Rustic Tranquillity

There is something strangely satisfying about seeing animals quietly moving in synchrony through a field, feeding as they go. Maybe that's why idyllic bucolic landscape is a subject many artists over the centuries have found appealing. Dutch Golden Age 17th century painting saw a dramatic growth in this genre which was probably linked to the decline of religious painting all over Europe at this time. People were "apt to assume that the appreciation of natural beauty and the painting of landscape is a normal and enduring part of our spiritual activity" said John Ruskin, the leading English art critic of the Victorian era.  So spirituality was no longer inexorably linked to religious imagery. Many people in this secular age link appreciation of landscape to refreshing the spirit.