Wijnand Nuijen

Wijnand Jan Josephus Nuijen (4 March 1813 – 2 June 1839) was a Dutch painter and printmaker who specialised in landscapes, and was greatly influenced by the French Romantics.

Born in The Hague (Den Haag) to a baker father who recognised his son's talent, Nuijen was apprenticed at age twelve to Andreas Schelfhout, a local artist.

In his short lifespan Nuijen became a prolific painter of rural and marine landscapes, spending much time on the Normandy and northern French coasts.

Here he fell under the spell of painters who were working in France, such as Richard Parkes Bonington (1802–1828) and Eugène Isabey (1803–1886), both of whom painted picturesque villages, Normandy harbours and seascapes, with a spontaneity Nuijen admired and adopted.

Nuijen was unusual among Dutch painters of the period, his theatricality and liberal style contrasting with the near photographic depiction that was then the norm.