Getty Museum
A Scene on the Ice with Skaters and Wagons
Creator
Pieter MolijnDutch Artist · 1595–1661
All works by this person →When Pieter Molijn moved to Holland is unknown, but he made Haarlem his home for life. He joined Haarlem's Guild of Saint Luke in 1616 and served as its dean in 1633, 1638, and 1646. His early landscape style was strongly influenced by the realism of Esaias van de Velde and his pupil Jan van Goyen, who were both in Haarlem for a short period after Molijn's arrival. Works by Molijn, Van Goyen, and
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- 1655
- Medium
- Black chalk and brush and gray wash
- Culture
- Dutch
- Department
- Drawings
- Institution
- Getty Museum
In the 1620s Pieter Molijn pioneered one of the innovations in Dutch landscape art by organizing a composition on a diagonal. Thirty years later, he used this device to animate a procession crossing the lake in this drawing. The diagonal not only leads the eye into depth but also unifies the composition from left to right. To add variety and interest, Molijn intersected the line in the middle with a sleigh going its own way. Using Holland's low horizon line and barren winter landscape and a relatively small number of figures, Molijn created an intimate picture that suggests the isolation of figures in nature and the hard work demanded by surviving the cold winters.
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