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for Aert van der Neer
Aert van der Neer
Dutch, 1603/04 - 1677
Although generally known by the name of Aert, he usually signed himself Aernout. According to Houbraken, van der Neer spent his youth in Arkel near Gorinchem (Gorkum), a town on the river Waal, east of Dordrecht, where he worked as a majoor (steward) for the lords of Arkel. He became an amateur painter, possibly as a result of his contact with the Camphuyzen brothers Rafael Govertsz. (1597/8–1657) and Jochem Govertsz. (1601/2–59). Aert married Lysbeth Govertsdr (Liedtke) who was almost certainly Rafael and Jochem’s sister. Rafael acted as witness at the baptism of their daughter Cornelia in 1642. Around 1632 van der Neer and his wife moved to Amsterdam where, in about 1634, their eldest son, (2) Eglon, was born.
Aert’s earliest-known painting is a genre scene dated 1632 (Prague, N.G. Šternberk Pal.) in the style of Pieter Quast. Dated the following year is a landscape (Amsterdam, P. de Boer; see Bachmann, 1982, fig.), signed jointly by van der Neer and Jochem Camphuyzen. Aert’s earliest independent landscapes, exemplified by River Landscape with Riders (1635; Cologne, Gal. Edel), have a strong stylistic link with the Camphuyzens, particularly Rafael, and also show the influence of Alexander Keirincx, Gillis d’Hondecoeter (for example the Country Road, Amsterdam, Rijksmus.) and Roelandt Savery, all artists from the Frankenthal school who took the idiom of Flemish landscape painting, particularly the tradition of Gillis van Coninxloo, to the Netherlands. This is evident in van der Neer’s representation of trees with thick gnarled trunks and heavy foliation, particularly close to those in Hondecoeter’s oeuvre. Even in some of his later paintings, such as Winter Landscape (1643; Great Britain, priv. col.; see 1986 exh. cat., no. 110) and View of a River in Winter (Amsterdam, Rijksmus.), van der Neer continued to use a number of Flemish devices, among them the placement of isolated figures on meandering paths or frozen rivers and the use of trees to close off one side of the composition. His views of skaters on frozen waterways are also Flemish in origin, reminiscent of Hendrick Avercamp’s renderings of the same subject, painted some 50 years earlier in the tradition of Pieter Bruegel the elder. The restricted palette of earthy colours in some of van der Neer’s paintings of the early 1640s suggests another source of inspiration: that of the Haarlem ‘tonal’ phase of landscape painting, developed during the 1620s and 1630s by Jan van Goyen, Salomon van Ruysdael and Pieter de Molijn (for example Landscape with Duck Shooting, 1642; Frankfurt am Main, Städel. Kstinst.).
By the mid-1640s Aert had established his own style and begun to specialize in a small number of subjects: winter scenes, exemplified by Frozen Canal (Worcester, MA, A. Mus.) and a Frozen River by a Town at Evening (London, N.G., 969); snow storms, typified by Winter Scene (London, Wallace); and nocturnes, especially moonlit river views, represented by Landscape in Moonlight (The Hague, Mauritshuis). He also produced many sunrises and sunsets, particularly the latter, including Landscape with a River at Evening (London, N.G., 2283). His landscapes have certain characteristic features: they are viewed from a slightly raised vantage-point and often incorporate a river or path that stretches (often to a small bank) right across the composition before receding into the background. Frequently small figures animate the foreground and middle distance; the far bank of the river is often broken by the irregular silhouette of a townscape, and trees typically frame one side of the picture. Although most of van der Neer’s landscapes are imaginary, a few contain recognizable buildings or topographical details, which suggest his familiarity with a particular location; for example, the ruins of Kostverloren, a castle on the bank of the Amstel, feature in Moonlit Landscape with Castle (1646; Jerusalem, Israel Mus.).
Perhaps van der Neer’s greatest contribution to Dutch landscape painting was his ability to represent light, often subdued by heavy cloud formations or by the descending darkness of evening, through the use of subtle tonal changes, creating a sense of space and atmosphere. In his Views of a River in Winter (1655–60; Amsterdam, Rijksmus.), for example, he accurately captured the nature of northern light in winter. There is an emphasis on cool blue hues, alleviated in places by warmer touches of reds describing clothing and buildings. A bleaker winter atmosphere is conveyed in a Frozen River by a Town at Evening (London, N.G., 969), where grey and brown tones prevail. His nocturnes of the 1640s and 1650s provide further examples of this ability to capture the quality of light. In a River near a Town by Moonlight (London, N.G., 239) local colour is almost totally eliminated and replaced by a monochromatic build-up of browns, dull greens and pale greys, with touches of silver to represent the moonlight illuminating the clouds and reflecting on the water.
It is generally agreed that van der Neer’s greatest work was produced from the mid-1640s until c. 1660. In 1659 and 1662 he is documented as having been the keeper of a tavern on the Kalverstraat (Bachmann, 1982, p. 10) with his son Johannes. On 12 December 1662 he was declared bankrupt; his property, including his paintings, was appraised and the latter considered to be of little value. Aert, however, continued to paint, residing in a state of extreme poverty on the Kerkstraat, near the Leidsegracht, until his death.
L. B. L. Harwood and Marjorie E. Wieseman. "Neer, van der." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T061585pg1 (accessed May 8, 2012).
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