Landscape at a Waterfall

Alexander Keirincx

Oil on panel

National Museum in Warsaw

Rugged cliffs crowned with dark pines frame a cascading waterfall, while tiny travelers and their pack animal pick their way along a rocky path toward the valley below. Keirincx builds the scene in rich earth tones and silvery greens, using dramatic cloud formations and shifting light to give the rocky wilderness a sense of theatrical grandeur. A Flemish master who later worked extensively in England and the Dutch Republic, he was celebrated for exactly this kind of imaginative, mountainous landscape, assembled from invention rather than direct observation of any single site. This atmospheric scene brings the romance of the untamed 17th-century wilderness into any room, rewarding long looks with its tumbling water and carefully placed figures.