Karel Breydel (Antwerp 1678-1733)
Wayfarers at a Village
Oil on wood, 30.5 x 40.5 cm
This artist painted numerous scenes of village life in the style of Jan Brueghel the Elder (Antwerp 1568-1625), transmitting into the eighteenth century, alongside other fellow artists in Antwerp and Brussels, the tradition of landscape painting initiated by that great master at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Typical of Breydel is the rapid, nervous brushwork, with small, thick touches of the paint on the canvas, easily seen especially in the handling of the many little figures animating the scene in the foreground.
