Anthonie Verstralen - Winter Landscape

Verstralen (Verstraelen) only painted winter landscapes, and was long considered the founder and master of this genre so typical of Dutch landscape painting. Nowadays, this honour is afforded to Hendrik Avercamp (1585-1634). Verstralen is considered on the same level of quality as Arentz Cabel (1586-1635). His soft colour palette, in which the subdued blue and red tones are evenly spread throughout the composition, reveal Flemish influences. This is unsurprising for a painter who moved to Amsterdam but was born on the southernmost border to Flanders. His works differ in colour scheme to the more monochrome landscapes of his Dutch colleagues.