JACOB VAN RUISDAEL

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SUNDAY feature on ART of Architecture -by Gautam Shah

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Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-1682) was a Dutch landscape painter, who is considered to be the pioneer of non-religious or non mythological landscapes ‘-as an independent subject matter’ He works, marks the Golden age of Dutch art. He first learnt art from his father and uncle. He became a versatile artist with a wide variety of topics like city panoramas, windmills, canals, water-falls, woody scenes, water streams, and seascapes.

The artist created wide format extensive landscapes, as well as square format scenes, a difficult task to handle. In both, the formats, he created dramatic views of clouds, sun-light, shadows on the terrain, windswept trees, gushing streams and unusual combination of colours to fill-up the skies. He used double the space of canvas for skies, over the lands. The sky-colours were well exploited, by him, in the early 17^th C, well before the colour theories were formed in late 19^th C. 

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