Coastal Scene with Resting Riders

One of the great masters of Dutch landscape painting was Jan Asselijn. His work is probably less familiar to today’s art lover because it does not fall into the category of the national Dutch landscape school. On the contrary, with just a few exceptions his pictures are variations on the themes of light, warmth, and the South, even if these are usually images from his memory that Asselijn painted removed both in place and time from the genius loci. These paintings were painted after returning to the Netherlands up until his early death in Amsterdam.

Coastal Scene with Resting Riders is dominated by lucid light and a majestic sky. Pictorial depth is created out of the contrast between close-up and distant views, between the anecdotal and comical observation of the resting riders disputing over which route to take next, and the soft forms of the remote mountains beyond the bay. The skill of the composition derives from the fact that the vanishing point in this scenery is at the same time the most luminous zone, screened off from the scene in the foreground by the pinnate silhouette of the reeds.

We present this beautiful painting thanks to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. <3

P.S. Have some fun and see the social media of the Dutch Golden Age here!