Mulder De Bruyn

This Dutch painter from the early 1800s carried a tiny oil lamp in his coat pocket so he could sketch the dark corners of Amsterdam’s canals at night. He loved the way gaslight turned fog into gold, and left us moody, almost cinematic views of the city’s bridges and houseboats. If you’ve ever walked along the Amstel River at dusk and wondered how to paint the way the sky bleeds into the water, start with his *View from the Magere Brug* where the wooden bridge seems to float on liquid copper.