Skating Near a Town

A frozen river in seventeenth century Holland comes alive in this winter scene by Hendrick Avercamp, painted around 1610. Skaters drift across the ice, small groups pause to chat, and tiny figures move around the tall brick tower standing on the left. Muted greys and soft browns fill the sky and land, while bare trees and snow-topped roofs pull the whole picture into the grip of a hard winter. This was the time of the Little Ice Age, when European winters bit far deeper than they do now, and Avercamp recorded it with a plain, watchful honesty.

The man behind the brush had an unusual life. Deaf and unable to speak from birth, he was called "the Mute of Kampen," and he became one of the earliest Dutch painters to make winter landscapes his specialty. His talent shows in the crowd of little characters, each one caught mid-task, from finely dressed townspeople to laborers hauling their goods. Everyone here shares the same frozen stretch of water, drawn together by the plain pleasures of a cold, bright day. The result is a modest and closely observed painting that rewards patient viewers with dozens of small human stories.