Rembrandt was an exceptional seventeenth-century painter in that he did not limit himself to one genre. He challenged the artistic standards in all genres, including that of painting landscapes. Rembrandt s earliest landscapes were not so much realistic depictions of the world around him, which was a typical characteristic of his drawings, but representations of maginary surroundings. In his studio he combined landscape elements from various sources, completely from his imagination. In other landscapes Rembrandt stayed closer to home: these paintings show more local features, probably inspired by the realistic motifs he sketched during his strolls in the surroundings of Amsterdam. To mark the Rembrandt Year, all of his landscapes will be exhibited together for the first time in Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal.

Boudewijn Bakker is an acknowledged expert on the history of landscape in the Dutch Golden Age. He has written several authoritative studies, including one on Rembrandt’s landscape drawings. He read history and art history at the University of Amsterdam and gained his doctorate cum laude on the subject dealt with in this book.