A Wooded Landscape

This monumental, sun-drenched Italianate landscape was drawn by Herman van Swanevelt while he lived in Rome. Swanevelt contrasted dazzling, luminous washes of shadow on the left with brilliantly illuminated passages on the right created by the paper's whiteness. Similarly, he devised drama by juxtaposing the hard cragginess of the rock formation in the foreground at left with the soft, fluffy trees beyond.

Swanevelt's drawing style is based on that of Cornelis van Poelenburgh and Bartholomeus Breenbergh, and sometimes resembles that of Claude Lorrain, all of whom were northern European artists working in Rome. From them, Swanevelt learned to use light to unify a picture and set a mood. In his drawing The Arch of Septimius Severus, RomePoelenburgh created similar contrasts of light and shade using wash and the luminosity of the bare, white paper. Swanevelt's style was, in turn, influential; Nicolaes Berchem, for example, imitated Swanevelt's monumental compositions and treatment of the warm Italian sunlight.

Scholars are uncertain whether Swanevelt drew this scene outdoors from nature or in the studio.