GOYEN, JAN JOSEPHS(ZOON) VAN

born Jan. 13, 1596, Leiden, Neth. died April 27, 1656, The Hague Goyen also spelled Goijen painter and etcher, one of the most gifted landscapists in the Netherlands during the early 17th century. He learned painting under several masters at Leiden and Haarlem and settled at The Hague about 1631. To support his family he worked as an auctioneer and appraiser of art. Many of his earlier pictures, from 1620 to c. 1630, show the influence of Esaias van der Velde, his teacher in 1616. These landscapes are highly detailed, have strong local colour, and often serve as a stage for genre scenes. His characteristic style developed from the 1620s, when his compositions became simplified and his technique broadened. A use of low horizons gave his landscapes a Baroque sense of spatial expansiveness. His concern with rendering natural light and the depiction of subtle atmospheric effects, however, are the principal identifying features of van Goyen's tonal landscapes. Though he visited France once or twice, van Goyen chiefly confined himself to the scenery of Holland. Mostly painted in oil on wood panels, his landscapes are largely preoccupied in capturing the muted moods of sky and water. He often represented the reaches of the Rhine, Waal, and Maas rivers and sometimes painted the dunes of Scheveningen or the sea at the mouth of the Rhine and Schelde. He liked to depict the tranquillity of river life and inshore calm, rarely painting seas stirred by more than a slight breeze. Van Goyen also excelled in panoramas of Dutch cities, favouring views of Leiden and The Hague-e.g., "View of Leiden" (1643; Alte Pinakothek, Munich)-and in the depiction of Lowlands winter scenes-"Winter Landscape" (1650; Berlin). A prolific draftsman, he also executed a substantial number of landscape etchings.