A Rocky Landscape with Peasants and Pack Mules
- Artist: Jan Both
- Date: about 1645
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Museum: The National Gallery
- Collection record: The National Gallery website
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About this artwork
This is "A Rocky Landscape with Peasants and Pack Mules" by Jan Both, painted in the Italian north. We're looking at a beautiful example of Roman Campagna, the countryside around the Italian city, though parts of it are now obscured.
In the centre of the painting, a group of peasants are at the turn of a path. One man pushes his laden mule up the slope towards us. A girl mounted on a mule is about to follow him. The man behind them heaves at another mule with a whip in hand.
The landscape depicts the sky, blue-grey distance, and delicate leaves of trees whose branches reach up to the clouds are all visible, as well as a stretch of water and some pink rocks of the cliffs on the right.
Jan Both was a Dutch artist who lived for a while in Rome. He would go out into the Campagna to make sketches and drawings that he'd keep for his return home. When he painted these landscapes, they seemed to radiate a memory of the warmth of Italy, which is evident here with the low soft light that pervades it.
This painting was done around 1645 in oil on canvas. What's striking about this piece is how Both captures the everyday life of peasants in the Italian countryside.
See it in person
A Rocky Landscape with Peasants and Pack Mules 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.
