View of Dordrecht from the Dordtse Kil – (Jan Van Goyen) ◄ Previous Next ►

Artist: Jan Van Goyen

Date: 1644

Size: 65 x 96 cm

Technique: Oil On Panel

Painted almost entirely in tones of beige and golden brown, we look across a smooth body of water at a row of buildings around a large church and several windmills scattered across the skyline in this horizontal landscape painting. The horizon comes about a quarter of the way up the painting, and the ice-blue sky above is nearly filled with pink-tinged clouds. Closest to us, a man bends over a container or bundle on a narrow spit of land in the lower left corner. Three boats float close by in the water beyond him. A rowboat at the lower center of the painting is filled with at least ten people, wearing bonnets or hats, dressed in tones of muted teal blue, golden yellow, and smoke gray. An empty, smaller boat is tied to and floats off one end of the rowboat. To our left, beyond the spit of land, a second rowboat is pulled up alongside a shallow boat with sails unfurled. Five people sit or stand in the rowboat as a sixth person is helped from the smaller rowboat up onto the sailboat. At least seven people and perhaps some bundles fill the deck of the sailboat. A bird flies low to the surface of the water nearby. A church with a tall, square tower and the lower buildings around it reflect in the placid water on the distant shore. More boats float along the winding shoreline in the deep distance, and a few more spires, windmills, and stately buildings are silhouetted against the sky.