A Cottage on a Heath
- Artist: Jan van Goyen
- Date: about 1629
- Medium: oil on wood
- Museum: The National Gallery
- Collection record: The National Gallery website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is "A Cottage on a Heath" painted in the Dutch tradition. The painting is light and airy, with a patch of sun on glowing soil, and tiny, almost comical, trees, their branches misty with delicate new leaves. Puffy clouds float across the sky on a breath. It seems to be an image of spring that brings the fresh air in to its viewers.
The artist, Jan van Goyen, was experimenting with muted colours even at this early stage in his career. He was one of several artists from Haarlem who were pioneering this new style of 'monochromatic' painting. In fact, for many years, this painting was thought to be by someone imitating van Goyen's style.
When the painting was cleaned in 1958, it revealed van Goyen's monogram and made it probable that this is his work painted around 1629. The painting is oil on wood, a common medium for Dutch landscape paintings at the time.
See it in person
A Cottage on a Heath hangs in The National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
