As such, the work is typical of seventeenth-century Dutch genre painting, which realistically depicted local culture without the intervention of any literary subject matter that was prevalent in other artistic schools. A Wooded Landscape with Travellers by an Inn is an entirely naturalistic painting with figures clad in traditional clothes, posed in natural positions while travellers come and go to a roadside inn - its position clearly ensuring a good trade. It was on account of his unembellished interpretations of the surrounding countryside that van Ruysdael gained a reputation amongst his contemporaries. A large portion of A Wooded Landscape with Travellers by an Inn is also given over to the type of delicate depiction of an atmospheric cloudy sky at which van Ruysdael excelled. In the foreground, a goat stands by a pool of water around which chickens forage for food - their inclusion enhancing the sense of familiarity to the painting. On the right-hand side of the painting, another fully loaded trap and a lone horseman, accompanied by his faithful dog, have just left the inn to continue their journey. A woman holding her barefooted child appears to be one of the gypsies who recur in much of van Ruysdael’s work. The entrance of the inn is filled with other colourful characters who mill about, taking the chance to stretch and recuperate before continuing on their journeys. The trap’s horses, as well as those attached to the adjacent wagon, are refreshing themselves from troughs.
A horseman on a distinctive silver stallion converses with four other figures who sit in a horse-drawn trap. In this view of everyday life in seventeenth-century Netherlands, Salomon van Ruysdael has depicted a host of weary travellers gathered outside a popular rural inn.
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