Inland Waters with a Sailboat

For the first time in the 17th century, native landscapes were considered a subject of their own. Increasingly, artists focused on specific areas such as winter, sea or alpine landscapes, to which also the simple depictions of inland waters belonged. Salomon van Ruysdael, the uncle of the famous Jacob van Ruisdael, sets the horizon so low, that the cloudy sky takes up three quarters of the painting’s surface. Boats dominate the foreground, while the dike with a rising church tower frames the canal which slopes into the depth of the painting. The clouds at the horizon lighten up and make way for soft, even sunlight. This way, Ruysdael creates a convincing effect of pictoral depth.| Britta Bode