Forest Scene

Jacob van Ruisdael represents the pinnacle of seventeenth-century Dutch landscape painting. This great artist, the son of a painter and the nephew of Salomon van Ruysdael (see NGA 2007.116.1), began his career in Haarlem but moved to Amsterdam in about 1656. His long and productive career yielded a wide variety of landscape scenes that reflect Ruisdael’s vision of the grandeur and powerful forces of nature.

His most characteristic paintings include massive trees that tower above a rocky countryside, in which human figures seem dwarfed by the elements of nature. The scale and solemn dignity of Forest Scene make it one of Ruisdael’s masterpieces. The man and woman walking along a path near some grazing sheep in the middle distance are insignificant in comparison to the broad waterfall, the massive rocks, and the huge fallen birch tree in the foreground. The somber mood is reinforced by ominous clouds and by the dark green of the grass and foliage. Trees with twisted roots survive precariously on rocky outcroppings. The broken trees in the foreground are important not only as compositional devices but also as symbolic reminders of the transience of life and the inevitability of death.