“On the Way” - Dated 1651.

Work listed and reproduced in the catalog dedicated to this artist

"Jby Van Goyen 1596-1656 » In the works of Hans-Ulrich BECK

Catalog Der Gemälde volume II, under number 1161 page 507.

Oil on panel monogrammed VG and dated 1651 lower right.

On the back are old labels bearing numbers, date and a wax seal.

Dimensions: 24 x 33,5 cm; with frame: 42,5 x 52 cm

Van Goyen, a great observer of the details of daily life, gives us here a scene in motion, characterized by human activity. Two peasant women carrying jars and provisions, accompanied by a small dog, are walking. On their way they meet three peasants guiding a cart of hay pulled by two horses; other characters move away on the path.

 The construction of the painting is economical. It features the alternation of dark and lighter bands, the monochrome colouring and a descending diagonal along which the figures are grouped. The clouds, typical elements of the Dutch landscape, slide across the sky which occupies three-quarters of the composition. A warm, golden light bathes the composition.

All these elements are characteristic of his work.

 Jan van Goyen, together with Salomon Van Ruysdael and Pieter Molijn, brought a new direction to Dutch landscape art, which reached its peak around the middle of the 19th century. XVIIth century, abandoning the taste for the picturesque and the decorative, bright colours, strong contrasts of lighting and fanciful perspectives for a naturalism of modern spirit, playing on monochrome, insisting on luminous values ​​and giving an ever more important place to the sky, the horizon and the clouds. He developed this landscape formula which consists of reserving three quarters of the surface of the painting to the most elusive element, the sky. (Jacques Foucart curator, Louvre Museum)

 Van Goyen was a pupil of Esaias van de Velde in Haarlem, who had a great influence on him. He settled in Leiden and then in The Hague, where he opened a studio frequented by painters such as Van der Kabel, Saftleven, Berchem and Jan Steen. 

Highly esteemed during his lifetime, he was admitted, immediately after his arrival in The Hague in 1631, to the Guild of Saint Luke, of which he became dean in 1640. He travelled in France around 1615, in Flanders and in Germany.

Van Goyen's early works, close to those of his master Esaias van de Velde and Avercamp, are genre scenes and are still mannerist in conception, such as these skating scenes where he takes pleasure in describing the anecdote, insists on the architecture and uses a miniaturist style. 

Around 1626 or 1628, Van Goyen abandoned the small precious formats, the tondi From its beginnings, it frees itself from the picturesque element and uses, at the same time as Pieter Molijn and Salomon van Ruysdael, the diagonal which structures and unifies the composition, such as the Village from 1626 (Lakenhal, Leiden), still full of precious details but where the figures are reduced, losing their anecdotal character. 

From 1630 onwards, Van Goyen achieved a certain originality by seeking a more muted colouring. It is not so much the different elements composing them as the overall impression that characterises his paintings.

 A prolific artist, his first signed work is dated 1620. He would subsequently produce around a thousand paintings and eight hundred drawings.

Bibliography

• H. Van der Waal, Jan van Goyen, met drieënvijftig afbeeldingen, "Palet collection"
• JN Van Wessem, Jan van Goyen. Catalogus bij de tentonstelling in Leiden en Arnhem, 1960.

 Museums: Amsterdam, Zurich, Berlin. Carcassonne, Salzburg, Dresden, Louvre Museum, Paris, Brussels, Vienna

• Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
• Museum of Fine Arts, Bordeaux
• Palace of Fine Arts in Lille.
• Mauritshuis, The Hague.
• Museum of Fine Arts of Rouen.
• Bemberg Foundation, Toulouse.
• Quimper Museum of Fine Arts.
• Bernay Museum of Fine Arts.
• Museum of Fine Arts of Algiers.