Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1596-1656 Jan van Goyen was born in Leiden on Jan. 13, 1596. Apprenticed from the age of 10, he had several masters. About 1617 he went to Haarlem to study with Esaias van de Velde, an important innovator in the Haarlem movement of realistic landscape painting. Van Goyen's works between 1621 and 1625 are sometimes hard to distinguish from those of his teacher. They are colorful, detailed views of villages and roads, usually busy with people, as in Winter (1621). It was Van Goyen's usual practice to sign or monogram and date his paintings. He traveled extensively through the Netherlands and beyond, recording his impressions in sketchbooks, occasionally with dates and often depicting recognizable scenes. Thus the chronology of his development is clear. His paintings of the late 1620s show a steady advance from the strong colors and scattered organization of his early works toward tonality and greater simplicity and unity of composition. By 1630 he was painting monochromes in golden brown or pale green; he played a leading part in the tonal phase of Dutch landscape painting. In 1631 Van Goyen settled in The Hague, where he became a citizen in 1634. The simplicity, airiness, and unification of his compositions continued to increase in his abundant production of dune landscapes, river views, seascapes, town views, and winter landscapes. The River View (1636) displays a river so open and extensive as to suggest the sea, with reflections that prolong the vast and luminous sky. In its monumentalization of humble structures and its composition built on a firm scaffolding of horizontal and vertical forces, it forecast at this early date developments that dominated landscape painting in the 1650s and later. In the Village and Dunes (1647) the traditional double-diagonal composition still exists, but it is dominated by horizontal and vertical accents. Stronger contrasts of light and dark replace the earlier tonality. In the last year of his life Van Goyen produced an eloquent new style, in which powerful forms stand out against the radiant sky and water in an exquisitely balanced composition (Evening Calm; 1656). The commission in 1651 to paint a panoramic view of The Hague for the Burgomaster's Room shows the high regard in which Van Goyen was held. He was enormously productive; well over 1,000 of his paintings still exist, and almost as many drawings. Yet he died insolvent, perhaps because of losses in his various business ventures, and soon after his death on April 27, 1656,   Related Paintings of GOYEN, Jan van :. | Windmill by a River fg | Horse Cart on a Bridge sg | View of Dordrecht dg | Winter on the River dg | Haarlemer Meer dg |
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James Stark
(November 19, 1794 - March 24, 1859) was an English landscape painter of the "Norwich School".Stark was born in Norwich, the youngest son of distinguished dyer Michael Stark (1748-1831, Scottish), and showed a talent for art from an early age. He was educated at the Grammar School where he was friends with John Berney Crome. He was then apprenticed for 3 years to John Berney's father, distinguished landscape artist John Crome, from 1811. In that same years he exhibited work at the Norwich Society of Artists (being elected a member in 1812,) and his work "A view on King Street river, Norwich" was shown by the Royal Academy, London. In 1814 he moved to London, exhibiting at the British Institution between 1814-18, winning a prize of £50 in 1818. In 1817 he entered the Royal Academy as a student, and eventually began to receive commissions for his work. Ill health forced Stark to return to Norwich after only 2 years study. There he devoted himself to painting the scenery around the city and executed a series of paintings of Norfolk rivers which were eventually engraved and published in 1834. In 1821 he married Elizabeth Younge Dinmore (d. 1834-35). In 1830, he again settled in London, taking up residence in Chelsea, and exhibited at the British Institution, Royal Academy and Society of British Artists. In 1839, he moved to Windsor, painting many pictures of the scenery of the Thames, but moved back to London in 1849 in order to further his son's education in art. Stark died at Mornington Place, Camden, London, in March 1859. Stark's only son, Arthur James Stark (1831-1902), born in Chelsea, London, became a landscapes and animal painter. On a few of his father's pictures he was employed to draw the cattle.
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