The Deaf Genius

                                  Hendrick Avercamp: Winter Landscape With Skaters                 1608

      I have a snow deficiency. It is serious. I live in a place where is never snow and from time to time I long for a little white. Avercamp’s paintings can cure it.

    Hendrick Avercamp was born deaf in Amsterdam and grew up in Kampen. People called him “The mute of Kampen.” His mom decided to give his life a purpose and asked their old painter neighbor to teach him how to paint. I imagine little Hendrick was reserved because of his disability and spent most of his life at the window to observe and paint the others. I do not know if it is true or not, but his art works suggest it: he only painted landscapes with figures skating on the frozen Dutch canals from a distance.

     At that time, around 1600, a little ice age reigned over Europe. Summers were cool and winter lasted for half a year. This climate dramatically changed people’s lives and challenged the whole community. Avercamp and others like Brueghel captured these icy moments.

      People wanted to accustom themselves to the changes and tried to see the bright side of it like playing on the frozen canals. It offered new joys despite the unbearably cold weather. Just looking at Avercamp’s painting one can see how they enjoyed themselves skating, playing hockey, riding on horse sleighs, clinging to each other, and trying not to fall. Their feathered hats and baggy pants form a funny blend with ice-skating.

     The icy landscape is endless. Roads and canals have disappeared, no borders between sea and land or poor and rich. Everything is a huge, collective playground.

      I see a bare bum in a leaky boat vertically frozen into the ice. It is very creative to use it as a port-a-potty (well, it only becomes portable when the ice melts). I like the rubbed lion crest on the faded house façade. All these barely visible details make this picture lovable.

     I think these Dutch people made well to ignore the harsh weather and to entertain themselves. Otherwise the long lasting dark months would have broken them.

      I hope when the 23 years old Hendrick Avercamp finished his joyful picture, he too put his feathered hat and skates on, went to the frozen canal, and boldly ran through the ice among the people. And if some of them screamed at him, he would not have cared because he had been blessed with the gift of not hearing the haters.