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Aert Van Der Neer
Amsterdam 1603 - Amsterdam 1677
River Landscape at Dusk
Panel:
11 3/16 x 16 1/2 in
28.4 x 41.9cm
Provenance:
Private collection, England
This picture represents van der Neer's early style from the 1640s when he was concentrating on densely wooded scenes with a variety of lighting effects. Only later did he specialise in winter scenes and nocturnes. Such elements as the bold placing of the tree on the right are not found in his later work but are almost exactly parallelled in the appropriately titled Twilight by van der Neer in the collection of the National Loan Collection Trust, currently on long term loan to Cannon Hall, Barnsley. Although this is now an upright composition with the tree on the left it is likely that the composition has been cut. In its original format it would have resembled the River Landscape here and could possibly have formed a pendant to it, especially as the heights are similar allowing for a slight loss on the upper edge .
Van der Neer often developed his compositions changing the lighting and format. A more intricate version with a blue sky and clouds instead of the twilight effect was last seen in an anonymous Sale, London, Christies, 29th June, 1973 lot 26, illustrated. (Hofstede de Groot Vol. VII, 1923 No. 137).
The early work of Aert van der Neer is of far greater significance in the development of Dutch landscape painting than the position usually assigned to it. In the River landscape at dusk there is a carefully observed effect of the last rays of light causing strong contrasts in the sky which also gives the trees a certain starkness. Such nuances are seen much less often in his more stereotyped but grander later work. Without van der Neer's early example it is likely that many of the greatest Dutch landscapes of the later generation such as Jacob van Ruisdael and Hobbema would have been less subtle and inventive.
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