Jacob van Ruisdael

Dutch landscape master — windmills and waterfalls

The greatest Dutch landscape painter. His skies — vast, turbulent, dominating the canvas — anticipate Constable and the Romantics by a century and a half. Windmills, waterfalls, ruined castles, Jewish cemeteries: the Dutch countryside as meditation on transience.

Key works

• The Jewish Cemetery~1655— Ruins, storm, and mortality — Goethe wrote about it
  Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden / Detroit Institute of Arts
• View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds~1670— Sky as protagonist — two-thirds cloud
  Mauritshuis, The Hague / Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Connections

External