The works of Jacob van Ruisdael - UvA-DARE

Gerard Bilders. Jacob van Ruisdael sketching a watermill, 1864.
CONTENTS
Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 4
Chapter 1: Peri hypsous: on greatness ........................................................................................ 8
Chapter 2: Stories of landscape painting in the Netherlands ...................................................... 19
Chapter 3: The works of Jacob van Ruisdael ............................................................................ 27
Chapter 4: The idea of the sublime in the seventeenth century ................................................. 33
Chapter 5: Ruisdael and the ideas of the sublime ...................................................................... 50
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 63
Images .................................................................................................................................... 70
Image list ................................................................................................................................ 94
Literature ............................................................................................................................... 96
3
INTRODUCTION
A large broken down structure stands lonely in a green valley. Clouds grow large and dark in the
skies above, ready to cast heavy rains down upon the ruin. The water in the pond is still calm. A
shepherd is herding his cattle on the bank but takes a moment of rest to lean upon his staff and
stare contemplatively at the ruin. It is the silence before the storm. This is not the description of an
actual landscape but of one painted in 1650-53 by the Haarlem landscape painter Jacob van
Ruisdael (1628-1682). To be precise, it is the painting of the Ruins of Egmond Castle at Egmond aan
den Hoef. In this painting there are some very interesting contrasts. The sky is full of swirling
clouds but the water in the pond is calm. There is a strong tension in the air of rain and there is a
certain something in this painting that seems ungraspable… The same goes for Ruisdael’s The
windmill at Wijk by Duurstede (c. 1670) where there is a strong impression of wind blowing, so
strong it is nearly tangible. Ruisdael’s Winter Landscape with lamp-post (1670s) does not have that
specific tension. Nonetheless it has an overall feeling of darkness and death that appeals heavily to
the viewer’s emotions. Ruisdael has the amazing quality to depict something in his paintings that
expresses a tension or an emotion. It seems something that appears as ‘ungraspable’ for the viewer.
In his 54 year long life Ruisdael painted over seven hundred paintings. 1 Among his subjects
were dark woods, beaches, castles, waterfalls, (water)mills, seascapes, cityscapes, winter scenes and
views of the Haarlem countryside called ‘Haerlempjes’. A lot of his paintings have a strong
contemplative nature. Ruisdael made sure the viewer will stand in front of his paintings for a long
time contemplating the scene but never being able to truly come to terms with what is depicted.
The viewer will never truly get a grasp on what is going on.
At the sight of those long rows of gigantic volumes standing side by side, I was overcome by
an emotion for which ‘respect’ would be an inadequate definition. The Weeping Shadows had
a word for it, namely chillspine, a feeling of awe verging on stark terror – a state of mind in
1
Donahue Kuretsky 2005: 169.
4
which you can barely restrain the urge to fling yourself face down in the dust and beg for
mercy. 2
The chillspine. A feeling of utter terror so overwhelming it makes you want to cry for mercy. It is
like a feeling in which ‘you have Death perpetually before your eyes, only so far removed, as to
compose the mind without freighting it.’ 3 A feeling that ‘is productive of the strongest emotion
which the mind is capable of feeling.’ 4 A feeling that is nearly too much to handle. This chillspine is
something more commonly known as ‘the sublime’.
The sublime is a term that is mostly associated with Edmund Burke (1729-1797), an
eighteenth century Irish philosopher and politician. He wrote about the notion in 1756 in his A
philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and the beautiful. But as the title of the book
indicates it is an enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime. Ideas about the sublime were
much older.
The origins of our ideas of the sublime go back as early as the first century AD. The only
treatise that has survived from this era is a rather small work called Περὶ ὕψους (Peri hypsous)
written by Longinus in the first century AD. In this treatise Longinus described precisely how a
sublime effect could be reached in literature and rhetoric. He described what means a writer or
orator must use to totally astonish the audience. A writer or orator must be able to conjure up
great thoughts. He must possess a fierce and impassioned emotion. He must be able to depict forms
and figures of thought in the right way; he must use a prominent style, and he must use a dignified
and sublime composition. 5 These are Longinus’s five main sources of the sublime in literature. Last
but not least, the writer or orator must possess a certain geniality to be able to conjure up a sublime
experience. 6
Longinus’s treatise survived the centuries, although not entirely in one piece. About two
thirds of the text has survived, written down in a tenth century manuscript now kept in the
Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. 7 This text was rediscovered in the sixteenth century, translated
2
Moers, Walter. The city of dreaming books (Zamonia 3). London: Vintage, 2007: 388.
DeWitt Thorpe, Clarence “Two Augustans Cross the Alps: Dennis and Addison on Mountain Scenery.” Studies in
Philology 32 3 (1935): 463-82: 465.
4
Burke, Edmund. A philosophical inquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and the beautiful. New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1844: 51.
5
Longinus 1906: 12.
6
Longinus 1906: 14.
7
Longinus 2000: 103.
3
5
from the original Greek into Latin and published. 8 At this time the ideas revolving around the
sublime were mostly limited to literature and rhetoric. From Basel, where the first De sublimitate
was published in 1554, the work spread over Europe, reaching England and the Netherlands. The
works were probably never read by the larger public, indicating only a relatively small group of
educated persons were interested in Longinus work.
At some point between 1554 and 1641 Longinus’s ideas of the sublime were picked up by art
theorists. In 1641 Franciscus Junius (1589-1677) published his De Schilderkonst der oude in which he
uses Longinus’s ideas about the sublime and applied them on art. Some years later in 1678 Samuel
van Hoogstraten (1627-1678) picked up these ideas from Junius and expanded them in his Inleyding
tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst; anders de zichtbaere werelt. It thus seem, the notion of the sublime
had been rediscovered in 1554, after which it was picked up and used in various ways by artists and
art theorists in the Netherlands. Genius invention and the possession of strong emotions seemed to
be the most important aspects of Longinus’s treatise for these art theorists, for they emphasized
these points often in their treatises, as shall be discussed in chapter four.
The sublime is not usually associated with the seventeenth century, especially not with the
Northern Netherlands. Art historians have looked at Ruisdael in various ways, but they have
never considered the possibility that there could be any aspects or elements of the sublime notion
as described by Longinus in his works. The Dutch have mostly been considered as ‘pragmatic’
people, depicting nature ‘as it is’ and not as concerning themselves with higher abstract ideals such
as depicting something that overpowers all else. How realistic is this opinion? And if Longinus’s
notion of the sublime was known in the seventeenth century, how were the various elements of
this notion picked up and used by artists?
The tenseness in Ruisdael’s works that something is about to happen, or the strong but yet
contemplative emotion that it can display are things that makes his works so interesting.
Something in his works makes the viewer ask questions. There is so much ambiguity in many of
Ruisdael’s works that the viewer will not be able to fully come to terms with what he sees.
Ruisdael’s paintings therefore gain a contemplative nature. Because the paintings have this effect
they could have an element of the sublime in them, as described by Longinus but is this effect
really achieved in his works?
8
Longinus 2000: 103.
6
In this thesis an attempt shall be made at answering this question. It starts off with an
analysis of Longinus Peri hypsous and how these ideas were transferred through the centuries. The
second chapter gives an overview of landscape painting in the Northern Netherlands in the
seventeenth century. What kind of genre in painting was it and how did art historians and critics
look at it in later periods? The third chapter is an overview of Ruisdael’s landscapes. How exactly
did he paint his landscapes? The fourth chapter will give an overview on how the sublime
manifested itself in the seventeenth century art world of The Netherlands. In the fifth chapter
Ruisdael’s landscapes will be analyzed further to see what motifs he used to achieve a sublime
effect and an attempt shall be made at answering the main question: can Ruisdael’s artworks be
called sublime?
7
CHAPTER 1
Peri hypsous: on greatness
Nearly two thousand years ago an anonymous writer that has come to be known as Longinus
wrote his treatise Peri hypsous. 9 Peri hypsous literarily means ‘on greatness’ and simply describes
what this book is about: the sublime. It describes in particular how this sublime can be achieved in
literature and rhetoric. The Greek term hypsous was already in use in Homer’s time (c. 1000-800
BC) to describe literary passages that were thought of as special or impressive. These great passages
are different from the ordinary. 10 So, already in Homer’s time there was a distinction between
ordinary passages and those that rose out above these ordinary passages.
Longinus’s treatise was written as an answer to an older treatise written by Caecilius (fl. 31
BC) on the same subject. 11 Before Caecilius it was Dionysius of Halicarnassus (c. 60 BC-after 7 BC)
in the first century BC who used the term ‘sublime’ as one of the criteria for excellent literature.
He was the first writer who actually used the term ‘sublime’ but, as mentioned before, ideas about
‘heightened’ literary passages were much older. 12 Dionysius stated that a sublime style gives the
impression of sharpness, intensity or fear. A style that is also catchy and exciting, full of energy and
life and capable of matching credibility of character to the capacity of showing emotions. It is
entertaining, convincing and attractive, as well as powerful and compelling. This style is more
risky than riskless, and is therefore exceptionally suitable for proving literary excellence. 13 Around
this time, the end of the first century BC, Seneca (1 BC-65 AD) wrote in one of his letters to
Lucilius how the sublime can be found in nature. Nature is sublime because it is full of the divine.
Especially untamed nature – large rivers, dark woods, rough cliff sides and rocks and deep lakes –
9
Longinus 2000: 7. The oldest copy we have left of the treatise is from the tenth century and is kept in Paris. In the
index the copyist wrote ‘by Dionysius or Longinus’ who were both writers on the eloquence of speech and literary
criticism. However, other writings left by these authors indicate that neither could have written the treatise On the
Sublime. Until the beginning of the nineteenth century the text was said to have been written by Dionysius Longinus
(the same person as Cassius Longinus). That is why, to this day the anonymous writer of the treatise On the Sublime is
still called Longinus or pseudo-Longinus.
10
Longinus 2000: 89-90.
11
Longinus 1906: vi.
12
Longinus 2000: 90.
13
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Lysias 13. Also cited in: Longinus 2000: 90.
8
is fulfilled with godly power and presence. This idea about the divine presence of God in nature
was something that was a reoccurring theme in Dutch seventeenth century literature as discussed
below.
Longinus seems to have bundled existing ideas about the sublime together in a short thesis.
In this thesis he advised the reader how the sublime can be achieved in literature and rhetoric. To
illustrate the effects of the sublime he used a lot of examples from great writers. But what is the
sublime according to Longinus?
Sublimity is always an eminence and excellence in language […] For it is not persuasion but to
ecstasy that passages of extraordinary genius carry the hearer: now the marvellous [sic], with
its power to amaze, is always and necessarily stronger than that which seeks to persuade and to
please: to be persuaded rests usually with ourselves, genius brings force sovereign and
irresistible to bear upon every hearer, and takes its stand high above him. 14
Sublimity can be reached, only if the writer or orator excels in the use of language. If a writer
manages to use language in the right way by using the right metaphors, hyperboles, placing of
words, harmony and rhythm he has a grasp on one of the things that can make literature and
rhetoric sublime. The reader must not be persuaded to believe in the words he reads but he must
fall into a certain ecstasy, as if the words totally overwhelm him. The force excelled by the words
must be irresistible. Sublime passages overpower all other passages and they leave the reader filled
with emotion. 15 What Longinus saw as a sublime passage is, for example:
And again she lashed her team and again the stallions flew, holding nothing back, careering
between the earth and starry skies as far as a man's glance can pierce the horizon's misting
haze, a scout on a watchtower who scans the wine-dark sea—
so far do the soaring, thundering horses of the gods leap at a single stride. 16
This passage from Homer’s Iliad appeals to the imagination of the reader. The reader can imagine
that if these horses jumped twice, the world would be too small for them. 17 It is sublime because
14
Longinus 1906: 2.
