Please note: All of the photographs of Holland herein are the property of Ian Rees, as are the graphite drawings in the art gallery section. Most of the Dutch Masters art images are provided with permission by the Art Renewal Center (a couple came from Wikipedia Commons). If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please don't hesitate to contact me. The web site is continually expanding (it was born on Feb. 2007), and as a result, occasional glitches may result. My apologies. More info regarding the web site can be found here.

Please if you have any suggestions as to how I should proceed in the development of this web site. Any feedback will be warmly received.

Thank you very much for visiting ArtNetherlands.com! -Ian

Upon my first visit to Amsterdam, over fifteen years ago, I was struck immediately by the exceptionally efficient use of space- the complexity, intricacy, intimacy, and practical nature of the architecture. I felt (and feel today) as if I were walking through an outdoor museum, an historical document. So inspired was I, in the late 1990s, I set out to draw Amsterdam. After subsequent trips to the Netherlands, I returned home with antique postcards along with my own photographs- thereby allowing, each year, the addition of a handful of Amsterdam cityscapes to my portfolio. As of today I have finished roughly thirty such cityscapes, as well as several of Belgium and France.

With little art instruction (three classes at the University of Arizona), I first approached drawing cityscapes with a straightedge ruler in hand. As a result, my illustrations at that time appeared inorganic- the structures rigid and emotionless- the often subtle tilting and sinking of the canal houses was absent. Fortunately however, shortly thereafter, I began to approach my drawings as well-worked sketches, dropping the ruler altogether. Consequently, my illustrations portrayed, with increasing accuracy, classic Dutch architecture’s true character. Amsterdam city blocks, as I see them, though symmetrical, and hewn of rock, possess a palpable organic energy: their leaning as one, or occasionally individually, over the street, or on each other, giving them life. This energy I try to reveal in my artwork.

My drawing process is a meditative one. The intricacy of the various gables, the elaborate flourishes of 18th century cornices, and the neatly arranged windows, provide in their complexity, a sheer pleasure to draw. Each additional level of complexity achieved, as the drawing progresses (from laying out the outlines of each building, to adding the rectangles of the window frames, down to the detailing of each individual windowpane within that frame), akin to achieving a higher level of meditation. I am often asked: “why so many Dutch cityscapes?” I answer: few places in the world have the intricate, detailed architecture I seek as does Holland. Others ask why I don’t produce more sought after genres: abstract works, larger-scale productions, or why I use pencil. I reply that my habit of drawing detailed cityscapes is not about the finished piece, it’s about the process.

The artnetherlands.com web site is a manifestation of my love of the Netherlands. Surprised to find the domain name available last year, it is my wish to develop the site into one of the more informative and attractive web sites on the subject of Dutch Art. Please let me know if you have any suggestions.

Thank you for visiting artnetherlands.com!!!

-Ian Rees (webmaster/proprietor of artntherlands.com)