The new relief 'Landschaft mit hohem Himmel' by Stephan Balkenhol is characterized - as the title suggests - by the considerable share of the celestial part in the work.
Dramatic, gray-blue clouds predominate. Under the cloudy sky deck is a serene landscape, where the presence of sunlight is clearly visible.
For this relief Stephan Balkenhol based himself on a photograph he made of a landscape on a journey to Sneek, a city in the province of Friesland in the Netherlands.
He found inspiration in the landscape paintings by Adriaen van de Velde (1636-1672), a master of the Dutch landscape. Adriaen Van de Velde was one of the greatest landscape painters of the Golden Age in the northern Netherlands. However, there were more renowned painters in his family, such as his father, Willem van de Velde Senior (1611-1693) and his brother, Willem van de Velde Junior (1633-1707). Both Willem van de Velde's were mainly specialized in navies. What binds them all is a well-considered use of colors and a choice to give a lot of attention to the sky in the compositions.
And just that attracted Balkenhol in the realization of 'Landschaft mit hohem Himmel'.