Mountain Landscape, Peasants in a Clearing near a
(5000-1069)

Anthonie Waterloo covered nearly every inch of paper with ink and wash, leaving little of the sheet bare. He used dark, dense strokes applied with the tip of his brush to the foliage; in the middle distance he gradually lightened the lines; Waterloo described the distant mountain with delicate washes of gray. In Waterloo's vision of nature, humans are diminutive spectators: a pair of peasants in blue and red are dwarfed by the majestic pines behind them. The immense trees even overshadow the waterfall, which cascades through the center of the scene. Despite the detailed and finished character of the drawing, it does not represent a real location. Waterloo carried on the tradition of imaginary alpine views popularized by another Utrecht artist, Roelandt Savery.

Point of the brush and black ink, gray and brown wash with touches of blue and red wash in the figures (recto); black chalk (verso) (early 1650s)

by Anthonie Waterloo (Dutch, 1609-1690)