Landscape With Two Mills
Original title: Landscape With Two Mills
kurzbeschreibung
Rembrandt van Rijn set down a country view with two windmills in black chalk on paper in the 17th century. The sheet belongs among his landscape drawings, presenting mills, buildings and open ground in a calm side-by-side arrangement.
Description
On the left stand two windmills, their wheels and stocks clearly outlined. Toward the middle and to the right follow plain, old-fashioned houses with tall chimneys and steep roofs. The layout runs horizontally across the sheet, and the arrangement stays open, without crowding. No people appear at all; the light falls evenly and lets hardly any shadow form.
Context
Rembrandt drew many landscapes, often from the area around Amsterdam. This sheet came about while Dutch landscape art was flourishing. Windmills were then a fixed part of the image of the Netherlands and turn up accordingly often in such views.
Impact
Quiet comes off the sheet, and the eye wanders over the ground without hurry. Few lines carry the whole, details stay sparse, and precisely through this the view feels clear and collected. The viewer sees a landscape that wants to tell nothing and nonetheless holds its ground.
Technique
The work is executed in black chalk on paper. The strokes sit close and sure, with outlines and the structure of forms to the fore. Such drawings served in the 17th century both as preparatory studies and as independent sheets.
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Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)