 17th century) artists commonly referred to as the Dutch Masters. While most of his work is undated, it is easy to reconstruct the painter’s artistic development. As an apprentice, he was heavily influenced by Flemish painters of landscapes, including Pieter Breughel the Elder. Following Flemish custom, Avercamp first painted crowded vistas with high horizons and colourful characters adorning landscapes dotted with architectural elements to enhance the illusion of depth. Over time, he started following Dutch tradition, painting lower horizons and cutting clutter, creating panoramic compositions. Slowly, he developed his own speciality: the landscape on ice.

Avercamp populated his sceneries with dozens of figurettes, drawing on a private stock of drawings. The astute observer will soon see a familiar married couple, the same set of royals passing by, a lady with a large skirt falling flat on the ice again, or the same boy peeing against yet another wall. Another recurring figure is an older gentleman, clad in a fur coat and cap, recalling Old Man Winter.

While his work conveys a cheerful impression at first sight, Avercamp was not afraid to depict a darker side of life. A painting on display at the Los Angeles County Museum shows blood flowing from the mouth of a fallen skater, colouring the ice red. Another lively painting portrays a sled crashing through a hole in the ice, carrying all its passengers into the icy water below, to the dismay of bystanders. Beggars and gypsies roam free, and gallows can often be seen on the edge of the frozen waters.

Avercamp was a very able painter of landscapes. He excelled at depicting the freezing cold of the Dutch winter: the ice, the snow, the frozen reeds lining the water, the hazy horizon and the pink glow marking the end of the short December day.

As for his figures, he was more of a sketch artist. His characters are carefully positioned, and dashed with bright colours that add to the cheerful nature of his spectacles. Still, they are somewhat two-dimensional and static. Even so, Avercamp’s big picture is so uplifting that it has brought a smile to any viewer’s face for four centuries straight.