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Avercamp.
Dutch family of painters and draughtsmen. In 1586 the Avercamp family moved to Kampen, where Hendrick’s father had been appointed a pharmacist. Hendrick was deaf-mute from birth, and throughout his life was commonly known by his nickname ‘de Stom’, or ‘de Stomme’ (Dut.: ‘the mute’). It is generally assumed that he was a pupil of the history and portrait painter Pieter Isaacsz., in whose house in Amsterdam he was presumably living in 1607. This is inferred from a reference to ‘the mute [who lives] at Pieter Isacqs’s’, documented as one of the buyers at a sale on 3 March 1607. During this period of training in Amsterdam Avercamp must have come across the work of Flemish landscape painters, including Hans Bol, Gillis van Coninxloo and David Vinckboons, who had fled to Amsterdam when Antwerp once again fell to the Spanish in 1585. He may have seen some of their drawings and paintings, but in any case was familiar with engravings made after their work. The high horizon and the use of trees and houses as devices to balance the composition in early works, for example the Winter Landscape of 1608 (Bergen, Billedgal.), clearly reveal their influence. In the Winter Landscape of 1609 (ex-Col. Thyssen-Bornemisza, Lugano) the horizon is much lower, and the composition is simpler with fewer details. Although the interval between the two pictures was only a year, the difference between them is considerable, leading some scholars (e.g. Blankert) to assert that Avercamp underwent a very rapid development in this period, while others (e.g. Stechow) have used these two works as evidence of the difficulty of establishing a chronology within Avercamp’s oeuvre. The following members have entries:
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