Jan Brueghel the Elder, Landscape with a River Valley

by Atelier Liesjes

From a high vantage point, a wide valley stretches out before the viewer. A river winds its way from left to right through the green countryside and widens on the right to form a broad stretch of water on which ships sail. Along the banks lie fields and meadows, interspersed here and there with a copse. In the distance lies a town with pointed towers and roofs; closer by, amongst trees and hedgerows, a village with a small church, houses with red roofs, a mill and a stone bridge across which horsemen are riding. To the right rises a rocky mountainside; to the left, a wooded slope. In the foreground, peasant women rest with their baskets; a man leads a laden donkey past them, a dog trotting alongside. A dark, almost black cloud hangs over the valley, with a bright yellow gap in the top left through which the sun breaks. Brueghel builds up the distance in layers: dark trees in the foreground, the village in the middle, the town and the mountains in a misty distance. The colour palette is rich and natural: olive green, umber, ochre, rust brown, slate grey and warm yellow. The sky is just as important as the land: the contrast between the heavy cloud and the breaking light lends the scene a sense of tension. It is a world landscape in the Flemish tradition, in which the landscape is, as it were, viewed from above and every detail is given its place. The town in the distance is painted with fine, light strokes, almost like a dreamlike vision. Jan Brueghel the Elder (Brussels 1568 – Antwerp 1625) was a Flemish Baroque painter, the son of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and a close friend and collaborator of Rubens. He was court painter to Albrecht and Isabella and became famous for his still lifes and paradisiacal landscapes. His delicately painted vistas with a high horizon are among the finest examples of Flemish landscape art. A spacious, opulent work for a classical interior.