Nicolas Poussin, 'Landscape with a Man scooping Water from a Stream', about 1637

A sandy path meanders through a landscape of dunes towards distant hills and mountains. An old man in blue with his back towards us occupies the foreground, a sack and water bottle lying beside him on the ground. He seems to be watching a young man on the other side of the path who bends to scoop water from a pool with a pottery shard.

Trees frame the path which draws us into the scene and leads our eyes towards the distance. The small town and several people in the background are roughly sketched, conveyed using simple dots of paint. The buildings and people in the background, and the dappled areas of light and shade, evoke the Roman Campagna, in which Poussin often travelled to make studies. Blue mountains merge with the cloudy sky at dusk, another technique to create a feeling of distance: far-off mountain ranges seem blue because distance alters the way colours appear to us. The brown-green tones of the pond are carried through into the landscape beyond. Poussin attempts to create the reflection of the trees on the water’s surface, although this lacks skill and reflects the early stage of his career. The edges of the leaves and branches catch the sunlight, and overlapping brushstrokes convey their different types.

Poussin’s work was also inspired by art from classical antiquity. The symmetry of the leaning trees, the blue sky and sandy landscape taking up equal areas and the central path give the composition order and balance. The men’s muscular and idealised physiques recall antique statuary.

This painting is not based on any known story, although it loosely echoes the life of the Greek Cynic philosopher Diogenes (about 400–325 BC) who advocated a life without possessions and luxury: he threw away his cup on seeing a young boy use his hands to drink water. It might also hint at the philosophy of the Stoics, who thought that in order to become a good person you had to live according to certain virtues, including wisdom, courage, justice and moderation. These themes were revived in the seventeenth century and became popular with Poussin and his patrons.

Poussin painted this work for one of his most important patrons, Cassiano dal Pozzo, and around the same time as Landscape with travellers resting. They are among Poussin’s earliest landscape paintings, made in the late 1630s. On the back of the canvas of both paintings are labels indicating that in 1739 Cosimo Antonio dal Pozzo gave the pictures to his daughter Maria Laura. These works were probably not intended to be displayed as a pair, but both include a person sitting, leg outstretched, in the foreground, and the paths in each painting recede in opposite directions.