The Beach near Scheveningen

The Beach near Scheveningen from 1648 depicts the fishing village that served as The Hague's seaside resort. Scheveningen beach was one of van Goyen's favorite subjects, and he captured its broad sandy expanse, fishing boats, and vast skies in numerous paintings and drawings. Van Goyen painted the coastal dune scenery of Holland repeatedly, drawn to the austere beauty of wind-shaped sand and sparse vegetation. These horizontal subjects with luminous skies epitomize the Dutch tonal landscape s...

The vast beach and sky are rendered in van Goyen's restricted tonal palette, with the fishing boats and figures providing scale within the atmospheric expanse of sand and cloud.