View of IJsselmonde Seen Across the New Maas

Even though he never ventured to Italy, Aelbert Cuyp distinguished himself as an artist who could evoke the golden light so often associated with southern Europe. Two of his works (View of IJsselmonde Seen across the New Maas (1967.383) and A View of Vianen with a Herdsman and Cattle by a River (2003.169), created around the same time, indicate how he achieved this effect in two different media. In both cases, Cuyp employed a restrained but highly evocative palette in which he selectively contrasted the dark brown elements of the foreground and the expansive gold-cast skies seen beyond the water in the middle ground. Although in the painting he achieved this effect by covering his entire canvas with pigment, it is remarkable to consider the atmospheric effects he created in the drawing with the strategic and minimal use of color on paper.