The use of copper as a support is a great rarity in van Goyen’s oeuvre. Typically, van Goyen preferred to use oak panels, but perhaps the opportunity to paint on a copper panel came his way, and he decided to give it a try. The artist’s rapid manner of painting, using thinly applied passages of fluid paint, with impasto highlights in ochre, white and pink, is seen here to splendid effect. In this river landscape of 1628, he is on the cusp of his mature style. The multiplicity of motifs and colors that characterized his earlier paintings has given way here to a simple oblique design and a more restrained palette of browns, greens and greyish-blue. The view is taken from low down on the water, and some three-quarters of the composition is given over to a dramatic, stormy sky.
