Riverside landscape with staffage

The works of Jacob van Strij, who lived in Dordrecht, are an interesting example of the long duration of the Baroque convention in the spirit of Albert Cuyp in landscape painting in the Dutch art of the 2nd half of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. The painter was born in an artistic family. Leendert (1728-1798), the painter’s father, and his brother Abraham (1753-1826), who is known in the history of art as the talented author of genre scenes in interiors, were both painters too. Jacob’s son Hendrik, born in 1790, continued the family painting traditions. The small landscape, painted with ease, with the use of a narrow, but sophistically selected array of colours, presents a rocky hill sharply reclining towards the river. Small figures, providing an anecdotal supplement for the landscape, are presented among the rocks. On the right-hand side, there is a small boat with sails moored at the river bank; in the background, another hill is looming, naturally framing the composition. In the background, an extensive view onto an overflow area opens up, where an outline of a small settlement is visible. In contrast to the foreground, painted precisely, with significant attention to detail, the background is slightly hazy. The distance, painted lightly and in a sketch-like mode, intensifies the depth of the painting and builds spatial relations of the composition. The artist's treatment leaves the viewers’ imagination free to interpret the nature stretching up to the horizon.

Dariusz Kacprzak