By the Brook

Even today Havránek's pictures of secluded farms and villages and of the calm, everyday life, have for us a certain idyllic charm, they revive childhood memories and evoke unspoiled nature. Havránek doesn't omit even the tiniest detail, everything attracted his eyes and stimulated him to explore and study forms, colours an values. This scene near a thatched cottage is ample proof of his approach. Two village boys are catching crayfish in the brook under the trees, with ducks swimming past or resting on the stoney banks - "we can count their every feather". And Jan Neruda added, perheps somewhat ironically, that "the viewer asks spontaneously whether in nature there are as many leaves as in Havránek's pictures".