Landscape with Dune and Small Waterfall

One of the greatest landscape painters born in Holland during the 17th century, the young Jacob van Ruysdael was particularly fond of depicting subjects from the forests and sand dunes near his home town of Haarlem. This work is a small-scale example of this subject. The sand dune looms in a sloping angle in the front center of this image, while a river is dammed up at the bottom left of the dune, creating a small waterfall. The upper part of the slanting dune is covered with trees while the lower section is a field of grass occupied by grazing flocks of sheep and their shepherds. The sheep and figures are mere dots against the expansive landscape. The detailed depiction of light and shadow is particularly effective in the grass on the dunes and in the central trees and water, eloquently attesting to the artist's careful examination of nature. This work is not, however, simply "a fragment of nature." All of its elements are carefully calculated and placed, providing a depiction of an "arranged" nature. (Source: Masterpieces of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 2009, cat. no. 37)