Francisco Collantes

Francisco Collantes was a Madrid painter who made landscape the real subject of his pictures, even when the title is biblical or mythological. His scenes have dark, rocky foregrounds, ruined buildings, heavy trees and small figures set against wide, hazy distances.

He was born in Madrid in 1599 and spent his career there. His work shows the influence of Jusepe de Ribera and the Neapolitan painters, as well as the Venetian masters of the previous century, which is where his warm browns and glowing skies come from. His best known pictures include The Burning Bush in the Louvre and The Vision of Ezekiel in the Museo del Prado.

Landscape with Ruins is typical: the story is almost hidden, and the real drama is in the light breaking over broken stone and dense foliage. That mood made him one of the few Spanish painters of his time to specialise in landscape.