Hendrick Avercamp, Winter Games on the Frozen River IJssel

Hendrick Avercamp, Winter Games on the Frozen River IJssel
around 1626
Washington DC National Gallery of Art, Woodner Collection
(image source: NY Times)
no copyright infringement intended

That game was most likely colf, a hockey-like Dutch pastime that some scholars say influenced golf and was even played in the U.S. (source: NY Times)

It's Avercamp at his best! A landscape (well, winter landscape, people playing a game on a frozen lake, because it's Avercamp, wtf), but a landscape with a narrative: each personage (including the dog) has a reason to be there, has a role to play; each one is important there in his own right (and own nuance of color), Plus the nuances of the sky, as the sky is also a personage, with a role to play in the foreground, and another one in the background. Plus  the boat in the distance, because the lake has its history, too, with boats, and fishing, and a little commerce; now it's frozen.



(Hendrick Avercamp)