When I first looked at this painting, I found it interesting mainly because other than the greenery, it seemed utterly devoid of life. Even the parts of the beach and the sea that we can see do not have any signs of life there. However, on closer examination, this is not the case. The artist seems to have left in the bare bones of symbols representing other forms of life. If you look at the rocks settlement on the bottom left area of the painting, there is a small bird perched on one of the rocks, staring at the open view of the beach in front of it. Furthermore, the rocks in that area somewhat resemble the remains of campsite, as the the rocks are arranged around the edges of a center that could very well have been used for a campfire. This is what I mean by the bare bones of showing evidence of life. Another instance, that is harder to see in the picture above is in the middle of the right area, in the dark area underneath the trees. You can't see it here, but there is a stone wall there, that could only have been built by humans. It seems like perhaps the artist wanted to show that this area had life here in the past, but not in recent times. This is also clear from the fact that there are no traces of footprints, or trampled grass anywhere in the forest. 

Next, I started to think more about the contrast between the forest and the beach. The colors of the dirt trails in the forest, with the small stream in the middle, adds a dark tone that contrasts with the bright colors of the open beach just steps away. However, this actually resembles how that environment might look in reality. The sun seems to be shining down from the horizon and seems to be shining towards the forest. The cover of the tall trees block us from seeing the sun, and also leave the forest in darkness. I feel like the artist could have made the painting more realistic by letting small streams of sunlight cast through and having the trees cast shadows but clearly, he did not want that. Instead, the artist filled up the skies near the forest with clouds, and only some of the trees closer to the beach have sunlight shining down on them, but the trees further away do not have any. This could be to further show the contrast between the forest and the beach.

Something I thought was interesting was how the only open views of the beach were placed near the center of the picture. Also, the skies directly above the beach was very cloudy but the skies to the right were not at all. The author probably wanted to focus our attention on the beach itself, almost making it seem like the light at the end of a tunnel. This was when I realized that perhaps this is the type of scene someone taking a journey through the forest might long for when he starts tiring of the long hike. The view of the beach boosts his morale and is meant to lift his spirits since his goal is in sight. The earlier contrast I mentioned between the dark forest and sunny beach exemplifies this. In a way, the small bird on the rock looking intently at the beach also symbolizes how the beach is the goal. Even the name of the painting (Italian Passage), seems to imply a journey through a passage of some sort, and this painting's purpose is to depict the end of that journey. 

Another point of note are the mountains in the horizon of the beach. They could simply be there as background scenery, but it could also be that they are there to symbolize another journey. Something like, the end of one journey is only the beginning of another.