Landscape with a Road Leading Towards a Settlement on a Hill

This landscape by Joos de Momper shows a view of a hill, surrounded by water, with a fortified village on top. A road runs in a zigzag pattern from the lower left of the composition across a simple wooden bridge up and down the slopes of the hill.

De Momper was one of the most prolific and successful landscape painters of his time, and his pictures were in high demand, by both Netherlandish and international audiences. The artist typically depicted wide panoramas of wooded and mountainous landscapes, which to a large extent were inspired by the artist’s travels through the Alps and Italy. Although the possibility exists that De Momper based this landscape on observations from real-life, it is more likely that this composition sprung largely from the artist’s imagination. Elements such as the flimsy wooden bridge or the little waterfall in the left background, as well as those meandering roads were romantic pictorial devices which De Momper and his contemporaries frequently included.

De Momper drew this landscape in pen and brown ink, and added red, brown and blue washes to better articulate the modulations and structures in the landscape. Towards the distance, his lines become more scanty and less detailed, which suggests depth. The dotted lines used to delineate the background scene are typical of the artist’s draftsmanship.