225
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_24
Chapter 24
Jan van Goyen’s Exquisite Obsession
24.1 Golden Memories
Jan van Goyen (Leiden 1596-The Hague, 1656) is considered the most prodigious
of all Dutch Renaissance painters, with an infectious nature passed on to his three
daughters, as well as his contemporaries. His work was in high demand, though ultimately he would die nearly insolvent, due to risky real estate investments and madcap
speculation in tulip bulbs that backfired.
1
Restless, a born speculator, he was a man in
love with the Dutch coastline to a degree that gives one to believe he was painting not
the Netherlands but Canada, Chile, Russia, New Zealand, Norway, or Indonesia—
the largest coastlines in the world. Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. cites van Goyen as having initiated the Golden Age of landscape painting in the Netherlands.
2
Whereas all
but 34 paintings are currently fully attributed to Vermeer—and an additional three
others still debated
3
—van Goyen’s output numbers in the thousands of works, with
many paintings and sketches doubtlessly lost. The definitive three- volume catalogue
raisonné by Hans-Ulrich Beck shows 1211 oil paintings, in addition to numerous
varieties of many of those otherwise singular works, and 861 sketches, again, with
varieties bringing the total sketches to well over 1000
4
(Fig. 24.1).
1 See Great Masters of Dutch and Flemish Painting, by W. Bode, translated by Margaret L. Clarke,
Duckworth And Co., London, 1909, pp. 141–151.
2 See the short bio, “Goyen, Jan van,” National Gallery of Art Online Editions, https://www.nga.
gov/collection/artist-info.1354.pdf, Accessed April 22, 2019.
3 See Vermeer and the Delft School, by Walter Liedtke with Michiel C. Plomp and Axel Rüger, The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2001;
see also Shin-Ichi Fukuoka’s Vermeer: Realm of Light, in which the Japanese biologist-art historian brilliantly opines that Vermeer might well have executed—in addition to his 34–37 oil paintings, many additional sketches of animal and plant parts, e.g., “the leg of a louse” or “cross section
of a fruit,” in some of his neighbor, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek’s letters, “A Certain Hypothesis,”
pp. 240–251.
4 See the three-volume Jan Van Goyen 1596–1656, Ein Oeuvreverzeichnis by Hans-Ulrich Beck,
with a preface by Wolfgang Stechow, Davaco, Doornspijk, The Netherlands, 1987.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_24
Chapter 24
Jan van Goyen’s Exquisite Obsession
24.1 Golden Memories
Jan van Goyen (Leiden 1596-The Hague, 1656) is considered the most prodigious
of all Dutch Renaissance painters, with an infectious nature passed on to his three
daughters, as well as his contemporaries. His work was in high demand, though ultimately he would die nearly insolvent, due to risky real estate investments and madcap
speculation in tulip bulbs that backfired.
1
Restless, a born speculator, he was a man in
love with the Dutch coastline to a degree that gives one to believe he was painting not
the Netherlands but Canada, Chile, Russia, New Zealand, Norway, or Indonesia—
the largest coastlines in the world. Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. cites van Goyen as having initiated the Golden Age of landscape painting in the Netherlands.
2
Whereas all
but 34 paintings are currently fully attributed to Vermeer—and an additional three
others still debated
3
—van Goyen’s output numbers in the thousands of works, with
many paintings and sketches doubtlessly lost. The definitive three- volume catalogue
raisonné by Hans-Ulrich Beck shows 1211 oil paintings, in addition to numerous
varieties of many of those otherwise singular works, and 861 sketches, again, with
varieties bringing the total sketches to well over 1000
4
(Fig. 24.1).
1 See Great Masters of Dutch and Flemish Painting, by W. Bode, translated by Margaret L. Clarke,
Duckworth And Co., London, 1909, pp. 141–151.
2 See the short bio, “Goyen, Jan van,” National Gallery of Art Online Editions, https://www.nga.
gov/collection/artist-info.1354.pdf, Accessed April 22, 2019.
3 See Vermeer and the Delft School, by Walter Liedtke with Michiel C. Plomp and Axel Rüger, The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2001;
see also Shin-Ichi Fukuoka’s Vermeer: Realm of Light, in which the Japanese biologist-art historian brilliantly opines that Vermeer might well have executed—in addition to his 34–37 oil paintings, many additional sketches of animal and plant parts, e.g., “the leg of a louse” or “cross section
of a fruit,” in some of his neighbor, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek’s letters, “A Certain Hypothesis,”
pp. 240–251.
4 See the three-volume Jan Van Goyen 1596–1656, Ein Oeuvreverzeichnis by Hans-Ulrich Beck,
with a preface by Wolfgang Stechow, Davaco, Doornspijk, The Netherlands, 1987.