Landscape with Cottages

Grimmer, a contemporary of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, was renowned as a landscape painter. In this early work — the first dated by the artist — the distant view at the right recalls the imaginary, composite panoramas typical of Netherlandish landscapes of the first half of the sixteenth century. Grimmer broke with that tradition, however, and developed a more naturalistic approach, introducing the kind of intimate depiction of the Flemish countryside seen in the foreground of this picture.