Aert van der Neer

Aert van der Neer, c. 1603 – 9 November 1677, was a landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age, specializing in small night scenes lit only by moonlight and fires, and snowy winter landscapes, both often looking down a canal or river. He was a contemporary of Albert Cuyp and Meindert Hobbema, and like the latter he lived and died in comparative obscurity. Van Der Neer's favorite subjects were the rivers and watercourses of his native country either at sunset or after dark. His peculiar skill is shown in realizing translucence which allows objects even distant to appear in the darkness with varieties of warm brown and steel grays. Another of his fancies is to paint frozen water, and his daylight icescapes with golfers, sleighs, and fishermen are as numerous as his moonlights. But he always avoids the impression of frostiness, which is one of his great gifts. The painting offered, "Dutch Canal," was executed around 1650. The work depicts a canal landscape dotted with figures and houses. A well-dressed couple walks in the marshy foreground. The figure behind them appears to be working. Another couple stands before an arch and a boatman is navigating the placid waters of the canal. The left side of the picture is dominated by mature trees. This painting is similar to a work with full attribution to van der Neer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art entitled "Landscape at Sunset." Van der Neer himself, however, was a master of nocturnal atmospheric effects of light and sky as seen in "Landscape at Sunset," but "Dutch Canal," unlike the attributed van der Neers, portrays a placid blue daylight sky with patchy clouds. Nevertheless, "Dutch Canal," with its careful attention to detail and realism portrays a distinctly Dutch mode of ordering the landscape. Despite the seemingly true to life naturalism of the Dutch landscape, Netherlandish artists reordered the landscape, aiming to fool and delight the eye.