At the same time that I was attending Ernst van van de Wetering's lectures, I saw a painting by Peter de Haan for the first time. So it was perhaps because of his comments about Koninck that I was struck by the way in which this contemporary painter also places light and dark areas as set pieces in front of and behind each other. The painting shows a fantasy construction on the beach; a tower made of planks and other washed-up material that is full of bathers. The tower rattles on all sides; in reality it would collapse immediatley, but the painting has clearly been constructed with great attention. Light and shadow are in balance everywhere. 

Now take that little man in the circle on the left. I have no idea what kind of circle that is and how he is attachted to the rest of the structure, but how beautifully that white leg contrasts with that dark wood or plastic, and with the arm in the shadow behind it, which together with the head and the top of the circle again makes a dark shape in the white of the sky.

Peter de Haan paints a softer light than Koninck and Weissenbruch. His contrasts are less sharp. And he does not use them to exaggerate the vastness of a landscape. In his painting there are really only two planes: the tower and the rest of the world.

But within that tower, so on the square meter space is indeed suggested because body parts or pieces of wood do or do not catch sunlight.

Gijsbert van der Wal