Landscape with Open Gate

c. 1630/1635

Pieter Molijn

Artist, Dutch, 1595 - 1661

We look across a rutted, dirt road at a rickety wooden gate that leans precipitously to our right, at the same angle as the bare tree behind it in this horizontal landscape painting. The road curves from the lower right corner to the center of the composition, and continues back over a low rise. The gate leans back at an angle next to the road, near the lower right center of the painting. An area in shadow to our right could be the fence continuing along in front of a building with a sloping, moss-green roof that echoes the angle of the gate and tree. The bare branches of the tree twist into the sky from the leaning trunk. A tuft of laurel-green trees peeks up over the road where it passes through the gate. There is a fence post and scrubby bush on the left side of the road. Closer inspection reveals a few people, loosely painted, tucked into the landscape with one to our right of the tree and two just over the hill beyond the gate. A few swipes of white near that pair could be sheep or other animals walking along the road in front of them. Finally, a person, notably tiny in scale so out of proportion to the rest of the scene, stands holding a staff in the shadow cast by the gate. The sky above has white and straw-yellow clouds sweeping up from the horizon, which comes a quarter of the way up the composition, against a dove-gray sky.

Media Options

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In this small work, so evocative of the windswept coastal landscape near Haarlem, Pieter Molijn has captured the essence of early seventeenth-century landscape painting. His bold and fluid brushstrokes create a vigorous and animated scene. The painting appears to be a spontaneous record of a view that the artist happened upon while traveling along a sandy road near the Dutch coast. Molijn situates the viewer below the horizon, facing a road with neither beginning nor end; in this way, the vista remains limited, and the sky becomes an active element in the scene.

Molijn was one of the most innovative landscape artists of his day, ushering in the tonal phase of Dutch landscape painting by limiting his range of motifs and color tonalities. He also combined an unprecedented sense of realism with powerful diagonal compositions and strong effects of light and dark. Molijn’s distinctive style influenced the work of his Haarlem contemporary Salomon van Ruysdael (1600/1603–1670) and of Jan van Goyen (1596–1656).

On View

NGA, West Building, G-013-A

Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: Landscape with Open Gate, c. 1630/1635

This horizontal painting shows a group of eight light-skinned musicians and onlookers gathered closely around a rectangular, carpet-covered table. The front edge of the table runs parallel to the bottom edge of the painting, and seems close to us. Shown from about the waist up, the men and women’s vivid lapis-blue, coral-red, buttercup-yellow, lilac-purple, and moss-green garments fall in crisp folds. Bright reflections on the fabric suggest a satin-like material. Two women wear feathers in their hair and one man’s hat is plumed. One man, wearing crimson red and black, sits with his back to us to our left on the near side of the table. He holds the neck of a bass viol, about the size of a cello, with his left hand, and points to pages of an open music book with the bow in his right hand. The other people cluster on the far side of the table. A man to the left plays a violin; a woman at the center plays a guitar-sized bandora, and a woman to our right plays a lute. The musicians, along with a man who leans over the table from between the two women, look down at the music books. A young man behind the woman at the center holds up a glass of pale liquid with his right hand as he touches his left forefinger to his smiling lips. A man and woman stand close together in the background to our right, in the top right corner of the canvas.

Scholarly Series:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Private collection, France; (art dealer, Lille); purchased 1980 by Arthur K. and Susan H. Wheelock, Washington, D.C.; acquired 1986 by gift and partial purchase by NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1983

  • Haarlem: The Seventeenth Century, The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1983, no. 85, as Attributed to Pieter de Molyn.

1997

  • Rembrandt and the Golden Age: Dutch Paintings from the National Gallery of Art, The Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, 1997, unnumbered brochure.

1998

  • A Collector's Cabinet, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1998, no. 39.

1999

  • A Moral Compass: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Painting in the Netherlands, Grand Rapids Art Museum, 1999, no. 17, repro.

2016

  • Drawings for Paintings in the Age of Rembrandt, National Gallery of Art, Washington; Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits Lugt, Paris, 2016-2017, no. 10, repro.

Bibliography

1983

  • Hofrichter, Frima Fox. Haarlem: The Seventeenth Century. New Brunswick, 1983: no. 85, 108-109.

1987

  • Allen, Eva J. "The Life and Art of Pieter Molyn." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, 1987: 133, 258, 346 fig. 145.

1988

  • Southgate, M. Therese, M.D., ed. "The Cover: Pieter Molijn, Landscape with Open Gate." Journal of the American Medical Association 260, no. 12 (23 September 1988): 1662, cover repro.

1995

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1995: 178-181, color repro. 179.

1998

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. A Collector's Cabinet. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1998: 67, no. 39.

1999

  • Luttikhuizen, Henry M. "Pieter Molijn: Landscape with an Open Gate." In A Moral Compass: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Painting in the Netherlands. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., Lawrence O. Goedde, Mariët Westermann, and Henry M. Luttikhuizen. Exh. cat. Grand Rapids Art Museum. New York, 1999: 76-77, no. 17, color repro.

2001

  • Southgate, M. Therese. The Art of JAMA II: Covers and Essays from The Journal of the American Medical Association. Chicago, 2001: 34-35, 208, color repro.

2004

  • Allen, Eva J. A Vision of Nature: The Landscapes of Philip Koch: Retrospective, 1971-2004. Exh. cat. University of Maryland University College, Adelphi, 2004: 12-13, fig. 3.

Wikidata ID

Q20177102

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