Aert van der Neer

Aert van der Neer was a Dutch Golden Age painter who spent his career in Amsterdam painting two things above all: rivers by moonlight and winter scenes on the ice. He was one of the most successful specialists in nocturnal landscape of the seventeenth century.

Life in brief

Born in Gorinchem (Gorkum) around 1603–04, he is said to have worked as a steward for a noble family before turning to painting. He settled in Amsterdam around 1632 and stayed there for the rest of his life. His paintings did not make him rich: in 1658–59 he ran a tavern, and in 1662 he was declared bankrupt. He died poor in Amsterdam in 1677. His son Eglon van der Neer became a successful painter of elegant interiors.

Style and technique

Van der Neer's moonlit pictures are built on a simple, repeated structure: a river runs into the distance between dark banks of trees and houses, and the moon, often half-hidden by cloud, sets the edges of the clouds and the water alight. He worked in a narrow range of browns and silvery grays, scratching into wet paint and laying thin glazes so that the sky glows from within. Small details reward close looking: a fisherman in a skiff, a lit window, a church tower or windmill against the sky.

Moonlit Landscape

The catalogue's Moonlit Landscape shows the formula at its best. Tall trees frame the left side, a town with a spire sits low on the horizon, and the full moon breaks through a bank of cloud to cast a single bright track across the river. He painted many close variants, so the same title is used for pictures in several museums. For more night scenes, see Baroque Art.

Where to see his work

The National Gallery in London, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin and the Hermitage all hold moonlit landscapes by him.