Probably by Jan van Goyen, 'A Cottage on a Heath', about 1629

In some paintings a vast, empty landscape might evoke feelings of loneliness or even melancholy, but this small picture, probably painted by Jan van Goyen, seems to do just the opposite. It’s 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.

It would seem that van Goyen liked to make viewers look for the many details he partially concealed. At first hidden, the little cottage among the trees seems to have grown from the earth, its curved lines of roof and gable echoing the lines of nature. A figure sits, almost invisible, wearing a jacket that’s the same colour as the cottage wall. A band of sunlight on the roof above the figure draws the eye to the long curved battens slanting upwards to keep the threadbare thatch in place.

More figures can be found among the scrubby bushes on the skyline and at the end of the rise looking out across the distance, perched on the edge of a sharp drop. An old dead tree behind them seems to refuse to lie down and in the distance a single faint line points upwards, perhaps a church spire. Two men chat quietly, perched on top of the yellow sand dune close to us; it looks like an earthbound version of the billowing clouds above. The men seem to ignore the cobwebby line of a fishing rod sticking up into space. It can take a while to notice the stream running on either side of the sandy hillock.

The picture was quickly and vigorously made. The paint is thin and in places sketchy, so much so that for many years A Cottage on a Heath was thought to be by someone imitating van Goyen’s style. But in 1958, when it was cleaned, a figure in the foreground and other details added by a different artist were all removed. Cleaning also revealed van Goyen’s monogram, making it probable that it was his work painted early in his career. He was already experimenting with the muted, limited colours for which he became famous. In Haarlem, where van Goyen lived, other artists, such as Esaias van de Velde and Salomon van Ruysdael, were paving the way for this new ‘monochromatic’ painting; van Goyen went on to take it to new heights of lyrical subtlety in landscapes such as A Windmill by a River and scenes like A River Landscape.