Isaack van Ostade

Isaack van Ostade is best known for his winter scenes. Frozen canals crowded with skaters, sledges and horses, often a white horse standing out against the ice, and inns by the roadside with travellers stopping to rest. His skies are pale and wide and his figures lively.

He was born in Haarlem and trained with his older brother Adriaen van Ostade, first painting similar peasant interiors. Within a few years he moved outdoors and developed his own subjects: village roads, inn yards and ice scenes. He died in Haarlem at only 28, yet left some four hundred paintings.

A Canal in Winter and A Winter Scene show his skill at filling a flat Dutch landscape with movement. Look at how he uses browns and greys for the buildings and figures so that the pale ice and sky glow.