Moonlit Landscape with Bridge
Aert van der Neer·probably 1648/1650
Historical Context
Aert van der Neer was the seventeenth century's great specialist in nocturnal and twilight landscape, and this Moonlit Landscape with Bridge, probably painted around 1648 to 1650, shows him at the height of his powers. Van der Neer developed a highly distinctive visual language for night: a softly luminous sky, the moon partially veiled or reflected in still water, the dark forms of trees and buildings silhouetted against the glowing heavens. The bridge motif serves both practical compositional function — directing the eye across the middle ground — and poetic purpose, suggesting the passage between two worlds. Van der Neer's nocturnes were deeply influential on subsequent European landscape painting, from the English watercolorists to the German Romantics, who recognized in his quiet night scenes a mode of painting that expressed interiority and the sublime of common nature without grandiose subjects.
Technical Analysis
Van der Neer builds his nocturne through meticulous tonal graduation, the sky ranging from near-white around the moon to deep blue-black at the edges. Paint is applied in fine, precise strokes, the water rendered as a mirror of the luminous sky above. Silhouetted trees and bridge are drawn with clean, angular confidence.
Provenance
Jacob Frederikszn van Beek, Amsterdam; (his sale, Jeronimo De Vries et al., Amsterdam, 2 June 1828, no. 49); Engelberts.[1] F. Tielens, Brussels. J. Walter, London.[2] Possibly August Thyssen [1842-1926]; his son, Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza [1875-1947), Schloss Rohoncz, Hungary, Amsterdam, and Villa Favorita, Lugano, by at least 1930; by inheritance to his daughter, Gabrielle Thyssen-Bornemisza [1915 or 1917-1999] and her husband, Baron Adolphe Bentinck van Schoonheten [1905-1970], Paris and London.[3] (Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna), by 1989; purchased 29 January 1990 by NGA. [1] Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, _A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century_, 8 vols., trans. Edward G. Hawke, London, 1907-1927: 7:406, states that "Engelberts" purchased the picture for 200 florins. An annotated copy of the sale catalogue in the Frick Art Reference Library, New York, records the same information (copy in NGA curatorial files). [2] The names of Tielens and Walter were provided by the Galerie Sanct Lucas. [3] According to the Galerie Sanct Lucas, the picture had been in the Thyssen family for three generations before its sale; the Galerie included Baron Bentinck's name in the provenance. Ownership by Thyssen-Bornemisza is also given in Wolfgang Schultz, _Aert van der Neer_, Doornspijk, 2002: no. 528. Although August Thyssen did collect art in his later years, the main Thyssen-Bornemisza collection was formed by his son, Heinrich, at whose death the collection was divided among his four children. The Dutch diplomat Baron Bentinck van Schoonheten married Gabrielle Thyssen-Bornemisza in 1938. The painting was exhibited in Munich in 1930 in an exhibition of works from Schloss Rohoncz, and the painting was on loan as part of the Bentinck-Thyssen collection to the Gemäldegalerie of the Kunstmuseum, Düsseldorf from 1974 until August 1984 (e-mails of 18 and 23 May 2012, in NGA curatorial files).
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