Hendrick Avercamp

Avercamp grew up in Kampen in the province of Overijssel, but learned the rudiments of his craft in his native Amsterdam. He probably apprenticed there for some time with the then famous Antwerp landscapist Gillis van Coninxloo. In the years that followed, Avercamp became the first Dutch artist to specialize in painting winter landscapes.

In 1608 Hendrick witnessed a bitterly cold, yet inspiring winter for artists. In over forty years it had not frozen for so long and hard in the Netherlands. Waterways and even large parts of the Wadden Sea were covered by an impressive layer of ice. Even then, natural ice was synonymous with ice skating: the most popular winter activity in this water-rich country.

Avercamp was only about 23 years old when he painted Winter Landscape with Ice Skaters in Amsterdam around 1608. With its high vantage point, the picture is a seek-and-find sampler of human – and animal – activities during a harsh winter. The panel with its cheerful narrative details has largely determined our image of winter life in the 17th century.

You can almost hear the hustle-and-bustle and chitter-chatter of Avercamp’s figures; they are that lifelike. The artist himself, however, would not have had this experience. ‘The Mute’, as he was called by his contemporaries, could not speak and was probably deaf.

The artist derived inspiration from the winter scenes painted by Pieter Bruegel the Elder about forty years earlier, around 1565. Avercamp’s narrative, richly detailed winterscapes strongly recall the paintings by his Flemish predecessor. Avercamp may well have seen work by Bruegel when he apprenticed with Gillis van Coninxloo, and studied it thanks to prints after Bruegel.

Among Hendrick Avercamp’s greatest attributes are his powers of observation. More than two hundred figures form a near encyclopaedic line-up of small winter scenes in Winter Landscape with Ice Skaters: from sports and games, to transportation by sledge, skaters falling down and people urinating – you never tire of looking.

It never snows in Avercamp’s paintings. Unlike some of his contemporaries, he did not seek to evoke the mood of a harsh winter full of precipitation and freezing winds: with Hendrick, fun on the ice predominates. Even so, he does not shy away from gruesome details, such as crows and a dog feasting on the carcass of a frozen horse.

Around 1620, Avercamp’s paintings with countless small figures give way to scenes of wide, frozen canals and flooded fields. The figures are closer to the picture plane and more detailed than in his earlier works. Enjoying the Ice near a Town is one of Avercamp’s most representative late ice scenes.

The figures on the ice in the foreground represent the various classes with their characteristic activities. A beggar tries to collect some money. Those in need have to scrabble to make ends meet, while others who are better off amuse themselves on the ice. The wealthiest – in the right foreground – look on. A few aristocratic ladies wear a velvet mask to protect the delicate skin around their eyes from the freezing cold.

Avercamp regularly reprised a large number of his figures in his compositions, often without adapting their costumes to the changing fashions of the time. He was a prolific draughtsman, producing not only elaborate and coloured drawings, but also numerous preliminary sketches and studies after life. He probably amassed a rich treasure trove of visual material from which he could mine throughout his life.