The Queen’s Gallery in Edinburgh presents Dutch Landscapes, an exhibition of 42 works that draws on the Royal Collection’s rich holdings of Dutch ‘Golden Age’ painting. By the 17th century, landscape painting was well established as a distinct art form and one in which Netherlandish artists excelled. Artists turned to the countryside and to the sea to convey a pride in their homeland – the newly formed Dutch United Provinces. While some painters looked to their native surroundings for subject matter, others found inspiration in the mountainous vistas and golden light of Italy. The exhibition includes outstanding examples by the great masters of landscape, including Jacob van Ruisdael, Albert Cuyp, Jan van der Heyden and Meyndert Hobbema. The fine detail and meticulous finish of Dutch pictures appealed to British taste, and 34 of the works in the exhibition were acquired by George IV when Prince Regent between 1809 and 1820. The ability of Dutch artists to depict mood and emotion through landscape and the subject matter drawn from everyday life had a profound influence on the great British painters John Constable and JMW Turner.
