Landscape with Castle

The Dutch countryside Rembrandt actually lived in was flat, wet and almost treeless. This is nothing like it. There are no real hills in Holland, and certainly no castle on a crag catching the last of the storm light like this one. Rembrandt painted only a handful of these landscapes, all of them around 1640, and they are inventions built in the studio rather than views of any place. He was at the height of his Amsterdam career then, expensive and in demand, and these dark, weather-charged scenes seem to be something he did for himself, not for a patron. The exact year is still argued over. What no one argues about is the light: a low, bruised sky breaking over the towers, the kind of drama Rembrandt usually kept for faces.