_Ruysdael_ (Dutch: 1628-1682).
Jacob van Ruysdael is usually accounted the greatest of the
Dutch landscape painters. He often painted wild scenery, but
it is perhaps in the quiet, and as it were uneventful pictures
from the neighbourhood of Haarlem, that he charms us most. "At
each moment in the country around Haarlem," says M. Michel,
"the name of Ruysdael occurs to one with a recollection of
some picture of his. One can follow his course and even find
the very place where he must have sat." "Of all the Dutch
painters," says Fromentin, "Ruysdael is the one who has the
noblest resemblance to his country. He has its spaciousness,
its sadness, its somewhat gloomy placidity, its monotonous
and tranquil charm." But though in this way a product of the
soil, Ruysdael's genius is essentially human and individual.
His means of expression were the simplest. His touch is crisp
and spirited, his workmanship thorough and conscientious; but
he had no adventitious aids to attraction. There is, however,
continues Fromentin, something in his works which compels
respect. "It is the conviction created by them that they are
the outcome of a great man who has something to say. The
cause of his superiority to others is to be found in this,
that there is behind the painter a man who thinks, behind each
of his pictures an idea. In studying a picture by Ruysdael we
become interested also in the personality of the painter. We
find ourselves asking questions. Had he joys, as he certainly
had bitterness? Did destiny give him occasion to love other
things than clouds, and from what did he suffer most, if he
did suffer, from the torment of painting well or of living?
All these questions remain without answer, and yet posterity
is interested in them. Would it occur to you to ask as much
about Berchem, Karel Dujardin, Wouwerman, Goyen, Terburg,
Metsu, Peter de Hoogh himself? All these brilliant or charming
painters painted, and that seems to suffice. Ruysdael painted,
but he also lived, and that is why it matters so much to know
how he lived. I know only three or four men in the Dutch school
whose personality is thus interesting--Rembrandt, Ruysdael,
Paul Potter, and possibly Cuyp, which is already more than is
enough to classify them" (_Les Maitres d'Autrefois_, Hollande,
ch. vii. See also M. Emile Michel's article in the _Revue des
deux Mondes_ for 1888). What we find pre-eminently in Ruysdael
is a mind in harmony with nature in her simplest and most
sombre moods. "The grey vapour that overspreads his skies
seldom admits a fleeting gleam of sunshine to pass through"
(Burton). Ruysdael is remarkable also for a certain solemn love
of solitude, and this love of nature in itself, undisturbed by
the incidents of daily life, distinguishes him from most of his
contemporaries, and accounts, perhaps, for his popularity in
more modern times. Goethe, who admired Ruysdael greatly, calls
special attention to the painter's success in "representing the
Past in the Present," and in suggesting to the spectator that
"the works of nature live and last longer than the works of
men"("Ruysdael als Dichter").
The sense of isolation perceptible in his pictures is in
keeping also with what we know of his life. He was born at
Haarlem, the son of a picture-dealer and frame-maker, but
became a citizen of Amsterdam. His father intended him for
the medical profession, but he probably received instruction
in painting from his uncle, Salomon van Ruysdael (1439). He
remained unmarried in order, it is said, to promote the comfort
of his aged father. He belonged to the sect of the Mennonites,
who enjoined on their disciples strict separation from the
world. In Ruysdael's case the world also separated itself
from him. His talents were ignored by the great public of his
day; and in 1681 he was admitted into the town's almshouse at
Haarlem, where he died in the following year. His landscapes
are now eagerly sought after and command high prices. His
views are mostly taken from the northern provinces of the
Netherlands; the Norwegian scenery which he introduced in
many of his later works being studied probably from sketches
by Van Everdingen. But it is probable, though (as a writer
in the _Quarterly Review_ observes) no direct evidence in
confirmation has yet been found, "that Ruysdael went to Norway
either with or without Everdingen, and for a time steeped
himself in the spirit of the wild landscape. The large number
of works of the waterfall class that we possess show that he
was deeply impressed by the artistic and ethical qualities of
the landscape. Severe, remote, and melancholy, these Norwegian
solitudes appealed to the mind of this most solitary of
artists, in whose art, as Goethe said, the poetry of loneliness
has found an eternal expression."
Waterfalls are a speciality with the painter (the name Ruysdael
appropriately signifies _foaming water_). "Ordinary running or falling
water may be sufficiently rendered, by observing careful curves of
projection with a dark ground, and breaking a little white over it, as
we see done with judgment and taste by Ruysdael" (_Modern Painters_,
vol. i. pt. ii. sec. v. ch. i. § 2). "Ruysdael's painting of falling
water," adds Ruskin (_ibid._ §21), "is generally agreeable; more than
agreeable it can hardly be considered. There appears no exertion of
mind in any of his works; nor are they calculated to produce either
harm or good by their feeble influence. They are good furniture
pictures, unworthy of praise, and undeserving of blame." It is
interesting to compare this damningly faint praise from Ruskin with
the words of another critic. "Where is the traveller," asks M. Charles
Blanc, "familiar with the impressive beauties of mountainous countries,
who cannot find them in the pictures of Ruysdael? At the foot of those
steep rocks how the water falls, foams, and writhes round the ruins
it has brought down! It dashes forward from the right, from the left,
and from the background of the picture towards the gulf which draws
it in; it rushes down, I was going to say, with a hollow noise, for
in fact one imagines one can almost hear it. We see it gliding down
the slippery rocks, dashing against the rough bark of the trees, and
gushing down the rugged bottom of the ravine. We fancy we feel the
cold and humid spray falling on our faces.... But such is the power
of genius, that after having seen in all its magnificent reality the
spectacle which the artist has reproduced on a piece of canvas some few
inches in magnitude, nature seems to us less grand and less startling
than the work of Ruysdael."