Everywhere in Holland windmills can be seen. Besides pumping and draining, they also saw wood and grind corn. Although nowadays steam and gasolene engines can do most of the work formerly performed by windmills, they still form a picturesque part of the Dutch landscape. By draining whole marshes they have transformed this waste land into beautiful green and fertile fields. In passing from The Hague to Haarlem on the train one can see the largest of these “polders,” as the drained marshes are called.
Windmills were used as early as the twelfth century. In all the older windmills a shaft called the wind shaft carried four to six arms or whips, on which long, narrow sails were spread. The tips of the sails made a circle of sixty to eighty feet in diameter. It is this type of windmill, with its long arms waving above the landscape, that is associated so closely with Holland.
RYKS MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM
HOLLAND
Art in Holland
SIX
Many people consider Dutch art the most interesting in the world. The artists of Holland did not portray classic gods and prayerful madonnas. They were too practical and matter-of-fact for that. Their minds were serious, and scenes of everyday life attracted them more than they did the artists of Italy or Spain. Portrait painting began very early among the Dutch. This was because the Dutch spirit was essentially commercial. The prosperous burghers liked to have great artists paint them, and they were usually willing to pay pretty well for the privilege. Also the nobility, due to their love of splendor, gave abundant employment to the artists.