Buckingham Palace Shows Dutch Landscapes From the Royal Collection

Written by Evelyn Rounthwaite Sunday, 25 September 2011 20:49

London.- The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace is showing "Dutch Landscapes" from the Royal Collection until October 9th. This exhibition of 42 paintings draws on the Royal  Collection’s rich holdings of Dutch 17th-century landscapes, including works by Jacob van Ruisdael, Aelbert Cuyp, Jan van der Heyden and Meyndert Hobbema.  By the 17th century, landscape painting was well established as a distinct art form and one in which Netherlandish artists excelled. The fine detail and meticulous finish of Dutch pictures appealed to British taste, and 34 of the works in the exhibition were acquired by the future George IV between 1809 and 1820.

The ability of Dutch artists to depict mood and emotion through landscape and the subject-matter drawn from everyday life influenced the great British painters John Constable and J.M.W. Turner. Constable admired the  ‘acres of sky expressed’ in Ruisdael’s "Evening Landscape: A Windmill by a Stream", and on seeing a seascape by Willem van de Velde the Younger, Turner remarked, ‘Ah! That made me a painter’.

At the conclusion of the Eighty Years War with Spain, the newly formed United Provinces of the north gained independence from the Spanish-controlled south. With a sense of national optimism came the rapid expansion of Dutch cities and towns. Civic pride manifested itself in the building of town halls and churches, and in paintings such as Jan van der Heyden’s minutely observed The Town of Veere with the Groote Kerk. A programme of land reclamation saw the northern peninsular of the United Provinces grow by a third between 1590 and 1650. "Outdoor Merrymaking" by Jan Miense Molenaer shows a typical Dutch ‘polder’ (reclaimed field) surrounded by a drainage ditch, dyke and windmills. Between 1610 and 1630 a ‘tonal’ school of landscape painting emerged in Haarlem. It created a style that sought to convey through subtle transitions of colour the atmospheric effects of water, land and sky. In "A River Landscape with Sailing Boats", Salomon van Ruysdael skilfully evokes the mood of dawn over the estuary through the blending of colour and texture. The thinly painted areas allow the grain of the wood to suggest ripples in the water.  The Royal Collection contains an outstanding group of works by Aelbert Cuyp, the most poetic of all Dutch landscape artists. Cuyp painted both recognisable views around Dordrecht and landscapes of his imagination, such as "A Page with Two Horses". All are imbued with an extraordinary luminosity and spectrum of light. The earliest painting in the group, "Cows in a Pasture beside a River, before Ruins", may have been intended as a celebration of the end of war and the anticipated benefits of peace.


As protectors of the land, sand dunes became a symbol of Dutch national pride. They are recurring motifs in landscape painting, either as the setting for seaside pastimes, as in Adriaen van de Velde’s "Figures on the Coast at Scheveningen", or as the temporary home of hunters and soldiers, as in Paulus Potter’s "Two Sportsmen outside an Inn". In "A Hilly Landscape with a Hawking Party", Jan Wijnants exploits the decorative forms of twisting paths, broken fences and the rutted mud of the track. The artist may have been influenced by landscape decoration on contemporary Delftware or on Chinese porcelain imported by the Dutch East India Company. As the foundation of trade and empire, the sea was the most important force in Dutch life. Ships were built in unprecedented quantities – around 40,000 vessels during the 17th  century. The ‘Great Fishery’, as the herring trade was called, directly or indirectly employed one fifth of the population. The importance of the sea is reflected in the large number of marine artists active at this time. In "The Royal Escape in a Breeze and A Calm: A States Yacht under sail Close to the Shore", Willem van de Velde the Younger skilfully depicts the changing effects of light and air, the direction of the sun and wind, and the behaviour of boats under different weather conditions.

While many Dutch painters found inspiration in their immediate surroundings, others, such as Karel du Jardin, Nicolaes Berchem and Cornelis van Poelenburgh, travelled to Italy in pursuit of the mountainous vistas and golden light.  Since the early 16th century there had been a colony of northern artists in a small quarter of Rome immediately inside the Porta del Popolo. "Figures before a Locanda" by Johannes Lingelbach is set in the street where the artist lived and, rather than idealising the city, gives a realistic account of the squalor of low-life Rome. Karel du Jardin’s "A Herdsman with an Ox, an Ass, and Sheep in the Campagna" places its subject against the backdrop of the Roman countryside suffused with southern light, but the painting’s muted palette and careful observation remain typically Dutch. Aelbert Cuyp never ventured to the Mediterranean, but saw Italy through the works of his contemporaries. In his "Evening Landscape with Figures and Sheep", the distinctly Dutch terrain is bathed in the warm colours and soft tones of Italy.


The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace is a permanent space dedicated to changing exhibitions of items from the Royal Collection, the wide-ranging collection of art and treasures held in trust by The Queen for the Nation. For over five hundred years kings and queens have amassed collections of art and artefacts. Many of these items still exist today as part of the Royal Collection, the Royal Philatelic Collection, the Royal Archives and the Crown Jewels. Some of these collections are held by the Sovereign in trust for the nation, whilst others are privately owned by the monarch. Many of the objects are on public display at the principal royal residences and are shown in a programme of special exhibitions and through loans to institutions around the world. The Royal Collection is held in trust by The Queen as Sovereign for her successors and the Nation, and is not owned by her as a private individual. Day-to-day management of the Royal Collection is the responsibility of the Royal Collection department, which was established in 1987 as one of the five departments of the Royal Household. The Royal Collection receives no Government grant-in-aid or public subsidy, and is administered by the Royal Collection Trust, a registered charity. The Trust was set up by The Queen in 1993 under the chairmanship of The Prince of Wales. The Collection includes paintings, drawings and watercolours, furniture, ceramics, clocks, silver, sculpture, jewellery, books and manuscripts, prints and maps, arms and armour, and textiles. It has largely been formed since the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660. Some items belonging to earlier monarchs, for example Henry VIII, also survive. The greater part of the magnificent collection inherited and added to by Charles I was dispersed on Cromwell's orders during the Interregnum. The royal patrons now chiefly associated with notable additions to the Collection are Frederick, Prince of Wales; George III; George IV; Queen Victoria and Prince Albert; and Queen Mary, consort of George V. Unlike most art collections of national importance, works of art from the Royal Collection can be enjoyed both in the historic settings for which they were originally commissioned or acquired and in the purpose-built Queen's Galleries, which host a programme of changing exhibitions. The Royal Collection is on display at the royal palaces and residences, all of which are open to the public. The official residences of The Queen have a programme of changing exhibitions to show more of the Collection to the public, particularly those items that cannot be on permanent display for conservation reasons. Touring exhibitions and loans to institutions throughout the world are part of the commitment to broaden public access and to show works of art in new contexts. Over 3,000 objects from the Royal Collection are on long-term loan to museums and galleries around the United Kingdom and abroad. National institutions housing works of art from the Collection include The British Museum, National Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum of London, the National Museum of Wales and the National Gallery of Scotland. Visit the Royal Collection's website at ... http://www.royalcollection.org.uk

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