View of The Hague from the Southeast

View of The Hague from the Southeast from 1650 provides a topographic panorama of the political capital of the Dutch Republic. Van Goyen lived and worked in The Hague for many years, and his views of the city combined topographic accuracy with his characteristic atmospheric treatment of the vast Dutch sky. Van Goyen's panoramic views exploit the extreme horizontality of the Dutch landscape, placing the horizon very low and devoting most of the canvas to sky. This compositional strategy, developed in the 1630s, became standard for subsequent Dutch landscape painting and influenced the development of atmospheric landscape across Europe. The Kunstmuseum Den Haag holds this view in the city it depicts — one of the few Van Goyen works preserved in permanent institutional connection to its subject, maintaining the topographic documentary function that was part of the painting's original purpose alongside its atmospheric artistry.

The city's skyline is rendered with topographic precision in the distance, while the foreground terrain and atmospheric sky are treated with van Goyen's fluid, tonal technique.