Winter Landscape with Skater
1662
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1662
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Winter Landscape with Skater is a 1662 by Jan van Kessel, a Baroque work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a frozen canal, a lone skater gliding under a stone bridge, and a village church in the distance. The trees are bare, the sheds look weathered, and everything feels quiet and cold. This kind of scene was a favorite among Dutch painters in the 1600s. They loved showing everyday life in the Netherlands—simple, real, and full of small details. Van Kessel made the trees shimmer by layering black chalk and gray ink, giving them a soft, almost alive look. If you like this, check out other scenes of the Netherlands—they’re full of winter light and quiet moments.
In this drawing, the Dutch landscape painter Jan van Kessel depicted a rustic rural scene showing rundown sheds beside a frozen canal with a small village church beyond. A skater glides under an overgrown stone bridge. Such rural landscape scenes, considered fundamentally Dutch, became the focus of the Dutch landscape school in the 17th century. Van Kessel was also noted for his trees; the central tree in this image was rendered with black chalk and grey ink wash to create a gently shimmering effect.
Frozen canals in 17th-century Holland were a mainstay of entertainment for skaters like the one seen in this drawing, providing access from town to town like roads.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Jan van Kessel (1641 or 1648 – 1680) was a Dutch Golden Age draftsman and landscape painter who made many cityscapes of Amsterdam. His work is often confused with the works of contemporary painters with the same name.
See the richer artist page
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