The Jewish Cemetery

Jacob van Ruisdael's Jewish Cemetery, in the Detroit Institute of Arts, is one of two versions of this subject (the other is in Dresden) and one of the most philosophically ambitious landscapes in European art. The painting combines real elements—the tombs are based on the Portuguese-Jewish cemetery at Beth Haim in Ouderkerk near Amsterdam—with imaginative additions like the ruined church, creating a meditation on mortality and nature's indifference to human endeavor. Goethe wrote a celebrated analysis praising the painting's poetic power.

The dramatic composition juxtaposes the white tombs and dead trees against a stormy sky with a break of light on the horizon. Van Ruisdael's technique creates a powerful sense of atmospheric turbulence through energetic brushwork in the clouds and precise rendering of architectural decay.