The castle of Brederode, north of Haarlem, inspired feelings of Dutch pride, as well as being unusually evocative in its ruins and overgrown vegetation. This drawing may have been made in the 1650s or 1660s, at about the time Jacob van Ruisdael also was painting this site. This view presents a decidedly unusual view of the castle: up close and from below, at an oblique angle that avoids the more famous views from the side. This decision was surely conscious; this surprising approach may have made the work more interesting and easier to sell. Lievens has constructed the composition brilliantly, beginning in the foreground right, with low, heavy ruins, overgrown with vegetation, in the tightest, heaviest strokes in the blackest ink. Then, the familiar ruins rise up in the middle ground, catching the sunlight, and finally, our eye drops down to the lovely copse of trees, half in shadow, quickly noted in long, energetic strokes, and re?ected in a pool of water. Jan Lievens is famous for his close association with Rembrandt in the late 1620s (they were also both students of Pieter Lastman); he later traveled to England, then Antwerp, finally settling in Amsterdam. Powerful though his paintings can be, it is in his drawings, perhaps, that he found his most original and masterful expression; his landscapes in particular take on a Flemish, Rubensian cast that fuse with their Dutch specificity of site to produce sheets of great freshness and immediacy. Back to Gallery