Mountainous Landscape

This painting forms a pair with The Seashore, also in the Hermitage. Magnasco often painted his works jointly with others, and here he was responsible only for the figures, the remainder being the work of Antonio Perruzzini. The latter's dark, expressive painting greatly influenced Magnasco, whose own landscapes were produced in a similar manner. The thick greenery, the greyish blue tone of the sky, and the bright splashes of colour which seem to flicker over the branches of the trees and bushes, make the landscape seem alive, mysterious, full of hidden forces. The small figures are generalised, painted with sharp, energetic strokes, and seem to exist within the landscape on the same basis as the clouds, cliffs and trees themselves.