Hendrick Avercamp

The National Gallery has the exhibition of paintings from The Little Ice Age put together by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The collection presents the first exhibition ever devoted to Hendrick Avercamp. He was the first Dutch artist to specialize in paintings of winter landscapes, featuring people enjoying the ice. Some 400 years later, our image of life in the harsh winters of the Golden Age is still dominated by Avercamp’s ice scenes. Their splendid narrative details--of couples skating, children pelting each other with snowballs and, unwary individuals falling on or through the ice, are fascinating to look at and remarkably detailed. In addition to twenty of his paintings, the exhibition features twenty-five of his drawings from museums and private collections throughout the world.

The winter landscapes by Hendrick Avercamp (Amsterdam 1585-1634 Kampen) are some of the most characteristic Dutch panoramas of the 17th century. It was shortly after 1600 that he developed his vistas of frozen rivers and canals into an independent genre of Dutch art. His paintings demonstrate to perfection the passion that natural ice has aroused in the Dutch soul for centuries: when the water freezes over, everyone takes to the ice - young and old, rich and poor. The Mute, as Avercamp was known by his contemporaries due to his inability to speak, had a sharp eye for a visual anecdote. There are always new details to be discovered in his theatrical settings: couples skating about elegantly, finely-dressed gentlemen playing kolf, children sledding, or a sailing-boat flitting past on skates.
As you exit the Avercamp exhibit, you are in a room with three Vermeer paintings, and a fourth attibuted to him--a sizable percentage (11%) of the world's collection by the artist most associated with the Golden Age. So all's well that ends well.