Longinus 2000: 22.
16
Homerus. Iliad, v. 770.Translation by: Fagles, Robert, Bernard MacGregor Walker Knox. The Iliad. London:
Penguin, 1998: 189. Also cited in Longinus 1906: 16.
15
9
the reader is left to imagine the enormous size of the horses and can therefore use his own power
of imagination to try to encompass that huge scale. Yet, the horses are of such a scale that their size
cannot be fully comprehended. It cannot be understood to the fullest and therefore causes a form
of fear, the fear of not being able to comprehend it. It is a similar fear that occurs when one tries to
imagine the universe as being endless. The mind just cannot come to terms with the idea. It is the
fear that is raised by this idea that also gives great pleasure. The sublime gives the reader the feeling
of ‘pleasurable shudder’, the chillspine. 18
The reader will keep on thinking about the incomprehensible passage, therefore getting the
impression that he conjured up the passage all by himself. He will feel proud for conjuring up such
a genius thought. ‘For it is a fact of Nature that the soul is raised by true sublimity, it gains a proud
step upwards, it is filled with joy and exultation, as though itself had produced what it hears.’ 19
That is really great, which gives much food for fresh reflection; which it is hard, nay
impossible, to resist; of which the memory is strong and indelible. You may take it that those
are beautiful and genuine effects of sublimity which please always, and please all. For when
men of different habits, lives, ambitions, ages, all take one and the same view about the same
writings, the verdict and pronouncement of such dissimilar individuals give a powerful
assurance, beyond all gainsaying, in favour of that which they admire. 20
This passage from Longinus’s treatise is a good explanation of the effects of the sublime. A sublime
passage must appear as fresh and new each time it is read. It is impossible to resist and the memory
of it is strong. Sublime passages please all who read it no matter where they come from. After this
explanation the text presents five different sources of lofty style. 21 First there is the power to
conjure up great thoughts, this is something which a writer can only be born with. It must be a
natural talent. Second there is the fierce, impassioned emotion, another source which one can only
be born with. Third, there is the right depiction of forms, figures of thought and style-figures.
This is a technique and can therefore be taught. Fourth there is the use of a prominent style, the
good use of words, metaphors and good use of language; another technique that can be learned. At
17
Longinus 2000: 33.
Battersby 2007: 1.
19
Longinus 1906: 11-12.
20
Longinus 1906: 12.
21
Longinus 1906: 12.
18
10
last there is the dignified and sublime composition. It is a technique and it also encompasses all the
above mentioned.
The sublime has a strong effect on the reader or hearer. Sublime passages usually depict
something that cannot be fully grasped or understood. It seems like it could not have been written
by a normal human being, it has a divine element in it. ‘Sublimity is the note which rings from a
great mind’, is what Longinus writes. 22 According to him, the reason the reader or hearer is
intrigued by the sublime comes forth from our desire to all that is greater and more divine than
ourselves. 23 Because the sublime has a divine element in it, it cannot speak of the lowly and ugly:
For we ought not in sublime passages to stoop to mean and discredited terms unless we are
compelled by some strong necessity; but it would be proper even in words to keep to those
which sound worthy of the subject, and to copy Nature who fashioned man; for she did not
place our less honourable parts in front, nor the purgings of all gross matter, but hid them
away so far as she could (…). 24
The sublime is concerned with an experience, a certain effect conjured up by hearing or looking at
specific passages. Happiness and fear occur at the same time, a feeling of power but also of
weakness. One is feeling safe but at the same time feels threatened with a fear of not being able to
grasp what is going on. According to Longinus, this effect is reached by proper use of words and
language, the techniques of writing or orating, but that is not enough. A special natural born talent
is also needed in the writer or orator. He must be able to conjure up an image in the minds of the
audience that is strong and overwhelming. A lofty and ‘sublime’ image. When these two elements
are combined sublime literature or oration can be created.
From Longinus to Burke
Longinus’s treatise survived through a copy written in the tenth century. This book was so
severely damaged that only two thirds of the original text is left. 25 In medieval times Longinus was
never directly cited by any writer, even though the elements of his notion of the sublime remained
22
Longinus 1906: 14.
Longinus 2000: 73.
24
Longinus 1906: 77.
25
Longinus 1906: vii.
23
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important in literature and rhetorical theory. This was mainly in the form of writing in the ‘high
style’, a style that was used to describe or write for kings. 26 During the Renaissance – the
fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries – there was a renewed interest in rhetoric.
Quintilian’s book Institutio oratoria (c. 95) was found in the cloister of Sankt Gallen and
immediately printed and published. It had a great influence on the writings of Erasmus (1466/691536), among others. 27 However, it was not until 1554 that Longinus was printed. Francesco
Robortello (1516-1567) printed the first De sublimitate in Basel. He based his book on the tenthcentury manuscript and translated the book from the original Greek into Latin. 28 It was followed
by printings by Paulus Manutius (1512-1574) in 1555 in Venice and Franciscus Portus (sixteenth
century) in 1569-70 in Geneva. 29 Even though three different editions of Longinus’s treatise
appeared in a period of six years the book was only read by a select group of intellectuals. The
book never reached the larger crowd. 30 The text published by Portus would serve as the basis for
all subsequent editions of Longinus’s treatise until the eighteenth century. 31
During the seventeenth century there was more interest in Longinus’s work. Several
translations in Latin and Italian, some of them annotated, appeared. This implies that the interest in
Longinus was rising. 32 The book was translated in English by Gerard Langbaine (1609-1658) in
1636-38, from that time on the interest in Longinus grew in England. 33 In 1644 John Milton
(1608-1674) published his Treatise of education. In this treatise he mentioned Longinus as one of the
important classical rhetoricians. The Dutch scholar Jacob Tollius (1633-1696) was the first to
publish an edition with Robortello’s Latin marginalia in 1694. It took Tollius from 1677 to 1694
to find a publisher. 34 However, this should not mean that there was no interest in Longinus’s
treatise. Since so many (annotated) translations were published already, there was probably little
interest in another one.
Apart from rhetoricians, the work, at some point between its first publication in 1554 and
1641, reached artists and art theorists in the Netherlands. Longinus was mentioned by Franciscus
Junius (1589-1677) in 1641 in his De Schilderkonst der oude in an attempt to relate rhetoric and
26
Longinus 2000: 100-101.
Longinus 2000: 102.
28
Longinus 2000: 103.
29
Longinus 2000: 103.
30
Brody 1958: 10.
31
Brody 1958: 10.
32
Longinus 2000: 103-104.
33
Longinus 2000: 104.
34
Brody 1958: 10.
27
12
poetry to art. Even though Longinus’s work remained restricted to certain scientific circles, he did
make an impression on the art theorist Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627-1678), who even cited him
in his Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst; anders de zichtbaere werelt (1678) [see chapter 4, p.
45-6].
In 1674 Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux (1636-1711) published his Traité du Sublime, ou du
merveilleux dans le discourse, traduit du Grec de Longin, an annotated translation of Longinus. 35 In this
book Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux gave the following explanation of Longinus’s sublime:
The sublime is an effect that forms a discourse and makes it excellent and perfect. It is because
of the sublime that the great poets and writers achieved their glory. It is not simple and clean
persuasion that he [the great poet] uses, but he ravishes, he transports and produces such an
admiration and sudden surprise, that all the other things mere please or persuade. (…) He
gives the discourse a certain nobleness, an invincible force that enlightens the soul of anyone
who hears it. 36
Boileau-Despreaux sees the sublime as something that does not persuade but comes more as a
sudden force. It takes the reader or hearer by storm leaving him astonished. The discourse gets a
noble touch because of the sublime, it is a heightened en noble way of writing, fit for kings as they
saw it in medieval times. The invincible force that it holds enlightens the soul. It takes the hearer
or reader to a higher plane of self-being. Boileau also wrote of the indefinable and the incredible
aspect of the sublime when looking at art. It is a ‘je ne sçay quoy de sublime’, something that
cannot be demonstrated with arguments, but which is more something that is experienced (‘qui se
fait sentir’). 37 It is something that is ungraspable.
At the end of the seventeenth century another aspect of the sublime was brought more to
the foreground. This was the experience of the sublime in nature as was already described by
Seneca. Nature is awe-inspiring and full of a form of ‘save terror’. It is seen, throughout history as
the most important place where the sublime can be found. 38 It is therefore even more interesting
to note that Ruisdael was a landscape painter and therefore might have tried to depict this Godly
power and presence. In this aspect landscape painting seemed to be the most obvious way of trying
35
Longinus 2000: 112.
Boileau-Despréaux, Oeuvres complètes. 2nd part. Paris 1865. Translated by the author. Also cited in Knabe 1972: 450.
37
Longinus 2000: 112.
38
Seneca, Epistulae ad Lucilium 41, 3-4. Also cited in: Longinus 2000: 96.
36
13
to arouse a sublime experience. In the seventeenth century, writings on landscapes were always
linked to praising God’s creation. The nature around Haarlem was often considered more
praiseworthy than the city itself (unlike for instance the many writings on Amsterdam, in which
the city was praised above all else). 39 Nature was created by God, whereas a city is a man-made
product. The landscape was therefore greatly praised and often written about. For instance in the
song Droeve Gheests’ vermaeck from 1647. Here the poet tries to rid himself of his melancholy by
taking a walk in the Haarlem dunes. The sun breaks through the dark clouds and the view from
the dunes amazes him. Even the highest churches are overpowered by the dunes created there
from mere sand by the divine God. 40 This short description of the Haarlem countryside is almost a
precise description of Ruisdael’s View of Haarlem. It seems possible that Ruisdael tried to depict the
power of God in some sort of way in his View. God is a very sublime being. It is unknown what
He is but He has unlimited power and He created all that is known. By depicting the power of
God as something ungraspable but awe-inspiring like the swirling clouds in the large sky over
Haarlem, Ruisdael might have found a way of depicting the something that was seen as sublime in
the seventeenth century literary world of The Netherlands. Next to that, the way nature was
discussed in seventeenth-century writings gives the impression that it often aroused a very sublime
experience. The viewer is ‘overpowered’ and ‘astonished’ by the beauty of the landscape, which is
a divine creation.
A similar view is presented in Den Schepper Verheerlijckt in de schepselen (1685) by Jan van
Westerhoven. In this book Van Westerhoven also praised the landscape as God’s divine creation.
He urged his readers to go out into the landscape surrounding Haarlem because ‘the more the
miracle of God’s creation is looked at and investigated, the bigger the admiration shall be for its
Creator. 41 The miracle of God’s creation should not just be looked at but it should be
contemplated, taken in by the painters just like the air that they breath. Van Westerhoven went on
to characterize phenomena in nature as ‘many voices and speechless pastors that constantly give
witness to the Power of the Lord, his Wisdom and Goodness’. 42 God’s presence could be felt in the
landscape. This presence has something ungraspable. One who is out in nature will feel the power
of God there but he cannot tell what it is that makes him feel this. The beauty and perfect
39
Leeflang 2002: 21-22.
