Salomon van Ruysdael, 'River Scene', 1632

The soft greys and browns of this painting reflect an effort among artists in early seventeenth-century Haarlem to experiment with how restricted use of colour could intensify the atmosphere and reality of a landscape.

Van Ruysdael uses the diagonal spit of land to show distance – it narrows as it runs away from us. The limpid waters of the river drift across the foreground, curve round, and slowly disappear out towards the sea. The low horizon opens up into a vast sky and van Ruysdael echoes the feathery pompoms of the alder trees in the puffed shapes of the dark grey clouds overhead. Where the cloud breaks, the pale sky reflects in the still water, and the trees are mirrored perfectly along the shoreline.

This is a broad view condensed into a relatively small picture. Although it’s a tranquil image, it wasn't intended as an attractive interpretation of the river as a background for leisure and enjoyment: that’s not how Dutch rivers were used at the time. They were the veins carrying the lifeblood of the country, shown in the activity and detail of the picture. Life was – almost literally – lived on the water.

The fishermen in the shallow-bottomed boats are at work. They may talk or even relax for a moment, but the corks floating on the water’s surface show the outline of the large nets cast out for a catch. They’re busy manoeuvring around it. One man wears a jacket in a dusty pink – the one spot of colour, save small, sparkling dots of white here and there. To the left, a ferry laden with passengers skims from one bank to the other, propelled by two energetic oarsmen and making for the village among the trees. There, a church spire pierces the sky, a visual response to the peak of the sail of the beached vessel waiting for the tide.

On the right, a lone man steers his craft down river, rowing hard, his goods – perhaps a delivery – stowed in the stern. Behind him, almost hidden in the trees, two large buildings with huge chimneys, not often shown in such a painting, hint at more industrial use.

This is an imaginary scene, painted in the artist’s studio, though van Ruysdael would have based it on sketches made in the countryside around Haarlem, where he lived. It bears a striking similarity to his A River with Fishermen drawing a Net. The two pictures together fill out a story of the hard work of the men of the riverside – paintings not quite as tranquil as they first appear.