Italian Landscape with Resting Travelers

Jan Both, one of the most celebrated of the Dutch Italianate landscape painters, introduced a new type of large-format landscape to Holland. Rather than depicting the flat Dutch landscape, Both draws from his Roman travels to paint a rocky Italian landscape warmed by golden southern light. In this painting, two men relax, sharing the road with another figure on a cart pulled by a plodding pair of oxen. The crystalline depiction of the figures and foliage in the foreground gives way to glowing yet hazy terrain that suggests an inviting destination for the travelers. Art theorist Karel van Mander (1548–1601) encouraged artists to complete their education by studying art of antiquity and the Renaissance in Rome. The large number of Italianate landscapes that Both produced during his short career attests to the significant market demand for such pictures.