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拍品專文
An extremely versatile landscape artist, Ruisdael excelled in an astoundingly wide range of motifs. As a native of Haarlem he was thoroughly familiar with the dunes, and dune landscapes make up a vast percentage of his output. Ruisdael’s depictions of the idyllic scenery around Haarlem were eagerly collected. Especially popular were the dune
landscapes with distant views of the town Haarlem, affectionately called ‘Haarlempjes’ by the public.
The city’s 17th-century profile still largely corresponds to the present-day situation. In this example the Grote or Sint-Bavokerk with its characteristic, pointed middle tower, dominates the horizon. The rooftops of the other buildings are only vaguely indicated and numerous windmills punctuate the skyline. The painting is datable to the years around 1650 and is amongst Ruisdael’s earliest views of his native city. The composition is very closely related to two other paintings, both of which show Haarlem in the left background: one in the Louvre, Paris, and the other, which is dated 1647, in a private collection in The Netherlands. Another comparable dune landscape from the same period, without a view of Haarlem but which incorporates two figures looking out from an outcrop on the right side, is in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (fig. 1).
Both this and the Rijksmuseum panel are painted with the same kind of vigorous yet controlled brushwork, so distinctive of Ruisdael’s method. The artist is widely credited with taking landscape painting to a new level by representing nature as a metaphor for powerful emotions. This approach is already apparent in this relatively early work. The sensitively rendered atmosphere exudes melancholy and in turn this mood is made subordinate to an overwhelming sense of space, called up by the awe-inspiring cloudscape. The scarce and tiny figures heighten the impression of the landscape’s grandeur and the clump of trees thrust across the sky lends the scene a sense of drama.
Seymour Slive elaborately praised the powerful qualities of this type of compositional arrangement, which shows
the artist’s tendency to enlarge a detail of nature into a central motif in a spacious setting (op. cit., p. 85). Judging from a photograph, and apparently being unaware of the monogram, Slive was disinclined to accept the present work as autograph, concluding only that ‘its status is uncertain’ (ibid.). Other scholars, on first hand inspection, have no such reservations about the picture’s authenticity.
landscapes with distant views of the town Haarlem, affectionately called ‘Haarlempjes’ by the public.
The city’s 17th-century profile still largely corresponds to the present-day situation. In this example the Grote or Sint-Bavokerk with its characteristic, pointed middle tower, dominates the horizon. The rooftops of the other buildings are only vaguely indicated and numerous windmills punctuate the skyline. The painting is datable to the years around 1650 and is amongst Ruisdael’s earliest views of his native city. The composition is very closely related to two other paintings, both of which show Haarlem in the left background: one in the Louvre, Paris, and the other, which is dated 1647, in a private collection in The Netherlands. Another comparable dune landscape from the same period, without a view of Haarlem but which incorporates two figures looking out from an outcrop on the right side, is in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (fig. 1).
Both this and the Rijksmuseum panel are painted with the same kind of vigorous yet controlled brushwork, so distinctive of Ruisdael’s method. The artist is widely credited with taking landscape painting to a new level by representing nature as a metaphor for powerful emotions. This approach is already apparent in this relatively early work. The sensitively rendered atmosphere exudes melancholy and in turn this mood is made subordinate to an overwhelming sense of space, called up by the awe-inspiring cloudscape. The scarce and tiny figures heighten the impression of the landscape’s grandeur and the clump of trees thrust across the sky lends the scene a sense of drama.
Seymour Slive elaborately praised the powerful qualities of this type of compositional arrangement, which shows
the artist’s tendency to enlarge a detail of nature into a central motif in a spacious setting (op. cit., p. 85). Judging from a photograph, and apparently being unaware of the monogram, Slive was disinclined to accept the present work as autograph, concluding only that ‘its status is uncertain’ (ibid.). Other scholars, on first hand inspection, have no such reservations about the picture’s authenticity.