Jacob isaacksz van ruisdael biography templates

 

Jacob Van Ruisdael the Artist

He was very precocious: the earliest dated works, views in the neighborhood of Haarlem done when he was not yet 20, show astonishing maturity, particularly in their contrasts of light and shadow and their vivid colour.

Around 1650 Ruisdael visited east Holland and the regions of Germany that adjoined the Dutch border - hilly, forested areas which excited the romantic strain in him. He lived in Amsterdam from 1657 until his death, although he continued to travel about Holland.

Between 1650 and 1670 he tackled almost every kind of landscape: panoramas painted from the dunes overlooking the vast fertile plain around Haarlem, woodland scenes and the denser recesses of forests, country roads bordered by cottages and wheatfields, river scenes centered on picturesque watermills, stormy seascapes, calmer beach scenes, and pictures of villages in winter.

From 1659, Ruisdael also painted a series of views of mountai