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Lot Essay
Jacob van Ruisdael's reputation as the most talented and versatile of the Dutch landscape painters of the Golden Age - or indeed of any era - has remained undiminished since his own lifetime. His influence on the development of landscape painting in Western Art is enormous, and can be seen in the works of artists such as Gainsborough, Fragonard and Constable. Ruisdael made an impressive and early start to his career. His earliest dated works are from 1646, when the artist was only seventeen or eighteen years old. Ruisdael made several trips during his lifetime, including to Naarden, Egmond, and around 1650 to the Dutch-German border, probably with his 'groot vrint' ('good friend'), Nicolaes Berchem, according to Arnold Houbraken. In the 1650s, probably around 1656, Ruisdael settled in Amsterdam.
Ruisdael's many Northern landscapes with mountains, rocks, broken trees and waterfalls are the largest single group of paintings in his oeuvre. These are often characterized as Scandinavian landscapes, although as early as the nineteenth century it was known that the artist never visited this region, and was instead inspired by the art of Allert van Everdingen, who had visited Scandinavia around 1644 and settled in Haarlem the following year, where he continued to produce landscapes inspired by his trip there. However, Ruisdael had already been interested in waterfalls by the 1650s, and, moreover, his waterfalls are not truly Scandinavian, appearing rather as if they were inspired by his trip along the German borders and subsequently adapted into his own distinctive idiom of landscape painting. Whatever Ruisdael's source for these type of paintings, he developed this genre further than anyone, and enhanced the drama of the scene through his unparalleled compositional skills and careful technique, not only in the rocks and trees but also in the foam and spew of the crashing water. In this way he 'raised the art of landscape painting from the mere rendering of a 'playsante plaats' to classic images of untamed nature' (J. Giltay, in the catalogue of the exhibition, Masters of 17th-Century Dutch Landscape Painting, Amsterdam, Philadelphia and Boston, 1987-8, p. 438).
The chronology of Ruisdael's waterfalls is very hard to deduce on account of the paucity of dated works. He had certainly begun painting these subjects by the late 1650s and early 1660s. From this period come several paintings painted on a vertical format. Waterfalls on a horizontal format, such as the present painting, occur somewhat later in the late 1660s and early 1670s. So famous did Ruisdael become for his waterfalls that Houbraken in 1721 even saw a play on the subject of the artist's name 'Ruis-dael' ('noisy valley'). He further commented that the artist 'painted both local and foreign landscapes, but especially those in which one sees water crashing down from one rock to another, finally to spread out with a roar [gerius] into dales [dalen] and through valleys: and he could depict spray, or water foamy from dashing on the rocks, so naturally clear and translucent, that it appeared to be real' (quoted by P.C. Sutton in the catalogue of the exhibition, The Golden Age of Dutch Landscape Painting, Madrid, 1994, p. 199).
The present painting is typical of Ruisdael's waterfalls painted on a horizontal format, displaying greater use of open spatial effects. Gone are the giant boulders in the foreground, and the towering height is replaced by more of a panoramic width, with the countryside becoming flatter and a more open view on the left. Despite the relatively low terrain, the waterfall retains its force and power. Other paintings of a similar date and format (although on a larger scale) by the artist are in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (Inv. no. C210); the Wallace Collection, London (Inv. no. P56); and the Hermitage, St. Petersburg (Inv. no. 942). However, in the Uffizi, Florence, (Inv. no. 8436) is a painting of almost identical proportions that has a strikingly similar composition to the present work, although in reverse. Seymour Slive, in the catalogue of the exhibition, Jacob van Ruisdael, The Hague and Cambridge, MA, 1981-2, describes that painting as follows: 'None of Jacob's existing waterfalls better exemplifies how the shift from the heroic to the more intimate and idyllic mood that characterizes a considerable number of his works of the seventies affected his treatment of a subject that hardly seems to lend itself to the new tendency. In this work the waterfall has not become insignificant, but it has been subdued, not least by the gentle beginning of its drop from a broad, quiet pool. Beyond it is not a trace of the crushing height of his earlier waterfalls. The line of the hills has been leveled almost to a horizontal, which imbues the view with a soothing sense of breadth, while the delicate treatment of the trees seen against the evening sky emphasizes the height of the aerial zone taking up more than half of the painting and adding to the effect of peace and quiet' (S. Slive, op. cit., p. 142).
