Waterfall in a Northern Mountainous Landscape

Waterfalls were not part of the Dutch natural landscape, yet Van Ruisdael painted them obsessively, drawing on the Scandinavian tradition established by Allart van Everdingen, who had traveled to Norway and Sweden. The imaginary northern mountain landscape with rushing water represented for Van Ruisdael a terrain of sublime force entirely absent from flat Holland. This painting of around 1665 is among his most dramatic waterfall compositions, with the water's energy used to animate a scene of geological grandeur.

The waterfall cascades diagonally from upper left, its white foam contrasting with the dark rocks and forest. Van Ruisdael models the water through directional brushwork that conveys both volume and movement. The spray and mist create a zone of luminous atmospheric blur around the fall, softening the hard rock forms.