Hilly Landscape with Wayfarers

The composition of the landscape frame is built up in a manner typical of Ermels: on the left, at the foot of a rocky slope, it is dominated by a huge deciduous tree, whose branches bend in the wind. On the right the valley is framed by the cascade over which a bridge with a tower is arching. The pictorial area of the signed Ermels’s painting is filled with several narratives and defined by the crossing of two diagonals, which open up the wide space of the front and middle planes. The sharp alternation of light and shadow accentuates the clearcut modelling of the landscape and staffage. The effect of the mist hovering above the landscape enhances the expression of Ermels’s painting, which captures the atmosphere of a warm late-summer day. The Italianizing character of Ermels’s landscape is based on the influence of the works of Dutch painters working in Italy, first of all Jan Dirksz. Both (1618/1622-1652), who influenced his work with light, and it is also reflected in the concept of the figures in their everyday activities. Through the latter’s works, Ermels got acquainted with the concept of ideal landscape by Claude Lorrain and Herman van Swanevelt.