A Road through a Wood by Nicolaes Berchem

A warm glow emanates from the tree canopy of this wooded glade, the golden light mirrored in the warm, softly blended tones of the shady forest floor. Towering tree trunks lead the observer along a meandering path. Through the trees, a colonnaded building is just visible through the thicket, hinting at a faraway destination for the travellers. Flashes of white and crimson bring to life a cast of characters, highlighting the ox’s muzzle and the bonnet and sleeve of the seated rider. The vermilion hue of the rider’s skirt lights the face of the gesticulating herdsman. Next in the procession, a faithful dog walks beside the cowherder, picked out in red, whose staff prods the reluctant cattle to keep up the pace. In the right mid-ground, a gunshot from the hunter’s rifle injects the languid scene with a moment of action, the bullet marked with a burst of orange fire and a scored line.

This large-scale painting is an early work by the Dutch Italianate artist Nicolaes Berchem (1621/2-83). Berchem used contemporary figures to dramatise his works – the maid mounted on a mule became a hallmark, alongside the travellers and cattle that are all depicted here. Berchem also draws on an understanding of perspective that was a feature of early seventeenth-century landscape painting, shown here in the gradual change in scale as the figures and animals diminish into the distance, and the contrasting band of blue glimpsed between the trees which gives a tangible sense of depth. Berchem mastered his observation of nature through exploratory studies and finished drawings that saw him produce a substantial body of work and become renowned and collected in his lifetime.