Wooded Landscape With Waterfall, Dutch school of the 17th century

Jacob van Ruisdael (Haarlem 1628-Amsterdam 1682)
attributable

Wooded Landscape with Waterfall

Oil on canvas
74 x 94 cm. - framed 91 x 111 cm.

A wooded view crossed by a tumultuous watercourse that ends up crashing into a thunderous waterfall: this is a work executed with quality and skill of detail that can easily be attributed to Jacob Van Ruisdael (1628 - 1682), one of the leading and most influential Flemish landscape painters of the 17th century.

It is in fact a typical composition by the painter, who made the depiction of waterfalls a distinctive element in his landscapes, a trademark of his catalogue, managing to depict the water foaming and foaming as it crashes against the rocks in such a natural, delicate and transparent way that it seems real and almost comes out of the canvas.

The waterfall is in fact shown in the foreground occupying the entire width of the canvas, so that the spectacle created by the water seems to be directly in front of the viewer, increasing the dynamism and sublimity of the depiction.

The depiction of fast-flowing water in a convincing manner is one of the greatest challenges of landscape painting that seems to have particularly fascinated van Ruisdael, making him a true master.

More than a hundred years ahead of his time, Van Ruisdael infused his landscapes with the typical elements of what would later become the manifesto of Romanticism: he contrasts the immense energy of nature with the faint silhouettes of two buildings, a church tower and a house half-hidden by trees, shy testimonies to the presence of man. One barely notices between the buildings tiny figures close to the forest paths, as if to indicate to the observer how overpowering the force of this wild nature is.