Art Gallery

Avercamp, Hendrick (1585-1634). Dutch painter, active in Kampen, the most famous exponent of the winter landscape. He was deaf and dumb and known as `de Stomme van Kampen' (the mute of Kampen). His paintings are colorful and lively, with carefully observed skaters, tobogganers, golfers, and pedestrians. Although born two generations after Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Avercamp showed himself a receptive student of the famous Flemish painter. He learned his art under Pieter Isaacsz in Amsterdam and subsequently in the studio of Gillis van Cononxloo. After 1610 he went to Kampen, where his father had settled as an apothecary.

Besides landscapes depicting the sea and herds of cattle, Avercamp is known mainly for his atmospheric winter scenes in which he shows, with great skill in the art of perspective combined with a strong colour sense, the frolickings of peasants and burghers on the ice of the lakes and canals of his homeland. Although not without an undertone of the comical, his pictures seem to belong to the pure genre, as opposed to those of his exemplar Brueghel who operated on various levels.

Avercamp's work enjoyed great popularity and he sold his drawings, many of which are tinted with water-color, as finished pictures to be pasted into the albums of collectors (an outstanding collection is at Windsor Castle). His nephew and pupil Barent Avercamp (1612-79) carried on his style in an accomplished manner.

From: WebMuseum