Saylor.org ARTH207: "Dutch Baroque Landscape Painting"

This lecture is entitled Dutch Baroque Landscape Painting or Jacob van Ruisdel, Massive Skies and Mystical Cemeteries. Now if you're ever lucky enough to visit Holland and go out into the countryside, you might see something like this image on the screen and what's striking to me about this image is the flatness and openness of the landscape, which you see kind of in the lower half of the painting, and the big, wide, open sky that seems to dominate this photograph and that is a real hallmark of the Dutch countryside. And the Dutch were very proud of their culture, so it's not really surprising that when they paint landscapes, they choose to paint landscapes that look like their characteristic countryside, with this big, flat countryside and a big, wide, open sky. In a sense, a lot of the landscapes that the Dutch created can be thought of as portraits of the place. Portrait of place. Now let's take a look at an example of this. The image on the left is known as View of Harlem or The Bleaching Grounds Near Harlem, and it dates to 1670, and it's by Jacob van Ristel. So View Harlem 1670. I have a small image on the right here of the photograph we were just looking at, which is of the Dutch countryside. I think you can see right away a striking similarity between this modern-day photograph and this 17th century landscape painting. And hopefully one of the first things you noticed when you looked at the painting by Jacob van Ristel is the sky. Notice if you look at the height of this painting, the sky takes up about two-thirds of the canvas, which is pretty remarkable. We've got two-thirds of the painting just devoted to these beautifully rendered fluffy clouds and the blue sky peeking through them. So really remarkable depiction of the sky and really quite new. And also Jacob van Ristel has even in this really small bit of the canvas devoted to the landscape, he's packed a lot of detail into that. One thing I love that he's taken into account is the way the clouds create shadows on the landscape. Notice this is all in shadow here, and then the sun peeks through the clouds right here. Real careful attention to detail. Also in the lines of trees and not least in the buildings. I mentioned earlier that Dutch landscapes can often be kind of called a portrait of place, and that's particularly true in this painting. There are specific details from within the painting that say, hey, this is a local image. This is Harlem. One of the things you see kind of in the center of the horizon is a church, and that church is St. Babo. That's a recognizable identifiable church. As a side note, you may remember from Renaissance art history courses that one of the most famous Renaissance paintings, the Ghent Altarpiece, is actually located in this church. Other identifiable details within this painting, you can just barely make them out kind of all along this stretch of the landscape. And those are little windmills dotting the landscape, which of course are again a marker of place. Finally, you have right here in the foreground, you can see strips of white along the land, and these are big pieces of linen being laid out on the ground to be bleached by the sun. And again, I mentioned that another name for this painting is the Bleaching Grounds, and this area was known for its linen production. So again, someone at the time would have looked at this and this would have been a hallmark of the place, and they would have recognized it immediately. So this is a really detailed landscape painting that packs a lot into it, both specifics of a place as well as this imposing dramatic sky. But ultimately, it's a very peaceful serene scene that shows an idealized, but very much believable scene. But Jakob van Ristel also painted very different kinds of landscapes that you could almost call fantastical. Let's take a look at an example of that. All right, so the image on the left here is known as the Jewish Cemetery. The Jewish Cemetery. And it dates to around 1655. Again, also by Jakob van Ristel. And I included a smaller image of the view of Harlem that we just looked at, just for the sake of comparison, so you can keep in your mind the other kinds of paintings this artist created. So I want you to just take a second and look at this painting on the left, the Jewish Cemetery, and think, what are some things you notice immediately? And it might help you if you refer to the image we just looked at. What are some new things? And what's striking to you about this? Well, to my eye, one of the things that immediately jumps out is that it's very stormy and dramatic. It's almost a tumultuous scene. Another thing is, well, obviously we don't have as much sky, in the Jewish Cemetery, although the sky is very dramatic. What we see of it is very imposing. But there's also a lot more emphasis on buildings. Right? Large, larger scale buildings. They're not these little dots on the horizon. Interestingly, and here's the cemetery for which it's named, towards the foreground. Interestingly, this is actually a real cemetery that did exist. And he adds his own fictional details to sort of dress up this cemetery and create a more dramatic scene. For example, this Catholic Church was not located at this cemetery. So he added that there to create a more dramatic scene. And notice it's in ruins. It's crumbling. It's very, it's not the serene modern day churches of a known town that you might go to. It's, it's a little more of a fantasy world. Not necessarily a fantasy world that you would want to go to, but sort of a lost world in a sense. He's also added in kind of the stormy rainbow. The wind is blowing in the trees, and it's all for the sake of drama. You might notice a kind of dark mood in this painting. Again, especially in contrast to the very serene view of Harlem. That's certainly part of his intention when he created this. The image of a cemetery obviously immediately brings to mind death and mortality. You combine that with a stormy landscape, Catholic Church in ruins, and even this detail right at the center of the composition here of a dead and broken fallen down tree. All of these things are reminders of death and mortality. This sort of a motif in a painting is known as a Vanitas. So this is a Vanitas painting, and that simply means a reminder of death. You see this a lot in still life paintings, and as you see here, you can sometimes see it in landscape paintings, too. So it's really, Jakob van Ristel is using this landscape to make a kind of statement about the transience of human life. And one last point before we finish this lecture. It's interesting that we have here a Jewish cemetery and a Catholic Church, ruins of a Catholic Church, in this painting which was created by a Protestant artist. And a lot of scholars have pointed out that this is kind of perhaps a suggestion of that local pride again, because Protestants were actually, Protestants in Holland were very tolerant of other religions. Even though they were Protestant, they did not shun other people's faiths. So interesting little bit of local detail, potential local detail there as well, but ultimately a very stormy, dramatic Vanitas landscape painting, and certainly an interesting comparison between that and View of Harlem.