Philips Koninck

Stand before one of Philips Koninck's big landscapes and the land seems to fall away for miles, flat Dutch fields and rivers under an enormous sky, seen as if from a low rise. He made this wide panoramic view his own in 17th-century Holland, splitting the canvas between earth below and towering cloud above.

He was very likely a pupil of Rembrandt, whom he knew in Amsterdam, and you can feel it in the warm, broken light that moves across his distances. In his own day, though, he was better known for portraits and everyday scenes. The panoramas that carry his name now were a sideline.

Painting did not pay his bills. Koninck ran a profitable inland shipping and ferry business on the water between Amsterdam and Rotterdam, which left him free to paint as he pleased. Only about a dozen of his large panoramas survive, scattered now among museums in London, Amsterdam and Madrid.