Landscape with a Moated Village
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
The so-called small landscapes published in Antwerp in the late 1550s constitute a turning point in the history of landscape as a genre. This drawing and its related print (1964.404) from the series present the local countryside in a simple, unembellished composition from a level point of view. The artist portrayed the rustic village, pasture, and country road in a straightforward and immediate fashion. The title page for the series, issued by publisher Hieronymus Cock in Antwerp, advertised that the views were made “from the life” ( naer d’leven ), thus are real places directly observed. Such humble sites would define the golden age of Dutch landscape in the following century.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own description