The present painting was once in the celebrated Lowther collection which was largely formed by Sir James Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale (1736-1802). His acquisitions both of Italian and Northern pictures owed much to the encouragement of his father-in-law, the 3rd Earl of Bute and Captain William Baillie, who also acted as advisor to his kinsman and heir, Sir William Lowther, Bt. (1757-1844) for whom the Lonsdale earldom was revived in 1807.
Ruisdael's many Northern landscapes with mountains, rocks, broken trees and waterfalls are the largest single group of paintings in his oeuvre. These are often characterized as Scandinavian landscapes, although as early as the nineteenth century it was known that the artist never visited this region, and was instead inspired by the art of Allert van Everdingen, who had visited Scandinavia around 1644 and settled in Haarlem the following year, where he continued to produce landscapes inspired by his trip there. However, Ruisdael had already been interested in waterfalls by the 1650s, and, moreover, his waterfalls are not truly Scandinavian, appearing rather as if they were inspired by his trip along the German borders and subsequently adapted into his own distinctive idiom of landscape painting. Whatever Ruisdael's source for these type of paintings, he developed this genre further than anyone, and enhanced the drama of the scene through his unparalleled compositional skills and careful technique, not only in the rocks and trees but also in the foam and spew of the crashing water. In this way he 'raised the art of landscape painting from the mere rendering of a 'playsante plaats' to classic images of untamed nature' (J. Giltay, in the catalogue of the exhibition, Masters of 17th-Century Dutch Landscape Painting, Amsterdam, Philadelphia and Boston, 1987-8, p. 438).
The chronology of Ruisdael's waterfalls is very hard to deduce on account of the paucity of dated works. He had certainly begun painting these subjects by the late 1650s and early 1660s. From this period come several paintings painted on a vertical format. Waterfalls on a horizontal format, such as the present painting, occur somewhat later in the late 1660s and early 1670s. So famous did Ruisdael become for his waterfalls that Houbraken in 1721 even saw a play on the subject of the artist's name 'Ruis-dael' ('noisy valley'). He further commented that the artist 'painted both local and foreign landscapes, but especially those in which one sees water crashing down from one rock to another, finally to spread out with a roar [gerius] into dales [dalen] and through valleys: and he could depict spray, or water foamy from dashing on the rocks, so naturally clear and translucent, that it appeared to be real' (quoted by P.C. Sutton in the catalogue of the exhibition, The Golden Age of Dutch Landscape Painting, Madrid, 1994, p. 199).
The present painting is typical of Ruisdael's waterfalls painted on a horizontal format, displaying greater use of open spatial effects. Gone are the giant boulders in the foreground, and the towering height is replaced by more of a panoramic width, with the countryside becoming flatter and a more open view on the left. Despite the relatively low terrain, the waterfall retains its force and power. Other paintings of a similar date and format (although on a larger scale) by the artist are in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (Inv. no. C210); the Wallace Collection, London (Inv. no. P56); and the Hermitage, St. Petersburg (Inv. no. 942). However, in the Uffizi, Florence, (Inv. no. 8436) is a painting of almost identical proportions that has a strikingly similar composition to the present work, although in reverse. Seymour Slive, in the catalogue of the exhibition, Jacob van Ruisdael, The Hague and Cambridge, MA, 1981-2, describes that painting as follows: 'None of Jacob's existing waterfalls better exemplifies how the shift from the heroic to the more intimate and idyllic mood that characterizes a considerable number of his works of the seventies affected his treatment of a subject that hardly seems to lend itself to the new tendency. In this work the waterfall has not become insignificant, but it has been subdued, not least by the gentle beginning of its drop from a broad, quiet pool. Beyond it is not a trace of the crushing height of his earlier waterfalls. The line of the hills has been leveled almost to a horizontal, which imbues the view with a soothing sense of breadth, while the delicate treatment of the trees seen against the evening sky emphasizes the height of the aerial zone taking up more than half of the painting and adding to the effect of peace and quiet' (S. Slive, op. cit., p. 142).
The present painting was once in the celebrated Lowther collection which was largely formed by Sir James Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale (1736-1802). His acquisitions both of Italian and Northern pictures owed much to the encouragement of his father-in-law, the 3rd Earl of Bute and Captain William Baillie, who also acted as advisor to his kinsman and heir, Sir William Lowther, Bt. (1757-1844) for whom the Lonsdale earldom was revived in 1807.