Jacob van Ruisdael

Jacob van Ruisdael (c. 1628-1682), Dutch painter and etcher, who is considered one of the greatest masters of Dutch landscape painting.

Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael, or Ruysdael, was born in Haarlem, the son of a painter and the nephew of the noted painter Salomon van Ruysdael. Jacob probably studied with both his father and his uncle. In 1648 he became a member of the painters' guild in Haarlem; his early work shows the influence of another Haarlem landscape artist, Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom. From 1650 to 1652 Ruisdael travelled widely in Holland and western Germany, making studies of the landscapes of those regions. About 1655 he settled in Amsterdam, where he remained until his death in March 1682.

Ruisdael often painted the flat and simple scenery characteristic of many parts of Holland, giving a quiet melancholy character to views of distant hamlets, watermills, dark expanses of water overhung by trees, and clouded skies. Representations of dark masses of foliage make the prevailing colour of most of these canvases a dark green. The figures in them were painted by other artists. Among his most important works are mountain scenes with foaming waterfalls, and brooding romantic landscapes, such as Landscape with a Footbridge (1652, Frick Collection, New York), Forest Entrance (1653, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). More peaceful is the Windmill at Wijk (c. 1665; Rijksmuseum). Ruisdael was little regarded in his lifetime but greatly influenced later European landscape painters. (See also Dutch Art and Architecture; Painting.)