Leeflang 2002: 22.
41
Leeflang 2002: 23.
42
Leeflang 2002: 23.
40
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harmony of nature, the strong power it sometimes displays in thunder or storm, the calmness of
spring, all are ungraspable notions that testify to the presence of the divine creator. If this
ungraspable aspect could be somehow be depicted in a painted landscape, a sublime experience
similar to when walking outside in nature can be reached.
The walks through the Haarlem countryside that Van Westerhoven described are set up as
conversations between three men: Paulus Verus and Petrus Novus from Haarlem and Johannes
Rogans from Amsterdam. Rogans thinks the Haarlem countryside is rather boring but Verus
claims the opposite. For exciting things such as ‘extremely high mountains, unpleasant and nearly
unapproachable steeps, forests, meadows and pleasure grounds’ one does not have to go abroad. 43
It is especially important to note that the above mentioned natural phenomena were indeed
experienced as being ‘exciting’. The steeps are even ‘unpleasant’ and ‘unapproachable’. This proves
yet again that these natural phenomena were seen as arousing emotions that seem similar to the
emotions aroused by the sublime.
Verus initially thought the landscape around Haarlem was boring, but when he stood on a
dune top and looked over ‘every splendor that the Lord has created in the heavens and on earth’ he
was sure that everything man considered to be a miracle could be found within a four mile radius
around Haarlem. 44 Van Westerhoven even mentioned something very Longinus-like: ‘in how far
the mind is appealed when looking closely at the creation of God, that rises above what the body
can handle’. 45 The mind and the feelings are appealed to here. Experiencing the presence of God
was something that aroused a certain emotion. The overwhelming feeling that He is there and that
He created all the splendor that can be seen can arouse such a feeling of joy it can bring one to
tears. Knowing that He created all the splendor, even the highest mountains is also a terrifying
thought. Such enormous and incomprehensible power. In simple terms it cannot be comprehended
and it cannot be grasped. It is the untouchable, the je ne sais quoi of God that makes him sublime.
The incomprehensibleness of nature seems similar to what Longinus mentioned about the horses of
the Gods in the citation above. It seems that by this time, 1685, the notion of the sublime is often
linked to the power of God.
Using ideas relating to the sublime on nature became increasingly popular in the late
seventeenth century. Thomas Burnet (1635-1715) observed, in his A sacred theory of the earth (1684)
43
Leeflang 2002: 24.
Leeflang 2002: 24.
45
Leeflang 2002: 24.
44
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mountains as monstrosities and John Dennis (1657-1734) in his Miscellanies of 1693 wrote the
following when confronted with the Alps 46 :
The sense of all this produc’d different emotions in me, viz., a delightful Horror, a terrible
Joy, and at the same time, that I was infinitely, pleas’d I trembled. 47
Here Dennis marked the beginning of the distinction between the beautiful and the sublime that
Edmund Burke (1729-1797) worked out in his A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the
sublime and the beautiful (1756-57), one of the best known works on the sublime today. In this work,
Burke was still concerned with the importance of language, and he was greatly indebted to
Longinus for this. He also added a discussion on taste and art and the role of the beautiful versus
the sublime. Here he emphasized the various different elements of the sublime as described by
Longinus. In his work, as the title suggests, he tried to find the origin of our ideas of the sublime.
It becomes clear that by 1756 the sublime was a form of various different elements that seem to
have gotten fragmented over time so the sublime was not something that could be explained with
a few simple words. It was now used in many different disciplines in many different ways. Many
of these ‘fragmented’ ideas of the sublime are very old. Mostly the sublime was an effect that could
be reached in outstanding literature and rhetoric. The sublime could also be found in nature.
Seneca already found nature to have that overwhelming divine and sublime presence. Longinus
bundled existing ideas of the sublime together but only relating it to literature and rhetoric. In
medieval times the sublime as a notion still seems to be limited to the realm of literature. It was not
until Junius first mentioned Longinus and the sublime that it was applied directly on art. Still, even
before Junius, Karel van Mander (1548-1606) wrote about ideas that seem similar to the notion of
the sublime. This will all be discussed in chapter four.
By the end of the seventeenth century the idea of the sublime was (again) seen as something
that was applicable on nature. The term ‘sublime’ was not always used in literature but ideas
relating to the notion were surely present. When Burke wrote his book he bundled together all
these fragmented notions of the sublime turning his book into an overview of what the sublime is
and how it was seen and used throughout history.
46
Longinus 2000: 117.
Dennis, John. The critical works of John Dennis. 2 vols. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins P, 1934: 380. Also cited in Longinus
2000: 117.
47
16
Burke’s book might form an overview, it is not applicable on Ruisdael. It must be made
clear how people saw the notion of the sublime in his days, how they used it and what elements
they picked out. For Longinus sublime passages consisted of a few basic elements. Sublime passages
must be written by a genius. A man so smart that he able to conjure up an image in the mind of the
reader or hearer that is overwhelming, irresistible and astonishing. This in return, the writer will
manage by the excellent use of language, the right choosing of words and placing. This was the
technical aspect. Together they form the golden combination. It was all about conjuring up an
image in the mind and an emotion in the heart of the reader or hearer. This was an incredibly
difficult thing to achieve for it might so easily go wrong. Longinus mentions a lot of literary
examples where the sublime is not reached. Sometimes the writer is so eager to create sublime
literature that he oversteps himself, putting in too much or choosing the wrong words, or too
many words. The sublime comes forth mostly when a lot is left to the imagination of the reader. It
is up to the reader to conjure up this sublime experience within himself and this is done mostly by
the use of his imagination. For it is the moment when the reader imagines the size of the horses of
the Gods that he will truly experience the sublime.
The sublime passage must be strong and irresistible. It can be read many times without
getting boring and the reader will want to think about it over and over again, even though he will
never be able to fully comprehend the image conjured up by the text. Sublime literature has a
certain ungraspable nature. It is as if it could not be written by man. It is almost God-like. A
presence of God was also found in nature as it was incomprehensible how mountains could have
gotten so big or waterfalls so awe-inspiring. It was all fashioned by God, who is a very sublime
being in itself. The notion of the sublime is easily applicable on different realms like literature and
art but also on nature, for they all appeal to the imagination and feelings of the viewer. Even art
should appeal to the viewer’s imagination. A story must be told through the work of art but yet,
not the whole story. Some parts must be left out for the viewer to fill in for it is not the work of
art that is sublime, it is the thought that is conjured up in the mind of the viewer when he is
looking at art that is sublime.
It would seem logical for an artist to combine two of these three realms, art and nature, so to
become a landscape painter. This is exactly what painters did in the early seventeenth century,
they specialized in one specific genre: the landscape. But did they therefore all create sublime
landscapes? After all, as Longinus describes the technique, in this case, of depicting a landscape in
the right way as not enough for it to be sublime. Did painters manage to include the other means
17
of achieving a sublime experience or was there only one specific painter who managed this and
where did he stand in the tradition of landscape painting?
18
CHAPTER 2
Stories of landscape painting in the Netherlands
Landscape paintings as a separate genre in painting has intrigued artists and art historians for over
ages. Especially the Dutch seventeenth century landscape paintings were always seen as rather
awkward, its reasons and meanings unknown. Therefore many stories arose throughout the ages
that talk of Dutch seventeenth century landscape painting. Each with his own personal outlook on
them. Here some of these stories are presented together with the development of the genre.
In Flanders, they paint with a view to external exactness or such things as may cheer you and
of which you cannot speak ill, as for example saints and prophets. They paint stuffs and
masonry, the green grass of the fields, the shadow of trees, and rivers and bridges, which they
call landscapes… And all this, though it pleases some people, is done without reason or art,
without symmetry or proportion, without skilful judgment or boldness, and, finally, without
substance or vigour. 48
This is what Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475-1564) is reported to have said about Flemish
landscape paintings. He saw them as simple depictions of nature; nothing more. Michelangelo
might have meant landscapes that looked like those of Joachim Patinir (1480-1524) [fig. 1] and
Herri met de Bles (1500/1510-after 1555?) [fig. 2]. These are typical examples of the style in
which the landscape was depicted in the sixteenth century. These landscapes were characterized by
a high viewpoint, steep rocks and cliffs. They were painted in a restricted color scheme: brown for
the foreground, green for the middle ground and blue for the background. These landscapes were
by no means naturalistic accounts of a landscape. 49
Ernst Gombrich saw landscape painting as something that evolved from painting religious
subjects that required a vast landscape as a background setting, as for instance the Flight into
Egypt. In Italy interest began to arouse for paintings that depicted a ‘pure landscape’. For the first
48
49
Hollanda 1928: 15-18.
Brown 1986: 11 and 13.
19
time the artwork was praised for the sake of the artistic qualities rather than for its function and its
subject matter. 50
For Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) landscapes were even capable of depicting a heightened
ideal. The painter, as a creative genius, was able to depict the ultimate harmony of the universe
through landscapes. 51 Here, landscapes even got an element in them that was closely related to
Longinus idea of the genius being able to conjure up a sublime experience.
A short history of landscape painting
In 1559 and 1561, a series of prints published by Hieronymus Cock (1510-1570) in Antwerp made
way for a new style of landscape painting. He abandoned the high viewpoint as was used by
Patinir and Met de Bles and replaced it with an eye level view. More importantly he chose to
depict scenes from everyday life: villages, cottages and barns, cattle grazing, women with pails of
milk on their heads, etcetera. The subjects were still carefully chosen and rearranged but seem very
natural and familiar. 52 This series of prints by Cock was published again by Claes Jansz. Visscher
(1587-1652) in Amsterdam in 1612, making these types of landscapes available for the Dutch
landscape painters. The series of prints printed by Visscher in the years 1611 to 1613, treat almost
all the subjects depicted in Dutch landscape painting up till 1640. 53 It was especially due to this fact
that the Dutch landscape painting became so typically Dutch. These landscapes show a natural,
realistic and un-idealized world that was not depicting in this manner in any other country. It
utterly confused art historians up to this day.
Between 1613 and 1623 a group -of young, talented painters – Willem Buytewech
(1591/92-1624), Esaias van de Velde (1587-1630) , Hercules Seghers (c. 1589-c. 1638), Jan van de
Velde (1593-1641), Pieter de Molijn (1595-1661), Cornelis Vroom (1591-1661) and Salomon van
Ruysdael (1602-1670) – all joined the guild of St. Luke in Haarlem. All these painters were
specialized in landscape painting. Each of them had his own style, but all of them shared a common
goal: their landscapes did not have to be topographically accurate but should be familiar and
recognizable for the citizens of Haarlem. 54 It should therefore come as no surprise that the
50
Gombrich 1966: 108-110.
Gombrich 1966: 112.
52
Brown 1986: 18.
53
Brown 1986: 18, 19.
54
Brown 2002: 13-14.
