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拍品专文
Unseen in public for at least 150 years, this immaculately preserved panel is a valuable addition to the works of Salomon van Ruysdael. A work of his late maturity, it depicts one of the artist's favourite subjects, the halt before the inn. His earliest forays into the theme date from the beginning of the 1630s with depictions of halts of wagons before buildings, set in dune landscapes, that are stylistically reminiscent of the works of Pieter Molyn: for example the Halt at a farm of 1631 in the Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Budapest (inv. no. 260). From the 1640s, however, Salomon turned to the subject with a particular interest as he moved away from the tonal landscapes and river views of the previous decade towards a statelier depiction of his native environs that is often seen as representing a new, 'classicizing' period of Dutch landscape painting.
This painting is comparable with many of the best depictions of the subject, including such pictures as the Halt before the inn of 1655 in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. A713), or the 1645 Travellers before an inn exhibited in the 1988 Masters of 17th-Century Dutch Landscape Painting exhibition (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; Boston, Museum of Fine Arts; and Philadelphia, Museum of Art, no. 92), or the upright View of Beverwijk of 1646 in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (inv. no. 1982,396). Perhaps most comparable to the present painting is the View in a village of 1663 in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. A2571). All, however, share certain features with Ruysdael's earlier works: be it in the basic diagonal structure, the darker foreground repoussoir or even the basic staffage, but over the intervening years these have been refined and developed.
So, the road curling round from the centre of the foreground, seen in the Budapest picture, is now fully visible to the viewer, even until it curls off again in the distant background: a zigzag line that recalls the rivers that gently recede towards distant horizons in his river landscapes, leading the viewer into the picture and giving a sense of depth to the composition. The darker repoussoir (a device taken from Molyn) in the left foreground is alleviated and softened by the water, reflecting the lighter sky, and the sandy path; at the same time the division of the foreground from the middle ground is broken by the cattle - an improvement on pictures like the Halt of 1643 in the Norton Simon Museum of Arts, Pasadena, where the foreground acts almost as a barrier between the viewer and the main scene.
Over the next decade, Ruysdael continued to adapt and develop his theme, adding classicizing touches as, for example, the heroic tree motif (which Salomon's nephew Jacob raised to an outstanding feature in his art) that appears prominently in his paintings, strengthening the compositions by vertical accents. These trees form a glowing dark contrast against the sky; although Salomon's trees never gain much body, and remain thin and feathery in his early minute manner, they function perfectly in the overall pictorial effect, which - as here - can gain an extraordinary splendour by the colours of the sky with mother-of-pearl streaks of pink and blue, violet and grey.
These elements display Ruysdael's great understanding of weather and nature, and his ability quietly to convey those effects to the viewer, be it in the the fresh, clear light, the silvery leaves, muddy road and pool of water or the lifting cloud that suggest an early evening after a shower has passed. Max Friedländer once said of Ruysdael that: 'While the weather in van Goyen's pictures always make you feel it will soon rain, Ruysdael's pictures make you feel it has rained, and a fresh wind has driven the rain away.' That aphorism is particularly applicable to Ruysdael's later works, and encapsulates the delicately vivid atmospherics of the present work.
This painting is comparable with many of the best depictions of the subject, including such pictures as the Halt before the inn of 1655 in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. A713), or the 1645 Travellers before an inn exhibited in the 1988 Masters of 17th-Century Dutch Landscape Painting exhibition (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; Boston, Museum of Fine Arts; and Philadelphia, Museum of Art, no. 92), or the upright View of Beverwijk of 1646 in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (inv. no. 1982,396). Perhaps most comparable to the present painting is the View in a village of 1663 in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. A2571). All, however, share certain features with Ruysdael's earlier works: be it in the basic diagonal structure, the darker foreground repoussoir or even the basic staffage, but over the intervening years these have been refined and developed.
So, the road curling round from the centre of the foreground, seen in the Budapest picture, is now fully visible to the viewer, even until it curls off again in the distant background: a zigzag line that recalls the rivers that gently recede towards distant horizons in his river landscapes, leading the viewer into the picture and giving a sense of depth to the composition. The darker repoussoir (a device taken from Molyn) in the left foreground is alleviated and softened by the water, reflecting the lighter sky, and the sandy path; at the same time the division of the foreground from the middle ground is broken by the cattle - an improvement on pictures like the Halt of 1643 in the Norton Simon Museum of Arts, Pasadena, where the foreground acts almost as a barrier between the viewer and the main scene.
Over the next decade, Ruysdael continued to adapt and develop his theme, adding classicizing touches as, for example, the heroic tree motif (which Salomon's nephew Jacob raised to an outstanding feature in his art) that appears prominently in his paintings, strengthening the compositions by vertical accents. These trees form a glowing dark contrast against the sky; although Salomon's trees never gain much body, and remain thin and feathery in his early minute manner, they function perfectly in the overall pictorial effect, which - as here - can gain an extraordinary splendour by the colours of the sky with mother-of-pearl streaks of pink and blue, violet and grey.
These elements display Ruysdael's great understanding of weather and nature, and his ability quietly to convey those effects to the viewer, be it in the the fresh, clear light, the silvery leaves, muddy road and pool of water or the lifting cloud that suggest an early evening after a shower has passed. Max Friedländer once said of Ruysdael that: 'While the weather in van Goyen's pictures always make you feel it will soon rain, Ruysdael's pictures make you feel it has rained, and a fresh wind has driven the rain away.' That aphorism is particularly applicable to Ruysdael's later works, and encapsulates the delicately vivid atmospherics of the present work.