Castle by a River by Jan van Goyen
In the Golden Age of
Dutch painting, Dutch landscape paintings like this were a radical departure from previous
landscape traditions: There's almost no land in this landscape! In 17th century Dutch
landscapes, top billing usually goes to the
sky.
The Netherlands is a very flat place, but even so, van Goyen could have placed the horizon much higher if he wanted a more conventional result. Instead, he places the horizon so low that the heavens dominate the earth, filling 80% of the canvas. And I think seeing this as a depiction of the dominance of heaven can lead to a more profound understanding of this painting.
Maybe van Goyen merely tried to reproduce an interesting scene exactly as he saw it. Or maybe he was an intelligent, creative man who felt the presence of God in his life and found a way to express his experience in a powerfully evocative way. In general, the latter possibility is exactly the kind of thing that makes great art great.
Van Goyen's heavens encompass all the world and determine conclusively what happens there. In the lower part of the scene, the land and buildings quite literally represent the “earthly” component juxtaposed with van Goyen’s “spiritual” sky. But as if it would be too much to suggest that mankind has any solid footing of his own in this world, we only find humans on the shifting, uncertain water. Here, humanity is even more at the mercy of the omnipresent sky.
But not without hope. Nearby rises a magnificent tower with its foundation in the earth and a spire that soars triumphantly into the sky. On the land is stability and support, but even more, within the castle’s fortification is the promise of security and sustenance. And crowning it all is this glorious tower that suggests a bridge between our limitations and God’s infinity.
It may be about the last place you’d expect to find it, but here in this Dutch landscape is yet another emblematic image of Christ on the cross.
The Netherlands is a very flat place, but even so, van Goyen could have placed the horizon much higher if he wanted a more conventional result. Instead, he places the horizon so low that the heavens dominate the earth, filling 80% of the canvas. And I think seeing this as a depiction of the dominance of heaven can lead to a more profound understanding of this painting.
Maybe van Goyen merely tried to reproduce an interesting scene exactly as he saw it. Or maybe he was an intelligent, creative man who felt the presence of God in his life and found a way to express his experience in a powerfully evocative way. In general, the latter possibility is exactly the kind of thing that makes great art great.
Van Goyen's heavens encompass all the world and determine conclusively what happens there. In the lower part of the scene, the land and buildings quite literally represent the “earthly” component juxtaposed with van Goyen’s “spiritual” sky. But as if it would be too much to suggest that mankind has any solid footing of his own in this world, we only find humans on the shifting, uncertain water. Here, humanity is even more at the mercy of the omnipresent sky.
But not without hope. Nearby rises a magnificent tower with its foundation in the earth and a spire that soars triumphantly into the sky. On the land is stability and support, but even more, within the castle’s fortification is the promise of security and sustenance. And crowning it all is this glorious tower that suggests a bridge between our limitations and God’s infinity.
It may be about the last place you’d expect to find it, but here in this Dutch landscape is yet another emblematic image of Christ on the cross.
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Want to know more about how God speaks to us through visual art?
Check out Art to Heart: Encounters with God in the world's great art