Political Sites and Collective Identities in Hendrick Avercamp’s Ice-Skating Landscapes

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the first decades of the seventeenth century, Hendrick Avercamp was among the first Dutch painters to prioritize local landscape subjects as a source of pictorial interest. Avercamp’s ice-skating scenes offer a vision of a prosperous society emerging in the Northern provinces in the midst of the Dutch Revolt against Spain. This paper argues that Avercamp’s work, rather than simply celebrating a quaint pastime, invites a more political reading. Avercamp’s use of nascent symbols of Dutch identity – particularly the tricolour flag – tie his paintings inextricably to the political cause of Dutch autonomy, and suggest the political consciousness of the citizens of the young Republic.