A Landscape with a Dead Tree
- Artist: Jan Wijnants
- Date: 1659
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Museum: The National Gallery
- Collection record: The National Gallery website
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About this artwork
This is the "A Landscape with a Dead Tree" painted by Jan Wijnants in 1659. At first glance, this might look like a rocky landscape with hills or mountains that catch the sunlight on the horizon, but what we can see are actually ancient sand hills, overgrown with grass and woodland.
No specific location can be identified as a model for this painting, and it probably represents an idealised rather than real view. The figures and animals in the scene add scale, depth, interest, and dynamism to the landscape.
They were not painted by Wijnants himself but by a collaborator, Jan Lingelbach, who specialised in figure painting. Wijnants used a strong composition, with a line of hurdles and staves leading our eye from the foreground into the woods in middle distance.
The dead and dying trees, fence post, and fallen silver birch log catch the early morning sunlight, forming a powerful arrangement of angles in the foreground. The detailed depiction of the birch bark makes the log feel close to us, while the man with his dog seems much further away due to the compressed perspective.
See it in person
A Landscape with a Dead Tree hangs in The National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
