Landscape with Shepherds by a River and a Town Beyond (recto); Figure Studies and Roman Ruins (verso) (Main View)

Jan van Scorel orchestrated a multitude of media to create the carefully composed pastoral landscape on the recto. First, he lightly sketched the scene in brown ink and then liberally applied reddish wash and touches of yellow wash. Finally, he strengthened the composition with pen lines, including the foreground's rough, dense hatching and the invigorating half-moon squiggles of the vegetation. Van Scorel's lively pen work, combined with the colored washes, enhances the spatial recession and lends the sheet its dynamism.

The yellow wash also evokes the sun-drenched tones of the Italian countryside. Van Scorel was the first northern Netherlandish artist to absorb the influence of Italian High Renaissance art in its native country. In Italy he learned the elements of Italian Renaissance approach to landscape painting, an idealized vision of Roman antiquity where shepherds tended flocks in serene, hilly terrain. This drawing is a type of imaginary scene known as a pastoral--"pastor" meaning "herdsman"-- landscape.

On the verso, a pyramid and other classical ruins are sketched in light brown ink; two muscular, draped male figures, perhaps river gods, are drawn in darker brown ink below.