Date: March 14, 2017 EI Presenter: Nancy Naishtat

Artwork title: River Landscape with Fishermen and Men Repairing a Boat Before a House Year Created: 1651 Artist: Jan Van Goyen (1596-1656), Dutch

Gallery: MacKinnon (thru June 11, 2017)

A. These are the 5 most essential aspects of this work of art:

1. 1648 saw the end of the 80 Years War which resulted in a separation of the Dutch Republic (now the ) in the North from Flanders in the South (an area now known as Belgium). The Republic was Protestant, no longer heavily influenced by the Catholic Church, and the Republic’s rule was more democratic and egalitarian than that under the rule of the Spanish Empire. Art until then had focused on an elitist audience, dictating the subject matter. Now the Northern preference for a more popular, naturalistic style flourished. Artists no longer needed to seek the patronage of the aristocracy, and chose to focus on the middle class producing works expressing a new sense of national pride. Subjects were landscapes depicting natural scenes and rural life, still life, genre scenes celebrating the comfort and security of home, and portraits. Artists specialized in one of these areas affording them both mastery (and thus perhaps faster production?) and, of course, reputation. 2. Jan Van Goyen was born in 1596 in , then trained in . He moved to in about 1632 and this is where he established his own studio. Jan Van Goyen was a significant developer of the “naturalistic” landscape in 17th Dutch painting. 3. He was a prolific painter, leaving over 1200 known paintings, etchings, and over 1000 drawings. In addition to his work as an artist he also invested in real estate and tulips, for example, and often unsuccessfully. One source suggested his prolific output and limited palate were necessitated by debt. 4. His paintings are noted for their distinctive tonal, monochromatic palette, limited to browns, yellows and light greens, and occasionally light blues. His landscapes, especially after 1631, depict a low horizon, and are noted for his focus on depiction of light, air and perspective. 5. He typically painted on thin oak wood. He would prep this with several coats of animal glue, then using a blade he would then spread a layer of white lead, tinted usually in a tone of ochre, light brown, or a reddish brown. He would then sketch the basic outline shapes of the scene with walnut ink. This is sometimes visible in thinly painted areas of his paintings. He completed the paintings referencing a detailed drawing made from as he completed the painting in his studio.

B. These are the questions I would use when speaking with visitors about this object: (List 1-5) This is a great VTS work. I would start with the VTS questions: 1. What’s going on in this picture> 2. What do you see that makes you say that? 3. What more can we find?

then I would follow with, as needed:

4. What time of day is this artist showing us? (What makes you say that?) 5. What do you notice about the artist’s use of color?

C. With which tour(s) would you use this object?

People and Places Learning to Look

D. You may wish to include a suggested bibliography or additional images.

References: Images of Reality, Images of Arcadia: Seventeenth-Century Netherlandish Paintings from Swiss Collections, Margarita Russell, 1989. The Trust for Museum Exhibitions, Washington D.C., The Jakob Briner Foundation, Winterthur, Switzerland. The Poetry of Everyday Life: Dutch painting in Boston, Ronni Baer, 2002. MFA Publications, A Division of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/260/jan-van-goyen-dutch-1596-1656/ http://www.jan-van-goyen.com/ http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/jan-van-goyen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_van_Goyen