Winter

Jan van Goyen captured a frozen Dutch waterway in this atmospheric winter scene. Figures skate and walk across the ice while bare trees stand against a pale sky. Van Goyen pioneered a tonal approach to landscape, using restricted palettes of browns, grays, and ochres to unify his compositions and evoke specific weather conditions.

Winter scenes became a specialty of Dutch Golden Age painters, documenting the Little Ice Age that made frozen canals a regular feature of life. Van Goyen's economical brushwork and misty atmospheres influenced generations of landscapists. This painting hangs at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.