Peasant Kermis (Main View)

David Vinckboons filled this carefully constructed scene of a peasant festival or kermis with many subtle details. In the front, a couple and two children cross a footbridge to join the celebration, meeting another group as they depart. A line of wildly dancing laborers that snakes through the center of the drawing then leads the viewer's eye farther back. Small clusters of revelers fill the rest of the scene. Many toast the dancers, consuming their wine or beer straight from the barrel or from jugs. Vinckboons drew the landscape, figures, and buildings with a fine pen and brown ink while using darker areas of gray wash to add volume and depth to the buildings and water in the foreground. But the villagers interested Vinckboons more than the landscape. Their scurrying forms are the focus, while the dilapidated buildings and trees simply form a backdrop to their activities.