51
20
Haarlem painter Karel van Mander considered Haarlem to have been the birthplace of landscape
painting: “Daer wort oock gheseyt en getuyght, uyt de monden der oudtste Schilders, dat te
Haerlem is van oudts ontstaen, en begonnen de beste en eerste maniere van Landtschap te
maken.” 55
This first generation of Haarlem landscape painters worked in the so called ‘tonal phase’,
wherein paintings show little color. Everything is painted in grays, greens, yellows, browns and
blues. 56 The bright color scheme used by the Flemish painters is no longer applied. It was not until
the late 1630s and 40s that color started reappearing. 57 With the Haarlem landscape painters the
depiction of nature became more important than the depiction of human figures. Seymour Slive
noted that around the 1650s there was a shift in landscape painting: from painting nature as it is to
letting nature dominate over the human figure. 58 But Biesboer, in the 2002 catalogue of the
Ruisdael exhibition in the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem noted that as early as 1610 there was
already a type of landscape painting in which nature dominated over the human figure. 59
In 1648 Jacob van Ruisdael joined the Haarlem guild of St. Luke. 60 Ruisdael seems to have
been keen on dwarfing his figures to nature. This can, for instance be seen in paintings such as The
large forest (1655-1660) [fig. 3] where one tiny little man is seen resting beside a forest road that is
flanked by extremely large trees. Also in Ruisdael’s View of Haarlem with bleaching grounds (c. 1655)
[fig. 4] now in Zürich, the viewer is confronted with a sky that totally dominates the landscape.
To the centre-right of the horizon stands the church of St. Bavo which looks massive in its own
right but is still quite inferior to the darkening clouds of the Haarlem sky. In one of many
interpretations, this is considered to be a metaphor of God’s divine power over human creation. 61
It has been claimed that the rise of the protestant belief in the Netherlands was the reason the
landscapes differed so much from the ones painted in Flanders. 62 After all, there was no more need
for religious paintings with fantasy landscapes as background. 63 There were other ways of
depicting the power of God, not just the literarily depiction of a biblical scene in a landscape. In
55
Mander 1969: fol 205v.
Brown 1986: 22.
57
Brown 1986: 22.
58
Jacob Rosenberg, S. Slive and E.H. ter Kuile, Dutch Art and Architecture: 1600 to 1800, Harmondsworth: Pelican
History of Art. 1966: 240-64. Also cited in Walford 1991: 16.
59
Biesboer 2002: 16, 17.
60
Biesboer 2002: 18.
61
Leeflang 2002: 21-22.
62
Brown 1986: 19 and 24.
63
Brown 1986: 19 and 24.
56
21
this aspect, the notion that landscapes such as the View of Haarlem depicts the power of God over
the inferior human being seems reasonable.
Early critics on Dutch landscape painting
Dutch seventeenth century landscapes have always puzzled art historians and critics. André
Félibien (1619-1695), Roger de Piles (1635-1709) and Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) were all of
the opinion that Dutch landscape painters merely copied the landscape exactly as they saw it in
front of their eyes, without any form of idealization.64 These ideas remained in existence
throughout the late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century in countries like France and England. An
extreme example of this conception are the multiple interpretations of the painting of
Rembrandt’s St. Bartholomew (1661) [fig. 5]. Around 1770 a mezzotint of this painting was
published in England. It was a faithful copy of the painting: an old man holding a knife in his right
hand. However, the print is entitled “The Assassin”. The eighteenth-century artists who made the
print knew that saints are often depicted carrying an object that makes them recognizable but what
they did not believe was that Rembrandt, or any other seventeenth-century Dutch artist would
paint a saint. It didn’t stop there however, for in the nineteenth century the painting was called
“Rembrandt’s Cook” and as late as 1893 it was said to be the portrait of a surgeon. 65
Even today it is still believed by some that Dutch seventeenth-century artists did not depict
saints, nor idealize their paintings. And they could have never tried to arouse an experience in the
viewer, like for instance a sublime experience. By looking closer at the paintings however, one sees
that there are many examples of forms of idealization, enlarging of forms, possible hidden
meanings and unrealistic depictions. Take for instance Ruisdael’s Jewish cemetery (1654-55) in
Detroit [fig. 6]. This painting was said to have been a depiction of the Jewish cemetery Beth Haim
in Oudekerk aan de Amstel. This cemetery probably looked similar to the etching Romeyn de
Hooghe made of it in 1670-90 [fig. 7]. The three tombs in the centre of the etching are an exact
match to the three tombs seen on Ruisdael’s painting. Even the tomb in the left corner of the
painting seems to be an exact match with the tomb on the right in the etching. However, the
church ruin and the hilly, mountainous landscape seem to have sprung totally from Ruisdael’s
64
Walford 1991: 15. Eugène Fromentin, Les Maîtres d’autrefois, 1876: 97, 108-116 (on 108), and also 136-46. Also
cited in Walford 1991: 15.
65
Slive 1962: 486-7.
22
imagination. One will find no such thing in Oudekerk aan de Amstel; even in 1655 no mountains
could be found there. Ruisdael used existing elements but placed them into a fantasy setting. Not
all art historians saw Dutch landscapes the way Felibien, De Piles and Reynolds did. In 1934 H.
Gerson wrote in The Burlington Magazine:
According to Dr. Simon and Dr. Rosenberg the two pictures of the Jew’s Burying-Ground (at
Dresden and Detroit) date from the same period, but it seems to me that they belong to a later
phase of his style, which the latter calls the “revival of his heroic style.” The gloomy effect,
the romantic association, and the colour scheme, correspond to the character of the Pool in the
wood (…). 66
Gerson is clearly alluding to some sort of emotion the painting arouses by the gloomy effect and
romantic association. He even refers to Ruisdael’s ‘heroic style’ with which he might refer to
paintings that aroused some sort of ‘sublime’ experience. In 1958 by Jakob Rosenberg stresses the
point of the emotion Ruisdael’s paintings arouse:
But only a few – and they were the greatest – struck a deep emotional note in addition to their
realistic power. These few also transcended the boundaries of specialization and not
infrequently added a romantic vein to their representation of nature. Hercules Seghers was
one of them, also Jacob van Ruisdael, and, last not least, Rembrandt. 67
Here Ruisdael’s work ever struck a ‘deep emotional note’ The painters mentioned – Seghers,
Ruisdael and Rembrandt – transcended the boundaries of specialization. Rosenberg lifts these
painters up and mentions them as special, being able to conjure up strong emotions and adding a
‘romantic vein to their representation of nature’. These painters clearly do something in their
paintings that is not seen in paintings by other Dutch seventeenth century artists, tough
Rosenberg’s notion of a ‘romantic vein’ could be interpreted in different ways, it is not clear what
this romantic vein exactly is.
The dwarfing of figures in Ruisdael’s landscapes has been interpreted by art historians as
showing the power of God over man. The more overpowering the nature in the landscape looks,
66
67
Gerson 1934: 79.
Rosenberg 1958: 145.
23
the better the divine power of God shows through. However, the opposite is also possible.
Wolfgang Stechow wrote in 1966 that the figures in the landscapes of ‘romantic’ painters like
Hercules Seghers, Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), Allart van Everdingen (1621-1675) and Jacob
van Ruisdael mean that man does not lose himself in nature. 68 There is ‘no attempt at a
glorification or deification of nature as something beyond man’s scope or control.’ 69 Yet this idea
seems to oppose the song Droeve Gheests’ vermaeck and many other writings from the seventeenthcentury. If the idea of the presence of God in the landscape was expressed in many writings, it
could also have been expressed in art. Therefore there is a sense of man losing himself in nature,
because man has no power over nature. Instead, nature overpowers man because man cannot
comprehend the power of God that is expressed through the landscape.
Modern critics on Dutch landscape painting
Modern critics have other views on Dutch landscape painting than their predessessors. Emphasis is
now laid on the use of symbolism or emblems. Nevertheless, Seymour Slive has noted about
landscape painters from Ruisdael’s days that ‘they painted the world for its own sake more
frequently than they used it for allegorical and moral significance.’ 70 The seventeenth-century
painter enjoyed painting, combining colors, playing with light and deceiving the viewer. 71 This,
at first glance seems similar to what Stechow thinks Dutch landscape painters did, but to Slive this
‘painting for fun’ does not mean their paintings are without any content. There are many art
historians who read symbolic or emblematic meanings in Ruisdael’s paintings. In 1971 Wilfried
Wiegand saw Ruisdael’s Jewish cemetery and his waterfalls and ruined castles as vanitas-symbols,
while the bleaching fields were interpreted as symbols of a pure and devout soul. 72 Hans Kauffman
wrote six years later about Ruisdael’s paintings as containing different thoughts and also
producing different thoughts with the viewer. Certain motifs, like for instance a mill had a
common meaning every seventeenth century viewer understood, but could still contain a different
moral significance. 73 Ruisdael’s Windmill at Wijk bij Duurstede (c. 1670) [fig. 20] for instance, was
68
Stechow 1966: 8.
Stechow 1966: 8.
70
Slive 1962: 500.
71
Slive 1962: 500.
72
Bakker 2003: 197.
73
Bakker 2003: 198.
69
24
seen as a reference to Christ on the cross. 74 Hans Joachim Raupp, writing in 1980, saw landscapes
as not a mere imitation of the everyday object but a form of ‘rhetoric realism’ that worked in the
service of the ‘emblematic’. Landscapes were a sort of puzzle for the viewer who could pick out
the different objects painted and attach a commonly known meaning to them. This means that,
because of the motifs Ruisdael painted like tombstones and ruins, many of his paintings were seen
as forms of vanitas-symbolism. 75 The same goes for Joshua Bruyn’s interpretation in which he saw
Ruisdael’s paintings as containing a message hidden in the form of a realistic looking landscape. 76
John Walford wrote in 1991 about landscapes such as Ruisdael’s as a source of religious
contemplation. As images ‘reflecting the fact that the visible world was essentially perceived as
manifesting inherent spiritual significance’. 77 This notion seems more in tune with writings like
the Droeve Gheests’ vermaeck and Den Schepper Verheerlijckt in de schepselen because he sees that the
divine power of God was indeed perceived by Dutch seventeenth century artists when they looked
at the world.
It has been claimed by Bengtsson, Alpers and other art historians that there was a desire for
‘recognizable experiences’ in the seventeenth-century Netherlands. The landscapes of, for instance
Esaias van de Velde were ‘unprejudiced descriptions of reality reproduced without squeezing it
into preconceived patterns of form,’ as Bengtsson describes it. 78 This was seeying the world ‘as it
is’. According to Alpers and Bengtsson this had all to do with the new Humanistic trend in Dutch
culture that was ‘Erasmian, rationalistic and denying revelation.’ 79 According to them the Dutch
would not try to conjure up a sublime experience through their artworks because they perceived
the world ‘as it is’ and did not try to depict it any way else. Dutch seventeenth century artists were
rationalistic. This seems to be a difficult statement because it would mean that painters also did not
try to conjure up an emotion in the viewer.
Slive seems to disagree with Bengtsson and Alpers. He sees a break in the Dutch
seventeenth-century landscape painting between an anthropocentric tradition to the dominance of
nature over the human figure, and to the development of better formal organization, more
74
Becker 2002: 145.
Bakker 2003: 198.
76
Bakker 2003: 198.
77
Walford 1991: 29.
78
Bengtsson, Åke. ‘The rise of landscape painting in Holland’ Figura 3 (1952): pp. 1-80: 27. Also cited in Walford
1991: 15.
79
Walford 1991: 15, 16.
