Southern Landscape with Bathers 1688 - 1716

Cornelis Huysmans painted this landscape with oils in the late 17th or early 18th century. The image shows a wooded scene populated with bathers in the foreground, as well as livestock and buildings in the distance. Huysmans was part of a generation of Flemish artists who travelled to Italy, drawn by its warm light and classical ruins, and he spent two years in Rome. But he also worked for the court in Brussels, where he painted for an aristocratic clientele who favoured idealized views of nature. This painting combines both influences. It presents a vision of the landscape as timeless and picturesque, yet populated by ordinary working people, which could be seen as commenting on the social structures of the time. To understand this painting better, we could research the history of landscape painting in the Netherlands and examine the role of the artist in the court of Brussels.