Louis Meijer artwork • painting • previously for sale A moonlit river landscape with a moored sailing ship

Louis Meijer painted his night picture of a river landscape with boats moored in a valley. Nocturnes, also known as 'moonlights', became a popular genre among landscape painters again in the 19th century, following the example of 17th-century painters such as Aert van der Neer. The evening is almost windless and the sails of the ship still have to be hauled in. A single wave in the moon's reflection in the water indicates that there is only a slight current. The moon is in the middle of the sky. Some brown-red colour accents on the moored ships reflect the light of the moon. The clouds over the mountains have dissipated. The light and shadows cast by the moon with its wand give the scene an aura of mystery and colours and shapes seem to change. With hardly any colour, Meijer succeeds in making an idyllic night scene believable. In addition to respect for nature, the evening also radiates a serene calm in which man and nature are in harmony with each other.