Artwork
Cows in the Meadow
Cows in the Meadow is an oil painting by the Impressionist artist Bernard van Beek. It dates from 1908 and is held in the collection of the Rijksmuseum.
About this work
Overview
Created in 1908, *Cows in the Meadow* is an oil painting by Dutch artist Bernard van Beek. The work presents a quiet pastoral landscape dominated by two cows standing in a verdant field, with a distant water surface and a sky washed in muted yellow‑gray tones. The composition conveys a calm, bucolic atmosphere that invites quiet contemplation.
Subject & Meaning
The central figures are a speckled white cow on the left and a brown cow with white markings on the right, positioned amid grass and wildflowers. Their mirrored reflections in the water behind them deepen the sense of space and reinforce the theme of harmonious coexistence between livestock and the natural environment.
Technique & Style
Van Beek employed a restrained palette and loose brushwork characteristic of the Kortenhoef School, a branch of the Hague School that drew on the Barbizon tradition. Elements of Amsterdam Impressionism appear in the handling of light, particularly the soft, diffused illumination that suffuses the sky and meadow.
History & Provenance
Born in Amsterdam in 1875, Bernard van Beek worked outside the academic system and became associated with the Kortenhoef School. *Cows in the Meadow* entered the Rijksmuseum’s collection, where it remains part of the museum’s holdings of early‑20th‑century Dutch landscape painting.
Own this work as a print
Artist & collection
Artist
Bernardus Antonie van Beek (30 January 1875, in Amsterdam – 3 March 1941, in Kortenhoef) was a Dutch landscape painter.
