"View of Leiden from the Northeast"

Jan van Goyen - huile
In the 1650s van Goyen did not remain uninfluenced by the new classical trend, but he never moved away from the dominant monochromatic tonality of his middle period. Some tectonic accents, with verticals opposing horizontals, enter his compositions. The clouds become more voluminous and his touch a bit more forceful
now and then his skies include vivid blues. But it is largely the deepening of his tonality that enlivens his late work, by strong contrasts of dark accents in the foreground against the luminous openings in the sky and bright reflections on the surface of water.