This charming late 18th-century oil painting by Flemish artist Jan Ludewick De Wouters (1731-after 1789) depicts a wooded view with horseback riders, various buildings including a ruin, a country track and distant town.The success of this piece is, in part, due to an intelligent composition, providing two distinct routes for the eye to explore. On the left, a track worn by the continual grinding of hooves into mud, winds its way towards a ruin and through dense woodland. While on the right, our view extends across the foreground and out towards a carefully delineated town with a church spire and other prominent buildings. Sinuous trees, rendered particularly well, provide a visual division. This technique is reminiscent of works by the Dutch Golden Age luminary Meindert Hobbema (1638-1709).The use of heavily contrasted areas of light and shade adds another layer of interest and perhaps suggests that the artist was conveying more than simply the view itself. Often, artists worki...