Rembrandt

de Achim Gnann

One of the most fascinating aspects of Rembrandt?s oeuvre are his landscape drawings, around 260 of which have survived. Wandering through the city of Amsterdam, he depicted neighbourhoods, canals, houses along the city wall and bulwarks with picturesque windmills as well as distinctive individual buildings. Again and again he ventured into the surrounding landscape along the Amstel River or on the Kadijk and Diemerdijk, capturing characteristic scenes in quick sketches with pen and brush or black chalk. He was especially drawn to farmsteads with their neighbouring haystacks and groups of trees, depicting them in very different ways under changing conditions of light and weather. While some of his landscape studies are more expressive of an inner vision, in others the artist seeks to render the richness and beauty of natural forms with great attention to detail. In the late drawings, individual features dissolve into an atmosphere suffused with light and air.