Description
Five drawings (1961.378-1961.382) were once bound in a small sketchbook of approximately 200 pages. Because it was light and portable, Jan van Goyen could tuck it into his pocket while walking in search of inspiration. Sketchbooks allowed the artist to quickly delineate sand dunes and architectural structures in the vicinity of his residence in The Hague and farther afield. These landscape sketches in black chalk and ink wash relate—directly and indirectly—to compositions the artist later realized in oil paintings.
Provenance
Possibly A. Geddes; sold Christie’s, April 1845, lot 361 [Dodgson 1935]. Private collection, England, 1879 [Gorissen 1964]. Johnson Neale, London, by 1895 [Gorrisen 1964]; Thomas Mark Hovell (1853–1925), London [Dodgson 1918]. Sold, Sotheby's, London, July 3, 1918, lot 124, to P. and D. Colnaghi, London [Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1980]. W. M. Mensing [or Anton Mensing? ](1866–1936), Amsterdam; sold, Frederick Muller, Amsterdam, Apr. 27–29, 1937, lot 218. Hirschmann (probably Otto Hirschman, born 1889) [Gorissen 1964]. A. Mayer, New York [Gorissen 1964]. Possibly C. F. Louis deWild (1900–1987), New York [according to Beck]. Sold by Lilienfeld Galleries, New York, to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1961.
Accession Number
20160
Medium
Black chalk, with brush and gray wash, on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
9.8 × 15.8 cm (3 7/8 × 6 1/4 in.)
Classification
chalk
Credit Line
Worcester Sketch Fund Income
Background & Context
Background Story
Jan van Goyens A Romanesque Ruin from 1650-51 is a black chalk and gray wash drawing on ivory laid paper that exemplifies the Dutch Golden Age landscape painters approach to the ruins of the past as subjects of pictorial meditation rather than antiquarian documentation. Van Goyen, one of the most prolific and influential landscape painters of the 17th-century Dutch Republic, developed a tonal style of landscape painting and drawing that used a limited palette of browns, grays, and greens to create atmospheric images of the flat Dutch countryside and its architectural features. The Romanesque ruin, whether observed from nature or imagined, provides van Goyen with a vertical accent that breaks the horizontal expanse of the landscape and introduces a note of historical depth into the visual field, the ruined church or castle standing as a reminder of the temporal nature of human achievement. The black chalk and gray wash technique allows van Goyen to suggest the texture of weathered stone and the atmosphere around the ruin with an economy of means that is characteristic of the tonal landscape style: the chalk provides contour and detail, the wash provides volume and atmosphere, and the ivory paper provides the light that seems to emanate from within the drawing itself. The years 1650-51 place this drawing in the period of van Goyens mature style, when he had simplified his compositions and reduced his palette to achieve the atmospheric subtlety that distinguishes his best work and that would influence the development of Dutch landscape painting for the rest of the century.
Cultural Impact
Van Goyens tonal landscape drawings defined the character of Dutch landscape art in the mid-17th century and influenced the development of landscape painting throughout Northern Europe. A Romanesque Ruin exemplifies the tonal approach that made him the most imitated landscape painter in the Netherlands and established a model of atmospheric subtlety that extended to the painters of the Hague School.
Why It Matters
A black chalk and gray wash drawing by van Goyen depicting a Romanesque ruin in the Dutch landscape with the atmospheric economy of the tonal style, using limited means to suggest weathered stone, historical depth, and the flat expanse of the Netherlands.
