View of Emmerich

Jan van Goyen (Dutch, 1596–1656)

1645

Medium
oil on wood
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
Framed: 105.5 x 136 x 9.5 cm (41 9/16 x 53 9/16 x 3 3/4 in.); Unframed: 65.4 x 96.7 cm (25 3/4 x 38 1/16 in.)
Culture
Netherlands
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art, European Painting and Sculpture
Credit line
John L. Severance Fund
Rights
Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed

View at the Cleveland Museum of Art

About this work

Jan van Goyen’s deceptively simple paintings record remarkably realistic impressions of weather, space, and the shifting interactions of land, water, light, and air. He worked with swift, intuitive brushstrokes and a limited range of colors: gray, brown, cool blues, and earthy greens. The artist often went on sketching trips along the Rhine River, visiting cities such as Arnhem, or the German city of Emmerich, depicted here. In the foreground, a shallow boat ferries passengers and horse-drawn wagons across the river.