The capital of the state is GOYÁZ, or Villa-Boa de Goyáz, a mining town on the Rio Vermelho, a tributary of the Araguaya rising on the northern slopes of the Serra de Santa Rita. Pop. (1890) 6807. Gold was discovered here in 1682 by Bartholomeu Bueno, the first European explorer of this region, and the settlement founded by him was called Santa Anna, which is still the name of the parish. The site of the town is a barren, rocky mountain valley, 1900 ft. above sea-level, in which the heat is most oppressive at times and the nights are unpleasantly cold. Goyáz is the see of a bishopric founded in 1826, and possesses a small cathedral and some churches.
GOYEN, JAN JOSEPHSZOON VAN (1596-1656), Dutch painter, was born at Leiden on the 13th of January 1596, learned painting under several masters at Leiden and Haarlem, married in 1618 and settled at the Hague about 1631. He was one of the first to emancipate himself from the traditions of minute imitation embodied in the works of Breughel and Savery. Though he preserved the dun scale of tone peculiar to those painters, he studied atmospheric effects in black and white with considerable skill. He had much influence on Dutch art. He formed Solomon Ruysdael and Pieter Potter, forced attention from Rembrandt, and bequeathed some of his precepts to Pieter de Molyn, Coelenbier, Saftleven, van der Kabel and even Berghem. His life at the Hague for twenty-five years was very prosperous, and he rose in 1640 to be president of his gild. A friend of van Dyck and Bartholomew van der Helst, he sat to both these artists for his likeness. His daughter Margaret married Jan Steen, and he had steady patrons in the stadtholder Frederick Henry, and the chiefs of the municipality of the Hague. He died at the Hague in 1656, possessed of land and houses to the amount of 15,000 florins.
Between 1610 and 1616 van Goyen wandered from one school to the other. He was first apprenticed to Isaak Swanenburgh; he then passed through the workshops of de Man, Klok and de Hoorn. In 1616 he took a decisive step and joined Esaias van der Velde at Haarlem; amongst his earlier pictures, some of 1621 (Berlin Museum) and 1623 (Brunswick Gallery) show the influence of Esaias very perceptibly. The landscape is minute. Details of branching and foliage are given, and the figures are important in relation to the distances. After 1625 these peculiarities gradually disappear. Atmospheric effect in landscapes of cool tints varying from grey green to pearl or brown and yellow dun is the principal object which van Goyen holds in view, and he succeeds admirably in light skies with drifting misty cloud, and downs with cottages and scanty shrubbery or stunted trees. Neglecting all detail of foliage he now works in a thin diluted medium, laying on rubbings as of sepia or Indian ink, and finishing without loss of transparence or lucidity. Throwing his foreground into darkness, he casts alternate light and shade upon the more distant planes, and realizes most pleasing views of large expanse. In buildings and water, with shipping near the banks, he sometimes has the strength if not the colour of Albert Cuyp. The defect of his work is chiefly want of solidity. But even this had its charm for van Goyen's contemporaries, and some time elapsed before Cuyp, who imitated him, restricted his method of transparent tinting to the foliage of foreground trees.