The Story
Landscape with Waterfall (Dutch Landschap met waterval, in de verte een kerk) (c. 1660s) is an oil on canvas painting by the Dutch landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael. It is an example of Dutch Golden Age painting and is now in the collection of the Amsterdam Museum, on loan to the Rijksmuseum. This painting was documented by Hofstede de Groot in 1911, who wrote; "198. A WATERFALL NEAR AN OAK WOOD. Sm. Suppl. 1. In the left foreground is a waterfall divided in the middle by a rock; to the left is a tree-trunk lying half in the stream.
In the right foreground is a rocky bank with a birch stem bent to the right. In the right middle distance is a great oak wood, traversed by a road on which stand a man and boy conversing with a woman who sits nursing a child. To the left of the road is the stream, through which two persons apparently men drive a flock of sheep. Beyond is a wooded slope. In the centre is a view over a cornfield with sheaves; in the distance is a village with two wind-mills and a church.
Executed in height 142.5 cm x width 196 cm, measuring width: 196; height: 142.5, the surface rewards close looking. Jacob van Ruisdael builds the composition through layered glazes and a tightly controlled palette, letting cool shadows recede so that the warm, lit passages step forward. The brushwork shifts from the precise to the almost dissolved — a hallmark of mature Baroque practice.
“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”
