Landscape with Ruins

The painting features a peopled countryside with a abandoned building at sunset. However, its central motif is the passage of time. Trees and ruins are put into contrast – two counterpoints in the same explored world. It seems the ruins are fictitious and are not meant to point to any specific character or circumstances of their origin, but rather to their current condition.

The way the ruins are recorded does not hint at direct study of the countryside. Illogical and unclear building structure is a result of the author’s peculiar articulation. The overall expression complies with the deep tradition of landscape painting with pastoral scenes, full of light effects and depth shown through aerial perspective.

The background characters, in proportion to the landscape, are undersized. Even though the characters do not carry any essential significance, this breaks the norm of traditional landscape painting in which painters from around the middle of the 17th century combined realistic depiction with decorative quality of shown details. Also, the composition is not well balanced – something that has been emphasized in history perhaps most strongly.

In comparison with the work of Jan Both (Utrecht around 1618 – Utrecht 1652), who was until recently generally accepted to be the author of this work, the details are little articulated and the degree of their realism is low. The miniature folk characters used by Jan Both tend to carry a more characteristic expression (Burke 1976).

Zuzana Ludiková ● ŠVANTNEROVÁ, Jana a kol.: Tieň minulosti / The Shadow of the Past, Bratislava: Neinvestičný fond židovského kultúrneho dedičstva – Menorah, 2013.