River Coast with Raftsmen Paulus van Vianen

Vianen used the sketchbook from which this sheet comes in 1603, the year in which he left Salzburg and travelled to Prague at the invitation of Emperor Rudolf II. He probably made this drawing, similarly to most of the landscape drawings in the sketchbook, while he was still in Salzburg, because the high mountains suggest an Alpine region; it may have been the Salzach gorge at Bürgelstein, near Salzburg, that the artist depicted here. With the clear, precise drawing of the near bank and the blurred brushstrokes of the misty far bank, Vianen reproduced the atmosphere of the riverside scene with particular sensitivity.