Jan Wijnants

Jan Wijnants was from Haarlem, which lies in the narrow corridor of land between Amsterdam and the sea. He specialised in depicting the landscapes around the town, which were formed largely of sand blown inland from the North Sea beaches and into a series of sometimes spectacularly high dunes. So...

This painting is probably a collaboration between Jan Wijnants, who was a specialist landscape painter, and Jan Lingelbach, who added the figures and the animals once the landscape was finished. It was not unusual for painters to work in this way in seventeenth-century Holland.What we see is prob...

Jan Wijnants specialised in painting landscapes which evoke the countryside around Haarlem, where he lived and worked. It was an area characterised by ancient sand dunes overgrown by scrubby woodland and open pastures interlaced with winding cart tracks. It was also scattered with picturesque rui...

This is a landscape full of sunshine, energy and life. The strong sweeping curve of the track dominates the middle of the picture. Two greyhounds bound along while a horseman and his companion chat easily as they go, and in the distance a pedlar with his pack ambles along behind them. The woodlan...

This undulating countryside of ancient sand dunes, found around Haarlem, forms the background to the vast majority of paintings by local artist Jan Wijnants. But while he captured the spirit and atmosphere of these sand hills, he also – like most painters of the time – exaggerated for effect. The...

Jan Wijnants specialised in pictures that depicted figures moving through this particular type of rural landscape. As far was we can tell, they weren’t usually a real view, but were composed to give a pleasing effect and an impression of the countryside around the town of Haarlem, where Wijnants...