Landscape

While Jan Wijnants can never really be described as a Dutch Italianate, some of his landscapes have Italianate qualities. He is often assumed to have studied with Jacob van Ruisdael, and his name was much better known in the eighteenth century when he exerted a strong influence on, for instance, Thomas Gainsborough. Landscape with Cow Drinking and its pair, Landscape (DPG117), are effectively two variations on the same theme, but articulated differently through their contrasting skies. A dead tree like a shaft of lightning draws the eye to the tiny cow drinking in the foreground.