DIRK WYNTRACK (Heusden, 1615 - The Hague, 1678). "Lake landscape with birds. Oil on canvas. Re-coloured. Signed in the central left part. Lack of polychromy in the frame. Measurements: 70 x 85 cm; 84 x 99 cm (frame). White swans and other birds splashing in the water or taking flight animate a nature of exuberant vegetation. Wooded landscapes dominated by autumnal colours are transformed in the distance into bluish mists that envelop the panorama in radiant light. During the Dutch Golden Age a type of landscape and pastoral genre painting developed in which figures such as Dirk Wyntrack and Nicholaas Berchem, trained in The Hague and Haarlem, were prominent. Lake landscapes, grazing cattle and sheep, ponds and the occasional architectural element peeping out from the brushwood were common elements. The naturalistic approach to the reproduction of animal species extended to the atmospheric capture, prefiguring what would become an autonomous genre, the landscape, in the 19th century. The present painting is an outstanding example of this tradition of Dutch naturalism, dominated by winter and pastoral scenes with no human presence. Dirck Wijntrack or Wyntrack (1615, Heusden - 1678, The Hague), a Dutch painter of the Golden Age, is known for his landscapes and farm scenes with animals and worked with Jan Wijnants and Joris van der Haagen collaborating on landscape paintings.he married in Rotterdam in 1646 and worked in Gouda during the years 1651-1655.he worked in Schoonhoven in 1655 and moved to The Hague in 1657 where he remained until his death. Some of Dirk Wyntrack's paintings are in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and other prominent public and private collections.