Dutch Baroque Era Painter, ca.1628-1682 Ruysdael's favorite subjects are simple woodland scenes, similar to those of Everdingen and Hobbema. He is especially noted as a painter of trees, and his rendering of foliage, particularly of oak leaf age, is characterized by the greatest spirit and precision. His views of distant cities, such as that of Haarlem in the possession of the marquess of Bute, and that of Katwijk in the Glasgow Corporation Galleries, clearly indicate the influence of Rembrandt. He frequently painted coast-scenes and sea-pieces, but it is in his rendering of lonely forest glades that we find him at his best. The subjects of certain of his mountain scenes seem to be taken from Norway, and have led to the supposition that he had traveled in that country. We have, however, no record of such a journey, and the works in question are probably merely adaptations from the landscapes of Van Everdingen, whose manner he copied at one period. Only a single architectural subject from his brush is known--an admirable interior of the New Church, Amsterdam. The prevailing hue of his landscapes is a full rich green, which, however, has darkened with time, while a clear grey tone is characteristic of his seapieces. The art of Ruysdael, while it shows little of the scientific knowledge of later landscapists, is sensitive and poetic in sentiment, and direct and skillful in technique. Figures are sparingly introduced into his compositions, and such as occur are believed to be from the pencils of Adriaen van de Velde, Philip Wouwerman, and Jan Lingelbach. Unlike the other great Dutch landscape painters, Ruysdael did not aim at a pictorial record of particular scenes, but he carefully thought out and arranged his compositions, introducing into them an infinite variety of subtle contrasts in the formation of the clouds, the plants and tree forms, and the play of light. He particularly excelled in the painting of cloudscapes which are spanned dome-like over the landscape, and determine the light and shade of the objects. Goethe lauded him as a poet among painters, and his work shows some of the sensibilities the Romantics would later celebrate.  Related Paintings of Jacob van Ruisdael :. | River Landscape with the entrance of a Vault | Tower Mill at Wijk bij Duurstede, Netherlands, | Two Watermills and an open Sluice near Singraven | solsken | A Landscape with a Ruined Castle and a Church |
Related Artists:
CARPI, Girolamo da
b. 1501, Ferrara, d. 1556, Ferrara His father Tommaso ( fl 1503-23) was a painter and decorator at the court of the Este in Ferrara, and Girolamo was trained in the workshop of Garofalo. He visited Rome in the early 1520s (Fioravanti Baraldi) and was in Bologna in 1525, where he worked with Biagio Pupini and Giovanni Borghese on the decoration of the sacristy of S Michele in Bosco. Around this time (1525) he painted the altarpiece of the Virgin Enthroned with Saints
Julius Kronberg
1850-1921,Swedish painter and illustrator. He was educated at the Konstakademi in Stockholm, where his teachers were J. C. Boklund (1817-80), August Malmstr?m and Johan Fredrik H?ckert. In 1873 he travelled on a scholarship to D?sseldorf, and in the following year he went to Munich. There he was strongly influenced by the Old Masters (especially Rubens), as well as Hans Makart robustly theatrical style. Together they shaped Kronberg early works, for example Hunting Nymph and Fauns (1875; Stockholm, Nmus.), which caused a sensation when it was exhibited in Stockholm in 1876 and established his reputation. Kronberg left Munich in 1877 and settled in Rome, where, between trips to Egypt and Tunisia, he stayed until 1889, when he returned to Stockholm. During his years in Rome his style became increasingly austere. His exuberant Munich manner was replaced by a colder illusionism, which emphasized the historical details of subjects taken from the Bible and Shakespeare. Typical is David and Saul (1885; Stockholm, Nmus.), which reflected his study of Lawrence Alma-Tadema.
Mikhail Klodt
St. Petersburg,a descendant of an art dynasty1832-1902