75
25
expressive ‘atmospheric life and impressive spaciousness’. 80 The landscapes of the ‘mature period’
as Slive calls it (around 1650), were of such an expressive organization, depth of feeling before
nature and pictorial beauty that they could not be called mere imitations of nature. They had some
sort of ideal content. 81
Ruisdael was a very varied landscape painter. His paintings have been viewed by critics and
art historians in many different ways. They were seen as either mirrors of nature, un-idealized, or,
they otherwise held symbolic or emblematic meanings. They could either have been painted for
the sheer joy of painting or for the need to have a ‘recognizable experience’. This seems to be the
way Dutch painting has always been looked upon. Never has it been considered that Ruisdael’s
painting were able to conjure up some sort of sublime experience. This is something that goes
beyond seeing hidden meanings in his paintings, this is about appealing to the viewer’s imagination
and feelings. This is a form of attacking the viewer’s feelings because the sublime is such a strong
emotion it could be experienced as a attack of some sort. In Dutch seventeenth-century art theory
there lay a great emphasis on the depiction of emotion and the transfer of this emotion onto the
viewer. There was also great emphasis on depicting the ‘ungraspable’, something like the power of
God for instance. It seems that past art historians have always overlooked this fact. How did
Ruisdael depict his landscapes and was there really something special about them that previous art
historians simply failed to see?
80
Rosenberg, Jakob & Seymour Slive. Dutch Art and Architecture: 1600 to 1800. Harmondsworth [etc.]: Penguin Books,
1966: 168. Also cited in Walford 1991: 16.
81
Rosenberg, Jakob & Seymour Slive. Dutch Art and Architecture: 1600 to 1800. Harmondsworth [etc.]: Penguin Books,
1966: 168. Also cited in Walford 1991: 16.
26
CHAPTER 3
The works of Jacob van Ruisdael
Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael is probably the most famous landscape painter from the
Netherlands. His Windmill at Wijk-bij-Duurstede (c. 1670) [fig. 21] is the second best sold postcard
in Dutch museums. Only Vermeer’s View of Delft (1660-61) and Rembrandt’s Nightwatch (1642)
surpass it. 82 The few paintings made by Ruisdael that hang in Dutch museums can only show a
very small portion of his extremely large and varied oeuvre. From 1646/47, when he started
painting, to the moment of his death in 1682 he painted almost seven hundred paintings, made at
least 130 drawings and etched thirteen etchings. 83 His way of depicting these subjects varies from
decade to decade but there was always something special about his paintings. 84
Ruisdael already had quite the number of paintings on his name when he joined the guild in
1648.The painting that is considered to have been his very first, The forest road (1646) [fig. 8] shows
a small path surrounded by dense trees and shrubs. It is a very interesting example of a work by a
young, searching painter. The composition is still very crowded and the colors are tonal. Yet there
is something about the nature closing in on the viewer. It is all around the viewer but in the
distance an opening in the dense shrubs and trees can be seen. This painting emanates a sort of
feeling, a feeling of being trapped in the forest with trees and shrubs closing in on the viewer, but
he is close to escaping it, very close. Already by 1646 Ruisdael was capable of arousing an emotion
in the viewer.
Also in 1646 Ruisdael made a painting which seems very different. In Landscape with village in
the distance [fig. 9] There is a wide open view with a large, dark tree on the right and a spacious
field on the left. There is also much more contrast and color. While landscape painters before
Ruisdael usually depicted their landscapes in full, overall light, Ruisdael was daring enough to
paint the large tree in very dark colors, making it practically a silhouette. The tree not only dwarfs
the small man but dominates the entire painting. Next to making the foreground in the right
82
Slive 1981: 13.
Donahue Kuretsky 2005: 169.
84
Slive 2005: 6.
83
27
corner of the painting very dark, Ruisdael also added dark clouds on the left. The basic elements in
the painting are the large scale of the depicted nature, the use of light and dark and the resting or
calm, contemplative looking figures. Some things in this painting are not explained to the viewer.
For instance, the viewer cannot be certain whether it is morning or evening. It is also unclear what
the field precisely is. Are those sandy dunes, or some sort of grassland? These unexplained notions
make the viewer look longer at the painting and wonder. He will start to fill in this lost
information in his mind. For Ruisdael it clearly did not matter how this painting was interpreted.
If he wanted to have the viewer to believe it was morning or that it is a landscape of dunes he
would have given the viewer more clues. Instead, he just leaves that to the viewer himself to fill in.
The depicted scene is very calm and contemplative. There is a sort of relaxedness emanating
from the painting. The orange light and the relaxed looking figures help to support this idea. Still,
there are darkening clouds in the distance. This calm weather might not last. All these motifs, the
questions that arise and the calm feeling the painting emanates make it a really contemplative work
of art. The viewer can stand in front of the painting for a long time just looking and wondering
over the scene while new ideas or images will just pop up in his mind. The painting appeals to the
viewer’s imagination to finish the story.
Up until 1650 Ruisdael made numerous paintings of landscapes that often feature a single
tree that stands out in the middle of the picture plane. Mostly, a part of the painting – often the
lower right corner – is hidden in dark shadows, whereas a small part of the painting is in full light,
like a spotlight was cast on it. The painting of a View of Egmond-on-the-Sea (1648) [fig. 10] shows a
withered elm tree on the left and a village and large church tower just right of the centre of
painting. Here there are no real dark shadows in this painting, but now a practically dead tree
dominates the picture. Here the lifelessness of the tree, its size and prominent place in the picture
all add to a certain drama. Yet, the idea death depicted here cannot really be so dramatic because
the sun is shining and the people on the road look busy and full of life and the city is something
lively and so forth. There is a strong ambiguity between the bare tree surrounded by all the
evidences of life. The tree is not entirely dead as new leaves are sprouting from it. It is actually
regaining life! A man wading through the water in the foreground seems to notice this as he looks
up at the tree. Nevertheless, the tree is bare and lifeless. The town with its oversized church tower
contrasts the almost dead tree. In the city there is lots of life, lots of people buzzing about. The tree
on the other hand seems dead and lonely. Death and life seem to form the biggest contrast in this
painting. Both are things in itself that cannot be comprehended. Hence, the fact that the dead tree
28
so close to the buzzing city seems awkward, especially the emphasis that is laid on the dead tree
seems strange. It is a bit disconcerting. Something almost like a memento mori. It arouses a sort of
fear for death. Death is something incomprehensible because one cannot imagine that that will be a
day when he is simply not there anymore. Again this painting appeals to the viewer’s imagination,
something that was so vitally important for the experience of the sublime.
In 1650 Ruisdael travelled to Bentheim in Germany where he saw Bentheim Castle, a motif
he painted several times. The castle is always situated on a large hill and often depicted bathed in
sunlight. It gives the castle a Godlike presence. This is the decade in which Ruisdael, aged twentytwo to thirty-two, painted his most ‘dramatic’ landscapes with lots of chiaroscuro. This might be
the period Gerson referred to as Ruisdael’s ‘heroic style’. During this decade Ruisdael’s works
show spatial clarity, strong colors, energetic brushwork, and a lot of detail. 85 Nature is out of
man’s control. Hilly landscape with large oak (1652-55) [fig. 11] shows an extremely large and old
oak tree in a hilly landscape. The woman resting under the tree is so small and insignificant
compared to the large tree behind her that it is nearly disconcerting to look at. She seems to lost in
thoughts with her head resting on her hand. The landscape is partially covered in shadows caused
by the dark clouds floating overhead. The tree is much bigger than in the Landscape with village in
the distance from 1646 and much more intricate. Now the tree isn’t a silhouette but a beautiful
balance between light and dark spots. The bark is very intricately depicted, as are the branches and
leaves. The sun falls on the bark and the leaves in the top giving them an orange glow. The rest of
the leaves are a mixture of different hues of green. The realism of the tree is stunning. One of the
rare qualities of Ruisdael’s works is that he depicted nature incredibly accurate. Peter Ashton,
Professor of Forestry at Harvard University, was able to recognize numerous species of trees and
shrubs in many of Ruisdael’s paintings. 86 Clearly Ruisdael paid a lot of attention to depicting his
nature very accurately even though the settings are often a fantasy. It however makes the paintings
all the more realistic and convincing. Even though the tree might seem realistic, its size and
luxuriant branches makes it look out of this world. Also the clouds here are much darker than in
his previous paintings. The threat of rain is really tangible in the air as the clouds cast a heavy
darkness over the lands. The sun falls through the clouds at some places creating planes of light like
the one visible in the left foreground, just behind the plane of shadow. The road on the left is also
emphasized by the light falling on it, again depicting small and insignificant figures. Their
85
86
Slive 2005: 5.
Slive 2005: 4.
29
highlighted positions emphasize their smallness compared to the large nature around them. There
is something about the intricately depicted oak that is hard to grasp. Its branches look forked,
similar to how lightning looks. Is it foretelling a storm, or symbolizing a storm? Has a storm
blown over these lands recently destroying the church tower, as it seems not to have one? Again
questions relating to the interpretation of the painting arise. It is not a normal landscape, a pastoral
scene of a woman resting under a large tree. It is a landscape that is telling a story. It is a story that
the viewer can finish in his mind. The viewer, however will never know the one true
interpretation of the scene since Ruisdael never gives any hint to this interpretation. It also seems
like it is not a problem that there is no one true meaning in this. The viewer might feel uneasy
because of this, but he will also be able to go back to look at the painting over and over again
because it keeps being interesting. It keeps telling stories to the viewer he makes up himself. Not
telling the whole story and depicting something ‘ungraspable’ are means of creating a sublime
work as mentioned in chapter one.
Ruisdael moved to Amsterdam in 1656-57. From this time on he began to paint waterfalls
and rushing torrents inspired by the work of Allart van Everdingen, a painter who also moved
from Haarlem to Amsterdam during these years. There are no records proving Ruisdael ever went
to Scandinavia to see the waterfalls. 87 Allart van Everdingen did so however in 1644. When he
returned to Haarlem in 1645 he started making paintings of what he had seen during his travels.
Ruisdael owed a great deal to these paintings. Waterfalls and rushing torrents display a great force
of nature. It is a force of nature that a viewer cannot comprehend. Ruisdael might have found this
incomprehensibleness that is found in waterfalls very intriguing and might have tried to
specifically portray this ungraspable nature. He namely painted over 150 waterfalls, which is a
very significant part of his oeuvre.
In the 1660s Ruisdael appears to have mixed his domestic landscapes from the 1640s with
his fantasy landscapes from the 1650s. His landscapes became richer in color, more brilliantly
illuminated and less heavy than the works he had made in the previous decade. 88 It all seems less
crowded and more balanced, as if Ruisdael had calmed down after having a huge surge of
emotions. These new works are of a contemplative nature. The woods however are still dark and
the trees still massively impressive, as seen in Edge of a forest with a grain field (1660s) [fig. 12]. Large
trees cast dark shadows in the forest on the left, while the right part of the painting seems open and
87
88
Slive 2005: 8.
Walford 1991: 120.
30
spacious as if the viewer looks onto the fields in the distance. The little see-through hole between
the trees, in the centre of the painting, something that was referred to as a ‘doorkijkje’ in
seventeenth century Dutch art theory, opens up the forest and prevents that part of the painting
from becoming too dense and too dark. The sheep and shepherd are still small and insignificant
compared to the large tree; nature still dominates over anything human or animal.
