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Lot Essay
Van Goyen reached the pinnacle of his creative work in the 1640s. By the end of the preceding decade the artist had achieved notable recognition as one of the foremost landscapists of his generation as well as a certain amount of stability in his private life. Despite losing a great deal of money in 1637, supposedly through a failed venture in the tulip market, he was able to buy a house on the Singelgracht in The Hague in 1639 and was appointed head of the Guild of Saint Luke in the city in 1638, and again in 1640.
By the 1640s van Goyen's palette was moving away from the brown-green tones that he used in the early 1630s towards a more austerely monochromatic yellow and golden brown tonal range. Although he employed a restricted palette, van Goyen was able to capture an enormous range of atmospheric effects and achieve a masterly sense of depth in his compositions. This was partly achieved by his expert use of a transparent ground, which allowed the natural grain of the wooden panel to appear through the oil glazes, most notably in the sky and water in his landscapes. This technique was skillfully deployed in this beautifully preserved work of 1642.
Here we see the artist exploring the effect of a thunderstorm as it passes directly over the Haarlemer Meer (despite his fascination for shipping and water, van Goyen never painted the open sea, preferring inland waters and lakes such as the Haarlemer Meer, a vast lake near Haarlem that was only drained in the 19th century). The dramatic effects of the weather was a constant theme of van Goyen's work throughout his career. As early as 1625 in Landscape in bad weather (Fundaçao Mederios e Almeida, Lisbon) he demonstrated his mastery of the depiction of wind and rain. In the 1640s he explored these weather conditions with renewed vigour, introducing such motifs as a rainbow after a shower in the landscape of 1641 in the Hallwylska Museet, Stockholm and the Storm over the Sea of 1647 in the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe (no. 1843).
In this work of 1642, which for many years hung on loan in the Stedelijk Museum, Leiden, van Goyen has captured a highly dramatic moment in the storm, when a thunderbolt illuminates the sky in the centre of the picture, against the dark threatening clouds, while the wind has whipped up the water into a choppy swell that tosses the small vessels in different directions. The light emanating from the horizon, beyond the clouds, catches the tops of the waves and silhouettes the boat on the left, with its fluttering flag, to memorable effect.
By the 1640s van Goyen's palette was moving away from the brown-green tones that he used in the early 1630s towards a more austerely monochromatic yellow and golden brown tonal range. Although he employed a restricted palette, van Goyen was able to capture an enormous range of atmospheric effects and achieve a masterly sense of depth in his compositions. This was partly achieved by his expert use of a transparent ground, which allowed the natural grain of the wooden panel to appear through the oil glazes, most notably in the sky and water in his landscapes. This technique was skillfully deployed in this beautifully preserved work of 1642.
Here we see the artist exploring the effect of a thunderstorm as it passes directly over the Haarlemer Meer (despite his fascination for shipping and water, van Goyen never painted the open sea, preferring inland waters and lakes such as the Haarlemer Meer, a vast lake near Haarlem that was only drained in the 19th century). The dramatic effects of the weather was a constant theme of van Goyen's work throughout his career. As early as 1625 in Landscape in bad weather (Fundaçao Mederios e Almeida, Lisbon) he demonstrated his mastery of the depiction of wind and rain. In the 1640s he explored these weather conditions with renewed vigour, introducing such motifs as a rainbow after a shower in the landscape of 1641 in the Hallwylska Museet, Stockholm and the Storm over the Sea of 1647 in the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe (no. 1843).
In this work of 1642, which for many years hung on loan in the Stedelijk Museum, Leiden, van Goyen has captured a highly dramatic moment in the storm, when a thunderbolt illuminates the sky in the centre of the picture, against the dark threatening clouds, while the wind has whipped up the water into a choppy swell that tosses the small vessels in different directions. The light emanating from the horizon, beyond the clouds, catches the tops of the waves and silhouettes the boat on the left, with its fluttering flag, to memorable effect.