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Not much is known about Ruisdael (1628/9–82), who was born poor but was so naturally talented that he was able to burst forth fully formed as a painter at the age of 17 or 18; 1646 was the year of this sudden and extraordinary maturity, and 15 paintings can be securely dated to it. Who taught the boy? Possibly his father Isaack, who was a gifted but not prolific painter as well as an occasional dealer, but more probably his uncle Salomon van Ruysdael (note the variant spelling), who was a landscape painter of some standing. But from the start young Ruisdael’s handling of paint had a different quality to it — it was both denser and more energetic, as can be seen in the examples of his early work with which the exhibition opens.
‘View of Naarden’ (1647) is particularly fine, Ruisdael’s earliest panoramic view, a long, low landscape with a high creamy sky and poignant fall of light. Look through the screen on which it’s hung to a couple of the high points of the exhibition in the room beyond: the celebrated ‘Windmill at Wijk bij Duurstede’ from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and ‘Le Coup de Soleil’ from the Louvre, both pictures of the 1670s. On the back of the same screen are some of the more traditional dune landscapes Ruisdael was also known for. His treatment makes the dunes more solid, and focuses on a central motif (a favourite device this, hence his attraction to windmills) such as a clump of trees. For an artist so praised for his verisimilitude, it is intriguing to find him exaggerating and inventing effects. Look, for instance, at the magisterial depiction of Bentheim Castle on its rocky eminence. Actually, it’s situated on rather a low hill, but it wouldn’t have made nearly so striking an image if painted realistically.
This exhibition takes a lot of looking. There’s a section of drawings and etchings at the end of the first room, hung on grey walls. I liked the immediacy of the black chalk study ‘Seascape with Sailboats’, and the rough plank and timber textures of ‘Water Mill’. (A more unusual subject, but a less interesting drawing, is ‘Mud-mill with a View of Buildings’. These mills, all piles and trusses and conveyor belts, dredged mud from silted waterways or were used to reclaim land from the sea.) Move into the second room, to find such exceptional paintings as ‘Landscape with a Sluice Gate’. It might sound unpromising, but even the casual visitor could spend many moments enjoying the detail and subtle working of the paint. There’s another group of drawings on a screen, including a couple of studies for ‘The Jewish Cemetery’ which can be compared with the painting which hangs nearby. This is a rare allegorical landscape, full of symbols of the transience and futility of human existence, with the promise of hope in the light breaking through the clouds. It’s a useful change of pace and subject among the waterfalls and botanically accurate examples of the Norway spruce.
Stay-at-home Ruisdael invented these Scandinavian subjects (taking a lot from a lesser artist who had done the travelling, Allart van Everdingen), as he did the Romantic mountain scenery of his later years. ‘Mountainous and Wooded Landcape with a River’ is a prime example. Much more impressive, to my mind, is the little group of informal landscapes —‘View of the Grainfields with a Distant Town’, ‘View of the Plain of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds’, and ‘View of the Dunes near Bloemendaal with Bleaching Fields’ in the third room. These have the ring of truth to them. However good Ruisdael was at clouds and trees, he was better still at what he observed, rather than scenes he imagined. The bleaching of linen was a major industry in Haarlem, and the strips of cloth laid out on the ground to dry, which must have been a familiar sight then, look now like cricket pitches with the covers on. In this same room is a landscape from the collection of Sir Robert Peel that Constable copied. The painting was actually larger when he made the copy, which suggests that someone subsequently trimmed it to fit beside their fireplace. They weren’t precious, our forefathers.
Ruisdael has long been close to the nation’s heart (the National Gallery holds 18 of his paintings, the world’s largest single collection), and this show should prove popular. I wonder, however, if there’s a bit too much of it. Splendours there undoubtedly are, but I would have preferred fewer pictures and more wall space. And wouldn’t it have been interesting to hang here for comparison that old favourite by Meindert Hobbema (Ruisdael’s only recorded pupil), ‘The Avenue, Middelharnis’, which has been called the swansong of Dutch landscape painting? It would have helped to locate Ruisdael more precisely, and put him in perspective — a heroic, even monumental landscape painter, a great voice of a Golden Age that was drawing to a close.
A word of warning: the glass lift, so much a feature of any visit to the Sackler Galleries, will be out of commission between 24 April and 7 May. The only access to the Ruisdael exhibition during that period will be by the glass staircase at the west of the building. It might be wise to plan your visit accordingly.
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Also by Andrew Lambirth
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