Attributed to Lucas van Uden

Attributed to LUCAS VAN UDEN (Antwerp, 1595-1673).
"River landscape in Flanders with strollers on a road".
Oil on copper.
Measurements: 27 x 40,5 cm; 42 x 56 cm (frame).

We are before a prototypical example of the special pictorial sensibility that Lucas van Uden developed in the landscape genre. His wooded landscapes foretell, in a certain way, the sublimation of nature that will take place in the coming centuries. The trees, endowed with strong and tortuous trunks, organize the composition, and next to them the human figures are minimized. Our gaze zigzags between the leafy canopies and escapes towards a background bluish from the distance, bordered by mountains and preceded by lake valleys that reflect the lights of the sunset. Van Uden uses a palette of warm tones, with yellows, ochers and greens dominating. The skillful hallmarks between dark and cold areas with other warmer ones result in bucolic compositions of great contemplative power. This landscape, very similar to those preserved in the Prado Museum (such as "Landscape" and "Picnic of villagers"), is also comparable to some paintings by Jan Brueghel the Elder or Joost de Momper.

It was frequent, in this type of landscape works that David Teniers II collaborated with Van Uden painting the figures of peasants, as is also the case in "Picnic of Villagers".

Lucas van Uden was a Flemish Baroque painter, specialized in landscape painting. Registered as a master in the guild of St. Luke in Antwerp in 1627, it seems likely that he started in painting by copying works by Rubens, such as the "Coastal Landscape with Storm" of the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. His relationship to the latter's workshop, however, has not been established, and the meticulous style of Lucas van Uden's landscapes and their hazy depiction of light still maintain close relationships with earlier models by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Joos de Momper. The small figures that animate some of his landscapes were often added by other painters. Particularly close in this respect must have been the collaboration with David Teniers II, with whom he composed works such as the Museo del Prado's "Picnic of Villagers".