Jacob van Ruisdael Painting Reproductions 1 of 6

Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael (c.1628-1682) was a Dutch painter, draftsman, and etcher whose landscapes gave forests, waterfalls, and cloud-filled skies a commanding presence. A leading landscape artist of the Dutch Golden Age, he combined close observation of trees and terrain with compositions that could make familiar countryside appear imposing. His subjects ranged from sandy tracks outside Haarlem to rough seas and imagined northern mountains.

Ruisdael came from Haarlem, where his father, Isaack, worked as both a painter and a frame maker. His uncle Salomon van Ruysdael also painted landscapes, as did his cousin Jacob Salomonszoon. Their similar names would later complicate attributions, although Ruisdael himself consistently used the spelling with an “i.” No documents identify his teacher; the frequently repeated suggestion that he trained under his father or uncle remains unproven. The paintings of Cornelis Vroom and Allart van Everdingen helped shape his early work. His earliest dated paintings and etchings belong to 1646, and in 1648 he entered Haarlem’s Guild of Saint Luke. He began his career as landscape pictures were winning an increasingly substantial place in Dutch homes.

In these early pictures, Ruisdael studied dunes, woodland, and changing light with unusual precision. He distinguished the structure of different trees and used comparatively thick paint to give foliage substance. In View of Naarden, dated 1647, the distant town lies beneath an extensive sky, anticipating his later panoramas. Drawing and printmaking accompanied his painting: all thirteen known etchings belong to his early career. Some survive in only one impression, suggesting that he did not pursue large editions. After 1653, he seldom added dates to his paintings, leaving scholars to reconstruct much of his artistic development through comparisons of subject, handling, and composition.

In 1650, Ruisdael traveled with Nicolaes Berchem into Germany, visiting Bentheim and Steinfurt. His subsequent paintings gave greater weight to hills, trees, and buildings. Bentheim Castle became a recurring subject, but he treated its surroundings freely rather than recording them literally. In a version dated 1653, the castle rises above a wooded height far more dramatic than its actual setting. Watermills also became important subjects following this journey, notably in Two Watermills and an Open Sluice of 1653. Elsewhere, he combined places that did not belong together geographically. In his two versions of The Jewish Cemetery, he introduced the ruins of Egmond Castle into the burial ground’s setting. Tombs, damaged trees, water, and ruined masonry create an image commonly interpreted as a meditation on mortality.

During the later 1650s, Ruisdael settled in Amsterdam, where a larger art market offered opportunities beyond Haarlem. Around 1660, he collaborated with Thomas de Keyser on a picture of the Amsterdam burgomaster Cornelis de Graeff and his family arriving at Soestdijk. Ruisdael supplied the landscape; De Keyser painted the carriage and people. This is his only securely documented commission. Other painters also contributed the small figures in his landscapes, among them Berchem and Adriaen van de Velde. Meindert Hobbema, his sole documented pupil, became a particularly important associate. In 1668, Ruisdael witnessed Hobbema’s marriage. Ruisdael himself never married. His pictures commanded good prices: a study of inventories from 1650-1679 found an average valuation of 40 guilders, against 19 for attributed paintings generally.

His Amsterdam years brought a substantial expansion of subject matter. Inspired by Van Everdingen’s northern landscapes, he painted more than 150 scenes featuring waterfalls in Scandinavian settings. No journey to Scandinavia is documented; these mountains, fir trees, and torrents depended on artistic models rather than firsthand travel. Their convincing appearance did not require geographical fidelity. In his marine paintings, the work of Simon de Vlieger and Jan Porcellis provided further points of reference. Rough Sea at a Jetty uses a narrow range of blues, browns, white, and black to convey turbulent water beneath storm clouds. Woodland remained equally important. In A Wooded Marsh, around 1665, broken trunks and spreading branches surround still water and dense vegetation.

During the 1670s, Ruisdael explored winter scenes, town views, gardens, and mountain landscapes alongside his established subjects. The Windmill at Wijk bij Duurstede, usually dated around 1670, places a cylindrical mill above the riverbank beneath a broad, unsettled sky. His views of Haarlem took a more distant vantage point. In View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds, strips of linen spread across fields below the city, while cloud shadows divide the flat country into successive passages of darkness and light. Saint Bavo’s Church rises prominently on the horizon. Amsterdam appeared less often in his paintings, despite his long residence there; View of the Amstel Looking toward Amsterdam belongs to his late work.

Ruisdael appears to have remained financially comfortable even after the economic disruption of 1672. He died in Amsterdam on March 10, 1682, and was buried four days later in Haarlem’s Saint Bavo’s Church. His private life left few traces, and no securely identified portrait records his appearance.

After his death, Ruisdael became an important model for landscape painters beyond the Netherlands. Thomas Gainsborough, J. M. W. Turner, and John Constable studied and copied his work. Turner even imagined a harbor named Port Ruysdael, while Vincent van Gogh kept reproductions of Ruisdael’s pictures on his wall. His example also reached painters associated with the Barbizon school and the American Hudson River School. Responses were not uniformly admiring: Constable, despite his enthusiasm, objected to the allegorical ambition of The Jewish Cemetery. Major groups of Ruisdael’s paintings are now held by London’s National Gallery, Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, and the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg.