Claude’s distinctive qualities, mentioned in comparing him with Poussin, are all embodied in this picture. The figures are unusually animated for a Claude, but bear less relation to the contours of the landscape than in the Poussin. He considered them of so little importance that he often left them to be inserted by some assistant. All through the picture, there is less detachment of individual parts, less rhythmic recurrence of similar contours, more reliance on a soft, pervasive glow of sunlight to unify the picture. This is especially true as we approach the source of the light, which is not visible in the Poussin. Nearby the forms are silhouetted, but as they recede their outlines melt together in the sunset haze. There is more depth, more spacious grandeur, and less clear-cut compactness. But the softening effects of atmosphere are not carried to anything like the extreme of Turner or Monet.