Landscape with a Man Leaning on a Bale
Medium
pen and brown ink
Dimensions
18.5 × 26.3 cm
Classification
Drawing
Department
Drawings
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
John L. Severance Fund
Accession Number
2000.23
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
male
About this artwork
The tradition of landscape as an independent subject in Italian art stretches back to the 1500s and was flourishing in the 1600s, when Guercino made this drawing. Guercino, however, rarely painted pure landscape, preferring to explore this genre in the more intimate medium of drawing. This sheet, with its fluid pen lines and unified composition enlivened by small figures, is a typical example of his ability to integrate picturesque motifs into an asymmetrical, balanced whole.