ARTWORK

A Comparison of two landscape artworks

A Comparison Of Two Landscape Artworks

Van Goyen's exquisite and fragile style of painting seascapes, river scenes and landscapes led him to be neglected for 200 years after his death, when a more finished type of picture was preferred. Now the situation is reversed: his open skies and lightly suggested trees and buildings are much prized by connoisseurs. Though spending most of his mature career living permanently in The Hague, painting in a manner typical of Haarlem, he seems to have been an insatiable traveller (Keyes, Susan, Axel, 2004).

A large number of his landscapes have identifiable topographical elements in them, and most Dutch towns and even villages appear in one or more of his pictures. They are rarely topographically accurate in the strict sense of the word, but the individual buildings are usually easy to recognize. The town which he painted most frequently was Dordrecht, where the cathedral can be seen at a distance from over the water.

Jan van Goyen: View of Rhenen, 1646

This landscape - a northern Arcadia bathed in idealized Italianate light - is one of Cuyp's best known paintings. Its enchanting poetry ensured the success of Cuyp, the Claude Lorrain of Holland(Nash, 2006). The tower in the distance is not Utrecht Cathedral but the church of Rhenen.

Aelbrecht Cuyp excelled in several genres: portraiture, landscape, still life, and animal painting. In this painting, one of the artist's greatest and most accomplished, he demonstrates his talents. A shepherd plays the flute for a young boy and girl, who listen to him attentively as they stroke a sheepdog. The chiaroscuro of the foreground sets off the warm russet and ocher hues of the cows. The anatomy and rippling muscles of these peaceful creatures are treated with great naturalist vigor. Cuyp even includes a highly realistic spurt of urine from the brown cow on the right. In the misty distance, beneath towering clouds, are the outlines of two windmills and a peaceful town reflected in the water(Clark, 2007). The tower of the church has been identified as that of Rhenen. The hazy grays are very close to those of Jan van Goyen.

Jan van Goyen and his Netherlandish contemporaries are credited with the invention of European landscape painting. Van Goyen pioneered an approach that featured a low horizon with an expanse of dramatic sky above. He painted more than twenty-five views of Rhenen, located on the banks of the Rhine River. Some elements of the painting are accurately rendered, such as the distant view of the town. Others, such as the buildings and oak tree on the right, are fictional.

In attributed to Jan van Goyen and his contemporaries invented painting European landscape. Van Goyen was one of the first to focus on a horizon bottom dominated by majestic sky. He has directed more than twenty-five views of the city Rhenen, located along the Rhine. Some elements of the array are faithful reality, including the city in the ...