Landscape

Jacob van Ruisdael

National Gallery of Art

We look across a river and slightly up at a pair of tall, leafy trees framed by steely-gray clouds against a a vivid blue sky in this nearly square landscape painting. A spindly trunk with only a few leafy branches grows near the towering trees, which are at the center of the picture, and a band of dark green trees grows along the river beyond them. The river runs toward us from the distance to our right into the lower left corner of the canvas, tumbling down a low waterfall near the bottom center of the painting. The river is lined with caramel-brown boulders. A woman and small child walk away from us on a footbridge spanning the river, to our left. The woman wears a white cap and apron, a dark bodice over a white shirt, and a red skirt. She carries the handle of a large basket hooked over her right forearm and the child, wearing a tan hat and jacket and brown pants, walks on her opposite side. A white dog near the woman seems to have paused to look into the forest. The horizon of the river comes about a quarter of the way up the composition so the trees, sky, and clouds fill most of the painting. The artist signed the painting as if he had written his name on a rock to the left of center: “J v Ruisdael.”