A figure in ancient dress, perhaps a shepherd, is resting by the wayside in harmony with nature. Peace and quiet reign everywhere. Perhaps Thorvaldsen imagined his figures transported to a landscape such as this?
This is a good example of the heroic, classicist landscape painting on which the German painters in Rome embarked in the years around 1800 and of which the Bavarian-born Reinhart was a leading representative. In his paintings he does not portray topographically definable landscapes, but idealised nature. His aim was to portray the beauty and grandeur of nature. For that reason, the portrayal must not be too idyllic. To avoid this, Reinhart uses smoke emerging from the buildings in the foreground and birds circling the tower, which thus come to suggest something serious, perhaps even something fateful.
