Landscape with Christ and his Disciples on the Road to Emmau - Jan Wildens

Painting Detail

Landscape with Christ and his Disciples on the Road to Emmau
Artist: Jan Wildens
Medium: Painting, Oil on canvas, 123x168 cm
Date: 1640s
Genre: Christianity, Religious, Landscape
Source: Via the State Museum Fund from the collection of Lvova, Petrograd, 1924

This panoramic landscape, like many other landscapes by Jan Wildens, is divided into planes and framed by side-scenes according to the principle of stage space. In order to convey distance, the artist applies air perspective: the solid dark-brown tones of the foreground gradually shift over to light and more transparent bluish-grey mist in the distance. The principal motif of the landscape is the wide road, which opens onto hilly terrain in the distance and is closed in on both sides by high trees. On the road Christ is seen in conversation with his disciples. To the left, there is a pond on the far bank of which is a house and a well, while on the near bank an angler is fishing. The figures in the landscape were painted by the Antwerp artist Hans Jordaens III.