Page of View of Zierikzee by VELDE, Esaias van de in the Web Gallery of Art, a searchable image collection and database of European paintings and sculptures (1100-1850)

Pixel Size(959,631)

View of Zierikzee

1618
Oil on canvas, 27 x 40 cm
Staatliche Museen, Berlin

In this landscape a great natural effect is achieved by the artist.There is the outline of the town, occupying almost all the horizon, in a not too distant view, and painted almost exclusively in dark tones of brown, as one might see the silhouette of a town in the failing light of dusk, with only a few patches of very dark green in the river bank. The sky is a liquid blue, with stray clouds which by their diagonal sweep define and emphasize the sky's width. The sky and the town are reflected in the calm water. In the foreground is the near bank with fishermen. Their silhouettes, and the strong red colour worn by the middle one, are points against which the vast space beyond may be measured.

The surprise of this brilliant painting lies in Esaias's total matter-of-factness. All chances to embellish the picture, to make it more attractive to contemporary Late Mannerist taste, have been passed by. The painting is deliberately dry, almost to the point of fanaticism, and that is why it contains, already at this early date, the complete programme of realist landscape: the low viewpoint, the wide space, the horizon, the sky, the little figures as spatial points of reference.