An Allegory of Summer; A summer landscape with figures haying, a village beyond

Jacob Grimmer's art represents a break with the traditional landscapes by the masters of the older generations, who painted extensive panoramic views with steep, formidable mountains. Grimmer instead depicted his own rural environment. Novel in his peaceful Flemish landscapes is the high degree of realism, which is borne out in a sensitive rendition of the atmosphere and of the scenery. His works earned him a reputation well beyond the borders of Flanders already during his lifetime and he was praised as one of the best landscapists of his time by Giorgio Vasari and, later, Karel van Mander. Grimmer's landscapes are still noted for their charming naïveté and refined execution.

Typical for Grimmer in the present summer scene, is the slightly elevated vantage point and flat, uninterrupted view from foreground to background. It provides the setting for farmhouses and numerous, tiny figures. The latter not only offer a pretext for colourful accents to the muted palette of greens, they make up amusing scenes of their own. The immediate foreground shows a pond with a family of ducks and in the right foreground a group of peasants enjoys a picnic. One peasant is busy harvesting wheat, a traditional emblem of summer, and sheaves of wheat are scattered across the middle zone. Across from an amorous scene against one of the sheaves, a couple is angling on the verge of the brook to the left. The skyline of a town can be glimpsed in the distance, where an onion shaped spire rises up.

The tondo shape was a trademark of Jacob Grimmer and he often used it for series of the 'Four Seasons', such as in the case of the present work, or of the 'Twelve Months of the Year'. Grimmer masterfully used the round form as an aid to shape the composition. The present painting is probably a mature production by the artist.