In the 1670s Ruisdael’s landscapes started to look more calm and pastoral, yet they still held
a certain grandeur but now depicted in another way. One of the most intriguing landscapes of this
decade is the Winter landscape with lamp-post (1670s) [fig. 13]. Slender trees flank a white snowcovered path with two figures in the foreground and four in the background. Dark clouds fill the
sky making it hard to tell if its night or day. In the far distance the silhouette of a church can be
seen. But what strikes most of all is the lamp post just left from the centre of the painting. The
lamp-post was a new phenomenon introduced by Jan van der Heyden (1637-1712) in 1669. 89
Ruisdael placed it in the center, the place where he used to paint his trees back in the 1640s. A tree
in a landscape seems a normal thing but to place a lamppost there? A lamppost was a new concept
and it was something that by this time probably was not found standing lonely in the middle of
nowhere, as the city seems to be quite far off. Still, it does not bother the viewer. The viewer will
not perceive the lamppost and unrealistic there in the landscape. Still it does raise question, making
the painting all the more interesting. Next to having interesting formal qualities, the painting also
has a heavy melancholic feeling emanating from it. Instead of the large trees he depicted in his
previous years one can now feel coldness emanating from a painting, or the impression of wind
blowing. The ‘ungraspable’ nature many of his paintings have is also present here. It is hard to tell
what the viewer is actually looking at, and how this should be interpreted. There is something
even more incomprehensible about his later works. He manages to capture precisely the
ungraspable aspect of the sublime in the Winter landscape: the feeling of extreme cold.
Inspiration
When the young Ruisdael painted his first series of landscapes in 1646 at the age of seventeen,
motifs as dark woods and rough seas, etcetera, were already fully acknowledged in landscape
89
Walford 1991: 182.
31
painting. 90 There was a lot of competition and the market was showing signs of saturation. 91 If a
painter wanted to stand out of the crowd he would have to think of something new. This seems
exactly what Ruisdael attempted when he painted his landscapes: to give them just that extra
special touch, to make them extraordinary. Before Ruisdael came on the scene, landscapes were
often overall lighted, like sixteenth century landscapes, tonal, like the landscapes of Salomon van
Ruysdael or Italian idealistic like the landscapes of Aelbert Cuyp. However original Ruisdael may
have been, he was still strongly inspired by painters such as Jan Porcellis, Cornelis Vroom and
Allart van Everdingen. Especially the latter had a strong influence on Ruisdael.
It cannot be said with certainty that Ruisdael never saw a waterfall in real life. However, it
can be said with certainty that the waterfalls he did paint are in debt to those painted by Allart van
Everdingen. One of Van Everdingen’s paintings is the Landscape with waterfall (1648) [fig. 14]. Half
of the painting is dominated by a large waterfall rushing down a rock formation. At the bottom
are three goats resting on the bedding. A man sits on a tree trunk in the bottom right, looking at
the waterfall and contemplating the scene. The painting shows similarities with many of
Ruisdael’s waterfalls like for instance the Waterfall in a mountainous Northern landscape (1665) [fig.
15]. Ruisdael mostly let the waterfall dominate the foreground of the painting, and then in the rest
of the picture plane he showed rock formations, houses, forests and trees. Van Everdingen’s
paintings have that special ungraspable feeling that many of Ruisdael’s paintings have. There is a
lot of contrast between lighter and darker parts, there are dark, very realistic looking clouds, the
scale of the waterfall is huge and there is a lot of force emanating from it. There is also a notion of
time passing, seen in the form of the dead trees. Both painters seemed to have made use of these
motifs. Van Everdingen might be one of Ruisdael’s great sources of inspiration because in some of
his works Ruisdael might experiences something similar to the feeling aroused by the sublime.
Another painter who used specific motifs as described above is Rembrandt.
Rembrandt painted a set of landscapes that seem to be as incomprehensible as some of
Ruisdael’s landscapes. His Landscape with a stone bridge (c. 1638) [fig. 16] shows a river with two
boats and a small bridge that crosses it. Behind the bridge are some tall trees that are highlighted by
the sunlight as it falls onto it in the form of a spotlight. This makes the trees glow like they
emanate light themselves. The sky is very dark and turbulent, as if it is about to rain and thunder,
or that severe weather has just gone past. This use of chiaroscuro is something Ruisdael also often
90
91
Biesboer 2002: 17.
Biesboer 2002: 17.
32
applied to his landscapes: a beam of sunlight falls onto an object and highlights it. The viewer
becomes aware that there is a strong force in those lighted trees, the force of nature, or perhaps
even the force of God as the divine creator.
Ruisdael’s landscapes have often been compared to those made by Rembrandt. About
Ruisdael’s Village street (17th century) [fig. 17] Wolfgang Stechow wrote the following:
There is nothing comparable with this in Dutch seventeenth-century landscapes; and outside
of landscapes, only the deep gloom that spreads over a religious tragedy through the magic of
Rembrandt’s chiaroscuro comes to mind. I do not doubt that in spite of all technical and
colouristic discrepancies, Rembrandt’s ‘synthesis of the visible’ here inspired Ruisdael: the
very fact that all outward, imitative features of such an ‘influence’ are missing, is eloquent, for
this can be expected of the fruitful relationship between two very great artists. 92
Here Stechow sees no immediate outward resemblance to both painters but another form of
similarity between the works. He speaks of gloom, religious tragedy and magic chiaroscuro, all
notions that are as ungraspable as the paintings themselves. Precisely in this nameless aspect, the
ungraspable je ne sai quoi that Stechow sees in the works of both Rembrandt and Ruisdael. Here he
claims that Ruisdael has learned how to depict this je ne sai quoi from Rembrandt.
It could be possible that Ruisdael was acquainted with the landscapes of Rembrandt. When
Ruisdael arrived in Amsterdam Rembrandt was just about to move out of his huge house in the
Breestraat because of debts. All his home content was sold and also a lot of his paintings. In the
inventory list the notary made in 1656 there is noted: ‘Een klein landschapje door Rembrandt’ (a
small landscape by Rembrandt). Next to this one, eight other landscapes by Rembrandt were sold
at the auction including landscapes of various other landscape painters (Hercules Seghers was
prominently represented). 93 It could be possible that Ruisdael saw, or maybe even bought a
landscape by Rembrandt at the auction. According to Stechow, he certainly knew about them.
With fifteen high-quality paintings at the age of sixteen Ruisdael seems to have been a
child prodigy. He painted brilliant landscapes where he played with light and dark, the size of
nature and the placing of figures. He often placed large trees right in the center of the painting, or
a large hill, waterfall or oversized version of the St. Bavo-church of Haarlem. These object catch
92
93
Stechow 1966: 97.
Roscam Abbing 2006: 48-49 enclosure I.
33
the sunlight making them stand out. Ruisdael also often depicted dark clouds in his paintings but
combined them with sunlight, or he combined dead trees with a lively town or calm water with
stormy clouds. There always seemed to be a form of ambiguity in his pictures. Next to that
Ruisdael always included tiny figures of men and women in his works. These figures are not just
walking around, they are looking at the large tree or waterfall or they are seen sitting and
thinking. They seem to be contemplating the depicted scene just as the viewer is. Ruisdael’s
paintings are very contemplative. When a viewer looks at one of his landscapes many questions
arise relating to the interpretation. It is hard to grasp what is actually going on in his landscapes, or
what is actually depicted. His landscapes ‘give much food for fresh reflection.’ Because of all the
questions the viewer can ask himself when looking at his paintings they become intriguing and
therefore ‘impossible, to resist.’ These are views expressed by Longinus on sublime literature as
cited in chapter one. They seem very applicable to Ruisdael’s works.
It seems the motifs Ruisdael, Van Everdingen and Rembrandt used in their paintings were
not specifically interpretable as symbols. Nor do they seem to refer to emblems, or ‘unprejudiced
descriptions of reality’, to nature as it is. The motifs seemed to have another goal. With these
motifs they seemed to have been trying to create a specific effect. They might have tried to arouse
a sublime experience in the viewer. Yet, using this motifs alone is not enough, as Longinus said. It
needs a divine invention of the artist to make it truly sublime. Ruisdael seemed to have been able
to show the viewer that divine invention. He seemed to able to combine specific motifs, specific
techniques of painting with this divine invention and therefore it seems he was capable of arousing
a sublime experience. According to Stechow Ruisdael’s works have that indefinable je ne sai quoi de
sublime. This is something, he claims, Ruisdael has learned from Rembrandt.
It cannot be said with certainty that Ruisdael read about ideas revolving around the
sublime, as written down by Longinus. But if these ideas were known in the seventeenth century
art world of the Netherlands it becomes plausible that Ruisdael also knew about them. Was the
notion sublime as written down by Longinus, or ideas relating to the sublime known in the
seventeenth century? And if they were, how were they used, and what elements of this notion
were emphasized?
34
CHAPTER 4
The idea of the sublime in the seventeenth century
Longinus’s treatise Peri hypsous was mainly concerned with rhetoric and literature and not with art.
According to Longinus, sublime passages were passages that excelled in the use of language, were
timeless, moving and astonishing, amongst other things. In 1554 Francesco Robortello printed the
first copy of Longinus Peri hypsous, translated into Latin. It was followed by printings in 1555 and
1569-70. 94 As soon as these copies appeared the word about Longinus’s theories on the sublime
started to spread around scientific circles in Europe. The renaissance marked a return to the antique
classical order, that is why, at the moment Longinus was rediscovered it was immediately taken
into print. Classical authors were seen as the highest authority and their ways and rules must be
reconstructed. Still, the best known notion of the sublime that exists nowadays is the notion as
formulated by Burke:
Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger; that is to say, whatever is
in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous
to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the
mind is capable of feeling. 95
This is how Edmund Burke saw the sublime, as written down in his A philosophical enquiry into the
origin of our ideas of the sublime and the beautiful (1756-57). Burke here lies the emphasis on the feeling
of terror that is created by the sublime.
The sublime as an experience has been placed into different categories – classical, romantic
or natural – in later times (after Burke). In each of these categories the use of the sublime was
different. The classical sublime was a literary concept like how Longinus described it, the romantic
sublime was aimed at ‘expressing the inexpressible’ in painting and poetry and the natural sublime
was focused on the feeling of terror mixed with joy that could be aroused when looking at a
94
95
Longinus 2000: 103.
Burke 1998: 86.
35
landscape. 96 These categories did however not exist in the seventeenth century. Also the term
‘sublime’ was not widely used. It was not until Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux introduced the term in
1674, that it began to be used in literature. Up until 1674 aspects of Longinus’s notion of the
sublime were picked out of his book and used in many different ways. How was Longinus’s notion
of the sublime used in seventeenth century Dutch art theory? Which elements were most
highlighted and found most important?
