Jacob van Ruisdael

Jacob van Ruisdael

Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael (c. 1629 – 10 March 1682) was a Dutch painter, draughtsman, and etcher. He is generally considered the pre-eminent landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age. His paintings are held at the National Gallery in London, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

About Jacob van Ruisdael in brief

Summary Jacob van RuisdaelJacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael (c. 1629 – 10 March 1682) was a Dutch painter, draughtsman, and etcher. He is generally considered the pre-eminent landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age. His work is spread across private and institutional collections around the world. He shaped landscape painting traditions worldwide, from the English Romantics to the Barbizon school in France, and the Hudson River School in the US. The number of painters in the family have hampered attempts to document his life and attribute his works. He was born in Haarlem in 1628 or 1629 into a family of landscape painters, all landscapists. His only registered pupil was Meindert Hobbema, one of several artists who painted figures in his landscapes. His name is connected to a castle, now lost, in the village of Blaricum, near Naarden in the Netherlands. He lived and worked in Amsterdam for the rest of his life, and died there in 1682. His paintings are held at the National Gallery in London, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, among other places. He died in Amsterdam, where he was buried in the St. Luke’s Church, near the town of Ankeveen in the province of Groningen. He left behind a large collection of etchings and paintings, including more than 150 Scandinavian views featuring waterfalls.

In his late work, he added city panoramas and seascapes to his regular repertoire. In these, the sky often took up two-thirds of the canvas, probably to indicate their origin. He also painted a number of heroic scenes, including one of the Battle of the Bulge, in which the sky takes up almost all the canvas. His last work was published in 1668, and he died a few years later in Amsterdam in 1680. His works can be seen at: http://www.artists-in-the-world.org.uk/artists/Jacob-Ruisdael- paintings-and-etchings.html. The National Gallery of the Netherlands holds the largest collection of landscape paintings in the world, with more than 1,500 works. The Rijkmuseum of the Arts in Amsterdam holds the second-largest collection of Dutch landscape paintings, with over 1,000 works. Ruisdel’s work can be found at: www.art-nations-museums.org/art/ landscape-painting/ landscape/Ruisdel-works-and etches.html and the Hermitage Museums in St. Petersburg, Russia, hold the largest collections of Dutch landscape painting and other European landscape works, with around 1,200 works. His work is also held at:  the National Gallery of the Netherlands, where it is displayed in the Rijkmuseum and the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam.