‘How beautiful the Netherlands is!’ Jim van der Meer Mohr wrote a book about Dutch city and village views through the centuries

Every local museum has one in its collection: a drawing or painting showing what the village or city once looked like. Many heritage collections have started doing this, also to make it clear that the city and villagescape is a crucial part of the local identity. This is how we see or are seen.

Jim van der Meer Mohr graduated as an art historian with a catalog of old cityscapes in The Hague. He became fascinated by the theme again when he felt forced to take a holiday in his own country during the corona pandemic. He traveled to Bergen aan Zee and then to Drenthe, Groningen, the Wadden Islands and beyond.

Pictorial journey through time

‘How beautiful the Netherlands is!’ writes Van der Meer Mohr in his compact book The Dutch city and villagescape 1550-2000 . This is on the assumption that many artists in the centuries before him thought the same. It gave him the idea of ​​making a pictorial journey through time: an image of the city and village in our country, as it has been recorded on canvas or paper over the centuries.

This turned out to be easier to plan than to implement, because the number of city and village views is not evenly distributed across the Netherlands. Cities such as Amsterdam, Haarlem and The Hague have many more than Coevorden, Bolsward and Appingedam. The making of city and village views has not always and everywhere been equally in vogue.

One of the earliest cityscapes that was intended as an independent work is from 1538 View of Amsterdam by Cornelis Anthonisz. It shows Amsterdam from the air, in a way that would later be used frequently and very precisely by the famous map maker Jacob van Deventer. Curiously enough, Van Deventer’s name does not appear in this richly illustrated book.

River in the foreground

A new development occurred in the 17th century, says Van der Meer Mohr. Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom (1566 – 1640) in particular began to focus on depicting city profiles from the water or land, with a river in the foreground. Vroom often worked on behalf of city authorities. In Hoorn 100 guilders were paid for such a painting, in Alkmaar even 300 guilders.

The cityscape gradually became an independent genre, partly thanks to the economic growth of cities and the prosperity of citizens. ‘The elite started ordering cityscapes to embellish their houses and offices. In addition to the city, the villagescape gradually became a popular subject. Many artists went out to draw in the countryside’, writes Van der Meer Mohr.

Urban culture in the Northern Netherlands

Because urban culture in the Northern Netherlands developed differently, more modestly and especially later, the number of city and village views in these parts is small. Particularly in Drenthe and Groningen, professional painters could not earn a living for a long time.

“In the 18th century it seems that only Cornelis Pronk (1691-1759) and Abraham Rademaker (1676 – 1735) moved to Drenthe and Groningen,” says Van der Meer Mohr, who points to drawings that Rademaker made of the Walburgiskerk in Groningen. of the Fraeylemaborg in Slochteren and Borg Verhildersum near Leens. Pronk’s drawings are known to have been made in Dwingeloo and Assen.

Friesland has been depicted more often over the centuries than Groningen and Drenthe. ‘Perhaps this is related to the presence of the Court of the Frisian Nassaus, which was in Leeuwarden until the mid-eighteenth century,’ the author suggests. ‘The Court means that not only the palace itself had to be provided with paintings, the courtiers would also have wanted to decorate their walls with works of art.’

An artist’s view of today

The book also focuses on regionally known painters. They came into the picture when an art market began to emerge outside Holland in the 19th century. Examples are Nicolaas Baur (1767 – 1820) from Harlingen, originally a wallpaper painter, but later also a producer of Frisian cityscapes, and Ids Wiersma (1878 – 1965) who also worked in Drenthe.

We read nothing about the genre’s disappearance due to the rise of photography and the production of postcards. While browsing, the idea arises that it would be good if the genre of the city or village view was dusted off every now and then. Just Groningen May Fair by Johan Dijkstra (1896 – 1978) and View of the Grote Markt in Groningen after the bombing of 1945 by Ben Walrecht (1911-1980) make us curious about an artist’s view of today.