London, Geffrye Museum, long-term loan, 1981 - 1995.

Salomon van Ruysdael was one of the greatest and most prolific of seventeenth-century Dutch landscape painters.  Unlike many artists of his generation, he never ventured abroad, but lived his whole life in Haarlem and found his inspiration in the indigenous landscape of his homeland.  The subjects of his paintings, however, show that he travelled quite extensively in the Dutch Republic.  In addition to river landscapes, the theme with which he is most intimately associated, Ruysdael painted views of the dunes near Haarlem, winter landscapes, marines and even a few still lifes in his later years.

Ruysdael began to explore the picturesque beauty of river scenes in the early 1630s.  Already in these early river landscapes he had developed a simple but effective compositional scheme – namely, a wedge-shaped, tree-lined bank and a diagonal body of water retreating either from left to right, or from right to left – that he was to rely upon time and time again in his views of Holland’s inland waterways.  Like Jan van Goyen (1596-1656), Pieter de Molijn (1595-1661) and others, in the 1630s, Salomon employed an almost monochrome palette, but after 1640, he introduced into his landscapes brighter and more varied colour schemes. 

In the late 1640s and 1650s, Ruysdael painted a number of intimately scaled views of rivers and estuaries with sailing boats moving up and down stream.  Many follow the traditional horizontal design, but a few are vertical in their orientation.  Generally classed as marines, the paintings in this series are among the artist’s most successful and sought after works.  By switching to an upright format and eliminating the dominant riverbank, Ruysdael allowed the transition from foreground to distant horizon to flow without interruption, creating a sense of boundless space.  Vast skies, filled with billowing clouds, play an important role in these compositions. 

This sparkling painting is a particularly fine example of Ruysdael’s small marine views in upright format.  A broad expanse of water, dotted with rivercraft, appears beneath a towering cloud-filled sky.  A sailing boat, laden with passengers and cargo on board, glides slowly down stream.  A light breeze fills its sails and ruffles the surface of the water.  A rowing boat full of people has come alongside: a man standing in the bows shouts to someone on the larger vessel.  A broad band of shadow fills the foreground, enhancing the presence of the sailing boat and creating a strong silhouette against the luminous water beyond.  Emerging on the left is a low-lying spit of land, where cattle graze, while on the right, are the buildings of a sizeable town.  The hint of a distant shoreline appears on the horizon.  The whole scene is rendered in a carefully controlled range of hues – pale blue, green, silvery-grey and brown.  Working rapidly and with the lightest of touch Ruysdael brushed in the outlines of distant boats, cattle and buildings using a wet-into-wet technique.  Notwithstanding its modest format, the painting achieves a monumental impression. 

Ruysdael sometimes included familiar town profiles in his landscapes.  Here, we see approaching on the right the distinctive outlines of Gorinchem (or Gorkum), with the Sint Jans Tower of the Grote Kerk rising impressively above the small houses in the town.  Gorinchem is situated on the River Waal, to the east of Rotterdam and south of Utrecht.  The view here is taken from the Boven Merwede (Upper Merwede), a broad stretch of water formed where the rivers Waal and Maas meet.  Ruysdael must have known this area quite well as he is mentioned in 1657 as being the part-owner of a mill in Gorinchem.  In the 1640s, he painted landscapes featuring the nearby castle of Loevestein, and a view of Gorinchem taken from the south, which is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York[i]. 

BIOGRAPHY

Salomon Jacobsz van Ruysdael was born in Naarden around 1600/1603, the son of a cabinetmaker from Gooiland, Jacob Jansz de Goyer.  Salomon had three brothers, Jacob, Pieter and Isaack, and a sister Grietje.  Early in his life, Salomon used his father’s name de Gooyer (someone who was born in the Gooi region in the province of North Holland was called a Gooyer) but later he and his brothers Jacob and Isaack adopted the name van Ruysdael after the country estate of Ruysdael, or Ruisschendael, near Blaricum, their father’s hometown.  Despite the difference in spelling, it is the same family as the artist’s famous nephew Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/29-1682).  Shortly after their father’s death in 1616, Salomon and Isaack, who was also a painter, framemaker and art dealer, moved to Haarlem.  In 1623, Salomon, about whose training nothing is known, entered the Guild of St. Luke in Haarlem, where he lived for the rest of his life.  Although his earliest known landscape is dated 1626, he was praised as a landscape painter as early as 1628 by the chronicler of Haarlem, Samuel van Ampzing[ii].  In 1647 and 1669, he served as an officer of the St. Luke’s Guild and, in 1648, was made dean.  Salomon registered pupils in 1637 and 1646, and he most likely also taught his son Jacob Salomonsz van Ruysdael (1629/30-1681) and his nephew Jacob Isaacksz van Ruisdael (1628/29-1682), the son of his brother Isaack.  In addition to being a painter, Salomon was also a dealer in blauwverf, a blue dye used in the bleaching of linen.  In 1657, he is mentioned as being a participant in a tanning mill in Gorinchem. 

Like his father, Salomon was a Mennonite, and a member of the Flemish Mennonite Congregation.  This meant that he was not permitted to bear arms, nor was he eligible for public service.  Sometime before 1627, Salomon married Maycke Willemsdr Buyse, the daughter of well-to-do Haarlem burghers, who were also Mennonites.  Salomon and Maycke had a son Jacob, who became a landscape painter like his father, and three daughters, one of whom died young.  Salomon’s wife Maycke died in 1660 and was buried in the Grote Kerk on 25 December of that year.  Although Solomon lived most of his life in Haarlem, he appears to have travelled widely in The Netherlands and his paintings include views of Dordrecht, Utrecht, Arnhem, Alkmaar and Rhenen.  Salomon died in 1670 and was buried in the high choir of the Grote Kerk on 3 November that year.  In contrast to his brother Isaack, whose financial situation was precarious, Salomon lived the life of an affluent Haarlem burgher.[iii]