Landscape with the Flight into Egypt

Joachim Patinir painted this panoramic view around 1515-1520, showing the Holy Family's flight into Egypt as a small detail in a vast landscape. Mary and the infant Jesus rest in the foreground while dramatic cliffs, villages, and blue distant mountains stretch to the horizon.

Patinir was the first Western artist known to specialize in landscape painting. Albrecht Dürer visited his Antwerp workshop in 1520-21 and called him "a good painter of landscapes." Before Patinir, landscapes served merely as backgrounds for religious scenes. He reversed this relationship, making nature the true subject while biblical narratives became pretexts for sweeping views.

The painting includes symbolic details: a broken obelisk representing pagan idols falling before Christ, and wheat fields referencing a legend where miraculously grown crops misled Herod's pursuing soldiers. Several versions of this subject exist in the Prado, Antwerp's Royal Museum, and elsewhere. Patinir's innovations influenced Pieter Bruegel the Elder and the entire tradition of Flemish landscape painting.