Jan van Goyen
Prolific Dutch tonal landscape painter
Jan Josephszoon van Goyen was a Dutch landscape painter. Van Goyen was an extremely prolific artist; approximately twelve hundred paintings and more than one thousand drawings by him are known. Jan van Goyen was the son of a shoemaker and started as an apprentice in Leiden, the town of his birth. Like many Dutch painters of his time, Jan van Goyen studied art in the town of Haarlem with Esaias van de Velde. At age 35, he established a permanent studio at Den Haag (The Hague). Crenshaw tells (and mentions the sources) that van Goyen's landscape paintings rarely fetched high prices, but he made up for the modest value of individual pieces by increasing his production, painting thinly and quickly with a limited palette of inexpensive pigments. Despite his market innovations, he always sought more income, not only through related work as an art dealer and auctioneer but also by speculating in tulips and real estate. Although the latter was usually a safe avenue of investing money, in van Goyen's experience it led to enormous debts. Paulus Potter rented one of his houses. Though he seems to have kept a workshop, his only registered pupils were Nicolaes van Berchem, Jan Steen, and Adriaen van der Kabel. The list of painters he influenced is much longer. In 1652 and 1654 he was forced to sell his collection of paintings and graphic art, and he subsequently moved to a smaller house. He died in 1656 in The Hague, still unbelievably 18,000 guilders in debt, forcing his widow to sell their remaining furniture and paintings. Van Goyen's troubles also may have affected the early business prospects of his student and son-in-law Jan Steen, who left The Hague in 1654.
Relationship Network
Master student
- Esaias van de Velde Master
- Nicolaes van Berchem Student
- Jan Steen Student
- Adriaen van der Kabel Student
Fellow student
Influenced
Parent child
- Jan Steen Child
Artworks by this artist (141 total)
- An Estuary Scene With The Onset Of A Squall And Weyschuits Lowering Their Sails
- Winter Scene at a Farm 1622 - 1626
- Panorama Landscape with a View of Arnheim 1646
- Blick über eine weite Landschaft mit Kirchturm 1653
- A river landscape with sailing vessels, fishermen’s boats and a ferry with peasants and cattle 1634
- View of Dordrecht from the Dordtse Kil 1644
- Rivierlandschap
- Country House near the Water 1646
- Resting at a Tavern
- Strand mit einem Wagen und vielen Figuren 1653
- View of an Imaginary Town across a River, with the Tower of Saint Pol in Vianen 1649
- The Pelkus Gate near Utrecht 1646
- View of Duurstede Castle at Wijk bij Duurstede 1649
- A Fair 1653
- A winter landscape with townspeople ice skating before a fortified town
- River Landscape 1653
- Winter Pleasures on the Merwede 1643
- Three Figures on a Dune Overlooking Bay with Ships
- A Dune Landscape With Herdsmen Tending Their Cattle
- View of a Church and other Buildings 17th century