Jacob van Ruisdael Paintings ~ Global News 24

Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-1682)

The Haarlem-born painter Jacob van Ruisdael began to paint at an early age. His first work dates from 1646. Ruisdael (with an 'i')Ruisdael with an 'i'The family of Jacob van Ruisdael was really named De Goyer, until his uncle Salomon and his father Isaack changed their name to Ruysdael. They named themselves after a castle near their father's birthplace, Blaricum. Their nephew, Jacob was the only one to write the new family name with an 'i': Ruisdael. probably had lessons from his father, but his uncle, the artist Salomon van Ruysdael, must also have been a great influence on the young painter.

The plate is then immersed in an acid bath, in which the mordant bites into the exposed metal, etching in the lines of the design. The finished plate is then coated with ink, which fills the lines. By pressing the plate onto a surface, the design is transferred. A single plate can be used for between 50 and 200 prints. The earliest etching in existence dates from 1513. which he is known to have made. Around 1650 he stayed with a friend, the painter Claes Berchem, near the German border, as evidenced by his various 'portraits' of Bentheim Castle. He must also have travelled in the company of Meindert Hobbema, his most important pupil, since they painted the same water-mill. In the 1650s, probably around 1656, Jacob van Ruisdael moved to Amsterdam, where he lived and worked until his death in 1682.

The question of realism is also complicated by occasional allusions to cyclical processes of decay, growth, and renewal. These are not necessarily of an explicitly allegorical kind. They are particularly evident in the Jewish Cemetery paintings, where a rainbow and new foliage are contrasted with such symbols of the transitoriness of life as tombs, ruins, and dead trees.
Unlike the other great Dutch landscape painters, Ruisdael did not aim at a pictorial record of particular scenes, but he carefully thought out and arranged his compositions, introducing into them an infinite variety of subtle contrasts in the formation of the clouds, the plants and tree forms, and the play of light. He particularly excelled in the painting of cloudscapes which are spanned dome-like over the landscape, and determine the light and shade of the objects.

Image of Jacob Van Ruisdael,