Landscape with a Stream and Peasants Dancing

By the 1730s well-off Venetians wanted a particular kind of countryside on their walls, and it was not the one outside their windows. The mainland they actually owned was working farmland. What they liked to look at was Arcadia, a soft imaginary country where the weather stays mild and the peasants have time to dance. That is the scene here. Beside a stream, under tall feathery trees, a group of country folk break into a dance while others rest and watch, the whole thing built for charm rather than for truth. Zais made a living supplying this exact mood to Venetian collectors. The stream, the loose silvery foliage and the small bright figures are the ingredients he came back to again and again.