Cornelis Springer - View of The Hague [1852]

Cornelis Springer and his former teacher, Kaspar Karsen, painted an enormous canvas with a view of The Hague as it must have looked in the seventeenth century. The work is painted with a quick brushstroke and bright, cheerful colours. In this 'townscape', the city lies in the background, the focus is on the cloudy sky - painted with broad, visible brushstrokes - and the countryside around the city: the wooden mills, the reflection in the water and the barge in the canal, towed by the horse on the towpath. On the grass just outside the city, white sheets are bleaching in the sun, depicted with slight touches of white impasto paint.