Landscape with an Old Oak

Around 1640, when Van Ostade painted this panel, Rembrandt had only just made his Landscape with a Stone Bridge, which now hangs in the same museum, and the Rijksmuseum sees his influence here in the hard contrast of light and shade. Van Ostade, known above all for peasant interiors, painted only a few scenes like this. A heavy grey sky fills most of this one. Under it an old oak leans over a sandy dune track, its crown lit against the cloud, and beyond it a strip of sunlit land stretches to the horizon. A man sits by the roadside near the tree. Far off, a shepherd drives his sheep over a small stone bridge.