A Windmill by a River

Jan van Goyen's painting - his view of the wide sweep of the Netherlandish landscape - is a poetic vision. Seen from a sandy rising, the horizon is low and the sky vast. Just a few birds wheel in the towering clouds.

Van Goyen was very influential in the development of the 'tonal phase' of Dutch painting, in which tones of the same shade rather than a mixture of colours were used to achieve an effect or atmosphere. He made many exquisite drawings of the countryside. Later, in his studio, he used them to paint pictures so evocative and atmospheric that they're seemingly 'emotion remembered in tranquillity' - which is how William Wordsworth, the English poet, described poetry.

Credit: Salting Bequest, 1910