Landscape with Conversing Peasants

Peasants returning from the fields have stopped for a moment by an old man sitting by the side of the road. The juxtaposition of young and old, which is a frequent motif in Dutch art, is in this case quite fortuitous. In fact the picture records a brief instant and is so generalized that it lacks all narrative quality. The painter expresses neither scorn, pity nor tenderness for his figures; his attitude is completely objective. Nevertheless the people portrayed are in one respect different from the tillers of the land usually seen in Dutch peasant genre : they are drawn on a larger scale. Here the landscape is less important than the figures and there is more attempt at characterization.