Alberti (1435)
Amongst other works, Leon Battista Alberti also wrote a treatise on painting (Della pittura from
1435). Herein he ordered painters to depict a ‘spectator’ in their painting. This spectator could
serve to direct the view and emotions of the real spectator to a specific point in the painting or
could make an attempt at challenging the viewer. This could be done by depicting the painted
spectator with a fierce expression and ominous look in their eyes. 97
So here the depicted spectator also played the role of director of the emotions of the real
viewer. Already in 1435 a painted work was not considered to be complete when it did not
summon up an emotion of some sort. It seemed to be even more successful when it summoned up
a strong and fierce emotion. This seems similar to Longinus’s second of his five sources of the
sublime: the depiction of fierce, impassioned emotion. Ruisdael seemed to have made use of
Alberti’s advice. He often included a tiny man or woman in the painting who is looking at the
most prominent object viz. a tree, waterfall, ruin, etcetera. This figure can be seen looking lost in
thought, contemplating the scene. The viewer should follow its example and should also take his
time to contemplate the scene.
Michelangelo (1508-12)
In 1508 Michelangelo – not altogether happy with the assignment – started painting the ceiling of
the Sistine Chapel. By august 15, 1510 the eastern part of the chapel ceiling was ready to be
shown. Amongst the spectators in the crowd was the young Raphael (1483-1520) who was by
then working on the walls of the Stanza della Segnatura. He, like all the other spectators in the
96
97
Cronk 2002: 90 and 173, 174.
Alberti, Leon Battista. On painting. London: Penguin, 1991: 77-78. Also cited in: King 2005: 340.
36
crowd was amazed by the splendor of the ‘new way of painting’ on the ceiling. 98 The figures on
the ceiling were depicted with such a graceful force that they seemed to have come from classical
antiquity itself. The muscled ignudi had a sense of the dark, the powerful and the rough that was
overwhelming. He also depicted many biblical scenes in a unique and new way, never seen before.
Longinus’s point on the fierce emotion, but also the power to conjure up great thoughts is shown
here. Next to that Michelangelo used the right depiction of forms, since his ignudi were like
antique sculptures, a virtue in those days. The Sistine Chapel ceiling is also very full. The viewer
will not know where to look and it is impossible to see at first glance what all the scenes on the
ceiling mean. It will leave the viewer looking and thinking it all over for hours. He will see new
things each time he looks at it. He cannot resist looking and the memory of it will remain with
him long after he left the building. Again, something Longinus saw as important aspects of the
sublime.
On the other hand, Raphael’s figures on the walls of the rooms only a short walk from the
Sistine Chapel displayed an evenness, refined elegance, softness of color and gracious movement. It
is a great pleasure to look at his works but they do not leave the viewer thinking. Everything is
arranged in such an harmonious way with even lighting and a balanced composition that is
becomes immediately clear what the viewer is looking at. Raphael’s works are more akin to the
beautiful instead of the sublime. 99 When military genius Alfonso d’Este (1476-1534) returned to
Rome in 1512 to ask absolution from the pope he was greatly impressed by the chapel ceiling. He
showed no interest whatsoever in the works of Raphael viewable just around the corner.
The sublime arouses strong emotions that the beautiful just will not conjure. The beautiful
works of Raphael makes the viewer feel comfortably at ease. It is easy to understand and the mind
does not feel like it has to try hard. In simple terms: it has a ‘lazy’ factor. The sublime ceiling of
Michelangelo makes the viewer stand in awe, he is unable to move and feels goose bumps all over
his body. The viewer will not know what to think, where to look or what to do. It is hard to grasp
the depicted scenes as there are so many of them. This is precisely what the spectators felt that
morning in 1510 when they looked at the ceiling, and even then, only half of it was finished! It is
what they called: ‘the new way of painting’. This was in no way like the paintings they had seen
before, the beautiful, soft and balanced works of painters like Ghirlandaio and Botticelli. This was
98
Condivi, Ascanio. The life of Michelangelo. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999: 57. Also cited
in King 2005: 265.
99
King 2005: 269-270.
37
new; this aroused strong emotions. This is why d’Este liked the ceiling, it is so very intriguing,
ungraspable and incomprehensible. Michelangelo’s ceiling is one of the first real sublime works of
art. “His contemporaries regarded him with awe, and the word terribilità, which may be translated
as 'frightening power', was often applied to his work.” 100 This short citation from The Oxford
dictionary of art demonstrates that Michelangelo’s contemporaries really thought his works
exhibited the sublime. They experienced a form of fear mixed with admiration and awe when they
looked at the Sistine Chapel ceiling. 101
Karel van Mander (1604)
He even painted things that cannot be represented in pictures — thunder, lightning and
thunderbolts, the pictures known respectively under the Greek titles of Bronte, Astrape and
Ceraunobolia. 102
Here Pliny the Elder (23-79) talked about the fabulous talent of Apelles to even paint the unpaintable like thunder and lightning. About 1530 years later Karel van Mander, clearly citing
Pliny, also mentioned Apelles’s talent to paint practically unpaintable natural phenomena in his
Schilder-boeck (1604):
Nu maeckt my t’bedencken somtijts verwondert, Hoe soo gheblixemt hebben en ghedondert
Appellis verwen, wesende soo weynich, Daer wyder nu hebben seer veel en reynich,
Bequamer t’uytbeelden soo vreemde dinghen, Hoe comt ons lust tot naevolgh oock niet
dringhen?
13. Laet somtijts dan rasende golven vochtich naebootsen, beroert door Eolus boden, Swarte
donders wercken, leelijck ghedrochtich, En cromme blixems, door een doncker-lochtich
Stormich onweder, comende ghevloden uit de handt van den oppersten der Goden, Dat de
sterflijcke Siel-draghende dieren Al schijnen te vreesen door sulck bestieren.
100
Chilvers 2004: 465.
Chilvers 2004: 465.
102
Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Vol. 9. London: Harvard University Press, 1961: 333. Also cited in Cronk 2002:
90.
101
38
14. Met verwe moetmen oock wesen beproevich, Te maken snee, haghel, en reghen-vlaghen,
Hijssel, rijm, en smoorende misten droevich, Al welcke dinghen sullen zijn behoevich,
T’uytbeelden (...) 103
Van Mander encouraged painters to do the same as Apelles did. If the ancients could depict
thunder using only a few colors, modern day painters should be able to depict all sorts of natural
phenomena like raging seas, snow, rain, hail, ice and mist. If a painter really wanted to distinguish
himself as a master painter he should paint ‘the invisible’ like sound, something that was also seen
as important in rhetorical theory: 104
Wort hier Echo, en bootst naer, o Pinceelen, Oock t’waters ghedruysch, dat af comt
ghebortelt, Al rasende tusschen steenen ghemortelt. 105
The sound of waterfalls was something for which Arnold Houbraken (1660-1719) greatly praised
Ruisdael in his De groote schouburgh der Neder lantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (1718-21):
Hy schilderde inlandsche en buitenlandsche landgezigten, maar inzonderheid zulke, daar men
‘t water van d’een op de andere Rots, ziet neder storten, eindelyk met geruis (waar op zyn
naam schynt te zinspeelen) in en door de dalen, of laagtens zig verspreid: en wist de
sprenkelingen, of het schuimende water door het geweldig geklets op de rotsen, zoo
natuurlyk dun en klaardoorschynende te verbeelden, dat het niet anders dan natuurlyk water
scheen te wezen. 106
This was written long after Ruisdael had died, but clearly Houbraken thought Ruisdael was
capable of depicting sound. A closer look at paintings like Winter landscape with lamp-post [fig. 13]
shows that Ruisdael was capable of depicting something like ‘coldness’ in his paintings. He was
surely capable of depicting he elements of nature in such a way that the viewer is truly
experiencing how it must feel to be out there in the cold.
103
Van Mander 1969: fol. 35r, fol. 35v.
Van Mander 1969: fol. 35v.
105
Van Mander 1969: fol. 37r.
106
Houbraken 1976: 65, 66
104
39
Another important aspect of Van Mander’s Schilder-boeck is that he was very much
concerned with the emotions of the painter himself. Waterfalls can make a painter feel
melancholic, and therefore a painter must turn to painting the dense forests to rid himself of his sad
feelings. 107 It is almost as if Van Mander had wanted to say that, to express a certain emotion in a
painting, a painter must experience this emotion himself. If the experienced emotion is then
depicted in the right way, the viewer will also experience this emotion when looking at the work
of art. This is similar to Longinus’s idea when he mentions the emotions of the writer as vitally
important for the work he writes. The writer must have strong and impassioned emotions, only
then will he be able to put these emotions into his works and transmit them onto the reader. 108
Van Mander tries to say the same. The viewer must really feel what the painter feels. Having
strong emotions as a painter is a necessity for creating sublime art, is what can be concluded from
Van Manders words. Maybe that is why Michelangelo, who was known to be an extreme
melancholic made such sublime artworks…
Franciscus Junius (1641)
In De Schilderkonst der oude (1641) Franciscus Junius tried to reconstruct classical art theories. Since
no art theories from the ancient world had survived he used the rhetorical views of Cicero,
Quintilianus and even Longinus and applied those on art. Because rhetorical theories are used, the
aim of the painter becomes to create a relationship between the artist and the viewer (like the
speaker to the audience). 109 Junius used Longinus’s theory to conform it to his needs as a guideline
for painters.
To the end then that we should not mistake, it is worth our labour to observe out of
Longinus an infallible marke of true magnificence. ‘That is great indeed’, sayth he, ‘which
doth still returne into our thoughts, which we can hardly or rather not at all put out of our
minde, but the memorie of it sticketh close in us and will not be rubbed out: esteeme that
also to be a most excellent and true magnificence, which is liked alwayes and by all men:
for when all such men as differ in their studies, course of life, purposes, and ages, doe all
107
Van Mander 1969: fol. 37r.
Longinus 2000: 14.
109
Weststeijn 2008: 17.
108
40
agree in their opinion about one and the same thing, the judgement and approbation of so
many diversly minded folks, must needs gain a constant and certaine estimation of the
thing so much admired’. 110
Here Junius cited Longinus precisely (the original by Longinus is cited in chapter one, see p. 10)
but then used Longinus’s ideas to apply them on art. Junius lay emphasis on the image that must
return in front of the viewer’s eyes over and over again. The memory of the painting is strong and
cannot be ‘rubbed out’. The work of art is always liked, and liked by all. He goes on to use
Longinus emphasizing different points in his theory:
(...) met ‘t saemen de verhevenheyd der materie, seght Quintilianus, de levendighe
vertooninghe van de voornaemste beweghinghen onses ghemoeds (...) Dat nu ons ghemoed
van stonden aen vaerdigher wordt ghemaeckt om hoogher op te steijghen soo haest naemelick
als het den grooten gheest van sulcke hemelscher verstanden met eenen hertelicken teughe
bestaet in te slorpen, blijckt uyt de volghende ghelijckenisse: Veele worden door anderer
luyden gheest niet anders gaende ghemaeckt, seght Longinus, als offe door een goddelicke
ingheesthinghe vervoert wierden. (...) Ghelijck het daerom niet en kan gheloochent worden,
dat het lesen van groote schrijvers en ‘t gheselschap van welgheoeffende verstanden de
voornaemste middelen sijn waer door ons ghemoed met allerley hooghstaetelicke ghedachten
vervult wordt; soo gaet het nochtans vast dat die Konstenaers haere wercken met eenen
overlustighen moed ende eenen dapperen gheest boven andere aenvaerden (...) sy stellen sich
de teghenwoordighe van dese edele gheesten door een levendige inbeeldinghe voor ooghen 111
Here Junius again cited Longinus. 112 Junius claimed that by closely studying master painters from
the past, a young painter can absorb some of the divine greatness of that master painter. The
young painter will have a very lively imagination and therefore his mind will be able to conjure up
great thoughts. The mind must be filled with heightened thoughts to be able to depict the
greatness, the sublime.
