Jan Josephsz Van Goyen ( Leiden 1596 - The Hague, 1656)

JAN JOSEPHSZ VAN GOYEN ( Leiden 1596 - The Hague, 1656)
"River landscape".
Oil on panel.
Signed with anagram.
Size: 35'5 x 55 cm; 53 x 72'5 cm (with frame).
Outstanding exponent of the Dutch Baroque landscape, Jan van Goyen developed a personal language that took shape in a definitive way in his mature stage, and that can be felt in this lake landscape. His palette is essentialized and reduced to a rich range of earthy, ochre and sienna colors that lend an autumnal and lyrical mood to an already peaceful scene. Within these monochromatic ranges of toned colors, the peasants and fishermen are harmoniously integrated into the landscape. The figures have been resolved with short, nervous strokes, the brushstrokes becoming longer in the sky and on the mottled surface of the river. Jan van Goyen was, together with Salomon van Ryusdael, the main representative of this type of Dutch landscape that has come to be called monochromatic, and like him he mainly worked the river landscape. Van Goyen has early works such as the series of "The Four Seasons" (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum), where we see a more colorful language and indebted to Brueghel, but from 1627 begins his mature stage, with tonal landscapes. His mature language will be characterized by river themes with boats or cattle, worked with a very light and fluid brushstroke, different from that of the later classical phase of the Dutch landscape, where we see a touch of brushwork notably more impastoed. A typical characteristic of Van Goyen's river views will be the play of earth tones in the construction of the space in perspective. On the other hand, within his production, the horizon will go lower and lower, leaving more and more space for the development of the sky; the horizon goes down from the middle of the painting, placing itself very low in the composition already in the middle of the century, unlike what happens in the contemporary Flemish landscape.
Jan van Goyen began his training in his native Leiden, where he had Van Schilperoort, Van Swanenburgh, Jan de Man and Clock as teachers, and then settled in Hoorn, where he continued his studies in the workshop of Willem Gerritsz. In 1615 a trip to France is documented, and the following year we find him already in Haarlem working in the workshop of who will be his main teacher, Esaias van de Velde, one of the main initiators of the Dutch landscape. He later returned to Leiden, where he began his career as an independent master and reached the maturity of his style. In 1632 he settled permanently in The Hague, where he combined his artistic practice with the art and tulip trade, a luxury product in great demand in Holland at the time. His mastery was recognized by his colleagues, and in fact between 1638 and 1640 he was dean of the guild of St. Luke in The Hague. In the following years Van Goyen traveled throughout the Netherlands and Germany, making numerous landscape sketches, and already in his later years, in 1651, he received two important public commissions for the Town Hall of The Hague and the royal palace of Honselaersdijk. However, his commercial adventures led him to bankruptcy, and in 1652 and 1654 there are documented sales of his assets. A prolific painter, Van Goyen is now represented in major art galleries in Europe and America, including the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the National Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Louvre in Paris, the J. Paul Getty in Los Angeles, the Kunsthistorisches Kunsthistorisches in Vienna, the Louvre in Paris, the J. Paul Getty in Los Angeles, the Kunsthistorisches Kunsthistorisches in Vienna, and the J. Paul Getty in Los Angeles. Paul Getty in Los Angeles, the Fitzwilliam of Cambridge University, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Royal Mauritshuis Gallery in The Hague and the Kunstmuseum in Basel, among others.