For a general book on Dutch seventeenth-century painting, yesterday I wrote a text on the winter landscape, represented by a painting by Isaac van Ostade in the National Gallery, London. I’m afraid it reads more like a column than part of a survey. It may not make its way into the book, but I don’t want it to vanish, so I have expanded it into … a column.
Landscape
390 What did Rembrandt have against spires?
Rembrandt suffered from a rare condition that has not yet been diagnosed. He had an aversion to spires and sometimes to towers, lopping them off his depictions of buildings we know to have had them. Schwartz worries the issue.
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273 Indoor climate change
If the climate really does change drastically, culture as well as the environment will be affected. Dutch culture is closely linked to certain winter conditions that may disappear. All that will be left is false nostalgia, of which we have more than enough these days.