A Rocky River Landscape with a Waterfall
Jacob van Ruisdael·1670
Historical Context
A Rocky River Landscape with a Waterfall from around 1670 shows Ruisdael's late waterfall scenes with their characteristic grandeur. These mountainous compositions brought a sense of sublime nature to Dutch painting that anticipated Romanticism. Working from prints by Allart van Everdingen who had visited Scandinavia, Ruisdael constructed convincing cascades using fluid, energetic paint handling for the white water and dense impasto for mossy rocks. These proto-Romantic subjects prefigure the...
Technical Analysis
Rocky cliffs frame the cascade with dramatic geological forms. Ruisdael's atmospheric rendering of mist and spray creates a convincing vision of mountain scenery.
