Italian Landscape with Travelers
Jan Both
c. 1650
Jan Both here offered an inroad to the verdant Roman countryside. The path, populated with rustic figures and livestock, winds through rolling hills toward a serene harbor below. Hazy yellow light, perhaps that of the sunrise, glows atop distant periwinkle mountains.
Both spent several years in Rome with a group of Dutch and Flemish artists called the Bentvueghels (a Dutch term for “birds of a feather”). On his return to Utrecht, he helped pioneer the “Italianate” landscape, presenting the fantasy of a golden-lit, arcadian countryside to a population more familiar with the flat, boggy Netherlands and its cooler light and climate.
Art Institute of Chicago · Image: Public domain · Text: CC BY 4.0