The Jewish Cemetery
Jacob van Ruisdael, ca. 1654 — 1655
The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit
Jacob van Ruisdael is considered to be the most important master of Dutch landscape painting, and this is one of his largest and most impressive paintings. Ruisdael’s trademark style includes the skies with turbulent clouds and dramatic lighting that, for no apparent reason, picks out certain parts of the composition. Here, it highlights one of the marble tombs in the center and the tree trunk to the right, while adjacent areas of the scene lie in deep shadow. The view is of a graveyard stretching from the front into the middle ground. In spite of the tombs showing Hebrew inscriptions, the ruins sitting squarely in the middle of the composition seem to be of a Christian church. The painting is remarkable for its effect of immediately carrying the beholder off into a world that seems to be full of meaning. Ruins, tombs and the broken tree in the front gloomily resonate with the troubled sky. They are contrasted on the left by a rainbow, a symbol of hope.
— Gero Seelig, Curator, Staatliches Museum Schwerin, Schwerin
Object details
The Jewish Cemetery ca. 1654-1655
Oil on canvas | 141 x 182.9 cm | inv. no. 26.3
The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit (gift of Julius H. Haass in memory of his brother Dr. Ernest W. Haass)
Jacob van Ruisdael
Haarlem 1628 – 1682 Amsterdam
Gallery
