Jan Both

Jan Both grew up in Utrecht, a Dutch city of grey northern light, and made his career painting the exact opposite. In the late 1630s he traveled to Rome and fell under the spell of Claude Lorrain, the French painter who bathed his landscapes in a warm, hazy sun. Both learned to do the same, arranging trees, travelers and mule trains along a diagonal so the golden light seems to pour toward the viewer from a low sun.

The Italian journey cost his family dearly. He had gone south to join his older brother Andries, a painter of rowdy tavern scenes. When the two set off home in 1641, they passed through Venice, where Andries drowned in a canal. Jan went on to Utrecht alone.

Back in the north he kept painting Italy from memory, and his warm imaginary south became one of the most admired and copied styles in the Dutch market. He died young, in 1652, only about 34 years old.