Everdingen, Allart van

Allaert van Everdingen (1621-1675) was a Dutch Golden Age painter and printmaker who introduced Scandinavian landscape painting to the Netherlands. Born in Alkmaar and baptized on June 18, 1621, he pioneered a distinctive genre of Nordic mountain scenery that profoundly influenced Dutch landscape painting and later inspired the Romantic movement. Van Everdingen holds a unique place in art history as the first painter to systematically depict Scandinavian landscapes, introducing an entirely new subject matter to Dutch art. His dramatic renderings of rugged Nordic terrain provided a compelling alternative to the popular Italianate landscapes of his contemporaries, expanding the visual vocabulary of seventeenth-century Dutch painting. His works were highly valued during his lifetime, with inventory records showing relatively high prices, particularly among Amsterdam collectors. Van Everdingen received his early training from Roelandt Savery in Utrecht, along with his brothers Jan and Caesar, who were also painters. He later studied under Pieter de Molijn in Haarlem, where he moved in 1645 and married Janneke Cornelisdr. The pivotal moment in his career came in 1644 when, according to biographer Arnold Houbraken, his ship encountered a storm while traveling to the Baltic Sea and took shelter in Norway. This unplanned detour proved transformative. Van Everdingen spent time exploring the Norwegian coast and western Sweden, making detailed annotated sketches around Langesund, Risør, Göteborg, and the dramatic waterfalls at Trollhättan. These drawings became the foundation for his life's work. Around 1657, he settled permanently in Amsterdam, where he remained until his death in 1675. Van Everdingen's distinctive style featured dramatic compositions of waterfalls cascading over rocky precipices, dense forests of spruce and pine, rustic log cabins, and sawmills set against mountainous backdrops. He often employed vertical formats to emphasize the monumental scale of waterfalls and cliffs. His works combined careful observation from his Norwegian sketches with imaginative studio compositions, creating emotionally resonant scenes that appeared realistic but were artistic constructs. His technical mastery extended to both painting and printmaking, producing accomplished etchings and mezzotints alongside his oils. Van Everdingen's influence on Dutch landscape painting was immediate and profound. Jacob van Ruisdael, one of the greatest Dutch landscapists, directly adopted van Everdingen's waterfall motifs and vertical compositional formats. Other contemporaries including Jan van Kessel, Roeland Roghman, and Pieter de Molijn also incorporated his Nordic vocabulary. His impact extended beyond his own century: Goethe praised his work in 1784, and by the early nineteenth century, Norwegian Romantic painter Johan Christian Dahl championed van Everdingen as a forerunner of Romantic landscape painting. Today, his works populate major museum collections throughout northern Europe, testament to sustained collector interest across centuries.