Circle of Aert van der Neer (Amsterdam ?1603/4-1677)

Aert van der Neer is perhaps best known for the sense of space and atmosphere he injected into the 17th-century Dutch landscape. Van der Neer's evocative pictures may have been inspired by the work of Henrick Avercamp; however, his landscapes seem to take as their subject not the actors in the scene, but instead the effects of cool northern light, often in the context of moonlit riverscapes or, as here, descending darkness over a village and its environs.