110
Junius 1991: 218-219.
Junius 1641: 237, 238.
112
He cites a piece from paragraph 13 wherein the Pythian prophetess inhales the vapors send by a god (the Oracle of
Delphi). In a similar manner must great master from the old days be absorbed and emulated. Longinus 2000: 44
111
41
(...) heeft ons Simonides nochtans dat selvighe vry wat aerdigher te verstaen ghegeven, als hy
naemelick ghetuycht dat de Schilderye is een swijghende Poesye; de Poesye daer en teghen is
een sprekende Schilderye. Op welck segghen Plutarchus dese woorden toe past, die dinghen,
seght hy, de welcke de Schilder-Konst vertoont als affe teghenwoordighlick gedaen wierden,
de selvighe stelt ons de spraeck-konst voor ooghen als offe langhe te vooren gheschiedt
waeren, ende ghelijck de Schilders dat met verwen afbeelden, ‘t gene de Schrijvers met
woorden uyt drucken, soo is ‘t dat sy maer alleen verschillen in de materie en maniere van
imitatie; want sy hebben alle beyde ‘t selvige oogenmerck. 113
Junius saw poetry and art as having the same objectives. The artists should therefore have the same
status as a poet has and highly esteemed classical rhetorical theories should also be directly
applicable on art. The idea that rhetorical theory was applied to art in the seventeenth century
seems to be missing from many art historical treatises on Dutch seventeenth century art. It seems
that art historians like Gerson and Stechow touch the subject giving it the label ‘romantic’ but they
never seem to actually connect classical theories with the works of art. Therefore they call it
romantic while it might actually be connected to theories about the sublime. It seems as is Gerson
and Stechow were unaware of the possibility to connect theories about the sublime with works of
art. Maybe they still connected the sublime to the nineteenth century, or maybe they have never
considered the importance of art theoretical books as an addition to the teachings of a young
painter. Art theoretical treatises like those by Junius are full of rhetorical theory applied to art.
They seem to be an important source to consider when looking at Dutch seventeenth century art.
Junius mentioned Longinus often in his book. He used Longinus to illustrate the dangers of
overworking passages too meticulously. 114 Longinus was also used when Junius wrote on the
importance of coupling technique with a natural born talent (the divine invention): “even as
Dionysius Longinus maintaineth that ‘the perfection consisteth in a mutuall coherence of these
two’.” 115 In another passage Junius wrote: “Art is then perfect’, sayth Dionysius Longinus, ‘when
shee seemeth to be Nature’.” 116 Art is perfect when it appears to the viewer as being perfectly
natural. When Ruisdael adds hills to Egmond or places a lamp post in a landscape it does not seem
113
Junius 1641: 42. Also cited in Weststeijn 2008: 124
Junius 1991: 286 n. 14.
115
Junius 1991: 287.
116
Junius 1991: 270.
114
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unnatural. He manages to make it look very logical and normal to the viewer. He makes it seem to
be natural.
Junius also wrote about the importance of single parts of a composition that should work
together perfectly to form a harmonious whole. “‘for one of the members being cut away from the
rest and alone by it selfe, hath nothing that any man should esteeme; but all of them mutually
together doe accomplish a perfect systeme, being by their communion made into a bodie, and
thereto inclosed all about with the band of Harmony’, as Dionys. Longinus speaketh.” 117 This would
be applicable on Ruisdael’s Jewish cemetery where some parts of the painting could be seen as
separate works. Therefore they do not work together well. Junius also mentioned a very
important aspect of the ‘heightened invention’: “the things therefore proceeding from such a vaine
minde ‘seeme rather to arise out of a tumultuous distemper of troubled and turbulent phantasies’,
sayth Longinus, ‘then to be handled after a magnificent way: and if you examine every one of these
things in a true light, what even now was terrible, shall by little and little grow contemptible.” 118
Things that were first terrible shall be contemplative. This is what happens in Ruisdael’s works.
His waterfalls are not terrible, they are contemplative. Junius continues that a mind “aspiring to
greater matters” should not fill itself with “frivolous and ridiculously swelling conceits, in stead of
a serious and haughtie Invention.” 119 Painters must not overdo it. To try to make their painting
too dramatic for instance.
“‘It is impossible that those’, sayth Longinus, who busie the thoughts and studies of their
whole life about vile and servile matters, ‘should bring forth any thing that might deserve the
admiration of all ages’”, cites Junius from Longinus.120 Peasants do not make a work of art sublime,
but contemplating farmers busy with creating heightened visions in their mind are. The lofty
makes a work sublime, not the lowly. Elsewhere the fantasy of the artists is appealed:
Yet must not the Artificers here give too much scope to their own wittes, but make with Dionysius
Longinus some difference between the Imaginations of Poets that doe intend onely "an astonished
admiration," and of Painters that have no other end but "Perspicuitie." Wherefore saith the same
author in another place, "what the Poets conceive, hath most commonly a more fabulous excellencie
117
Junius 1991: 229.
Junius 1991: 218-222.
119
Junius 1991: 218-222.
120
Junius 1991: 220.
118
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and altogether surpassing the truth; but in the phantasies of Painters, nothing is so commendable as
that there is both possibilitie and truth in them." 121
Here Junius proves that a realistic depiction of nature will not conjure up astonished admiration.
Rather, the artist’s fantasy is needed to combine different elements into a perfect whole and make
that look natural. The motifs like hills, trees, fields and ruins are still depicted as they are, but these
elements are combined to form a new landscape. Hereby the painter can carry the viewer along
and guide the viewers gaze over the painting. The painter ‘controls’ the viewer’s actions, just like
Alberti urged a painter to do. Therefore the viewer will only see what the painter wants him to
see, or will feel what the painter wants him to feel. “A certaine kinde of astonishment doth also
often hinder our Imitation; whereas nothing can disturbe the Phantasie, being once resolved to
follow undauntedly what shee undertaketh”, Junius writes. 122 Painting things as they are is
hindered by astonishment. When a painter uses his fantasy however, he is capable of astonishment
because he is then capable of combining the most lofty and amazing elements in nature, leaving
out the lowly.
Junius made extensive use of Longinus’s theory laying special emphasis on the power of the
mind of the artist, his fantasy and divine invention. Next to Longinus, Junius also used theories by
other classical authors for instance the writings of the Second Sophistic school: Philostratus (born
c. 190), Philostratus the Younger (born c. 220), Callistratus (third century AD) and Lucianus (third
century AD). Description of images played an important role in their works. Their theories about
visual representation relied heavily on the theory of rhetoric. In their ideas the viewer played an
important role in finishing the image. The painter only paints a stimulus for the imagination of the
viewer. Therefore the painter does not even need colors. The lines should be enough for the
viewer to finish it in his mind. 123 This is similar to Longinus views when he describes that Homer
and Aeschylus could enchant their audience with their language in such a way that the hearers
believed in the reality of the story and experienced the emotions as if they were their own. 124
Not only seventeenth-century theories on visual arts but also courtiers manuals describe
such virtues: to tell a story so vividly that the hearer will feel like he experienced the event
121
Junius 1991: 57-58.
Junius 1991: 25.
123
Weststeijn 2008: 133
124
Longinus 2000: 14.
122
44
himself. 125 Rhetorical theory seems to be passing through all the layers of seventeenth-century
culture in many different ways. Next to transferring the experiences and emotions onto an
audience, passions also played an important role in Junius work. 126 An experienced artist may
allow himself to be taken over by his emotions:
ja wy moeten oock somtijds de heymelicke beweghinghen van onse inwendighe herts-tochten
opvolghen, want men veeltijds ghewaer wordt dat de hitte onses beroerden gemoeds meer
daer in vermagh dan de naerstigheydt selver. 127
Painters should have a form of that heated passion when they paint. Just like Longinus describes. 128
Only then can an emotion be depicted and transferred to the viewer who, in turn shall experience
that emotion.
Samuel van Hoogstraten (1678)
In 1678 Samuel van Hoogstraten wrote his Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst; anders de
zichtbaere werelt. In his book Van Hoogstraten made use of a variety of literary, philosophical and
historical sources as well as travel accounts and quotations. He also greatly relied on the work of
Franciscus Junius. Therefore Van Hoogstraten’s book can be seen as a cross-section of general
seventeenth-century art theoretical views. 129 Van Hoogstraten also cited ancient writers, including
Longinus.
Dat is waerlijk groots, zegt Junius uit Longinus, ‘t welk ons t’elkens wederom als versch voor
d’oogen verschijnt; ‘t welk ons zwaer, of liever onmogelijk is uit den zin te stellen welkers
gedachtenisse geduerich, en als onuitwisselijk, in onze herten schijnt ingedrukt; ‘t geen alle
menschen te gelijk behaegt. Want het overeenstemmende oordeel van zoo veele verscheyden
gezintheden moet d’ aenzienlijkheyt van de waere grootsheyt nootzakelijk bekrachtigen.
Elders wil hy, dat d’ inventie niet verwaent, maer behoorlijk groots bevonden worde; niet
afbreukich’steyl, maer zachtelijk verheven; niet rokkeloos en onbezint, maer volkomentlijk
125
Weststeijn 2008: 134.
Weststeijn 2008: 207.
127
Junius 1641: 189. Also cited in Weststeijn 2008: 207.
128
Longinus 2000: 30.
129
Weststeijn 2008: 15.
126
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krachtich; niet pijnelijk droevich, maer rijpmoedich straf; niet traechelijk lankzaem, maer
stemmich bedaert; niet aelwaerdich dartel, maer heugelijk vreugdich, en zoo voort; waer
meede hy te kennen geeft , datmen den middelwech voor den besten en zekersten moet
houden. 130
Here Van Hoogstraten cited a piece from Longinus’s treatise that has already been mentioned in
chapter one [see p. 10] and above as used by Junius. Van Hoogstraten translated the term sublime
to waerlijk groots (truly great). And described it as something that is impossible to banish from one’s
mind. It appears as something fresh and new each time someone looks at it and is something that
pleases every person. The work must also show a heightened invention. But the painter must not
overdo it! He must choose a save middle way between doing too little and doing too much. Van
Hoogstraten used Junius’s citation of Longinus but he went further and added more to it, showing
that he did know and probably even read Longinus’s treatise.
Van Hoogstraten also mentioned the notion of imitation. Imitation formed an important
part of what it is to be an artist. For instance to paint a landscape was literarily to imitate the real
landscape. But imitation was never mere copying what one saw or ‘aping’ it. To paint a landscape
correctly was to capture the ‘force’ and ‘spirit’ of it. 131 Even if an artist used an existing painting or
more commonly an engraving as an example, the key was still to capture the force and spirit of it,
not just to copy the specific brushworks or lines. Van Hoogstraten claimed that only the original
art of the master painter possesses a ‘perfect force’. 132 He kept stressing the point that a painting
should express the ‘inward force’ of the original, something Van Hoogstraten referred to as the
grace of the original. 133 Grace is the quality that cannot be obtained through practice or training
but only through divine invention. 134 It is the je ne sai quoi of the artwork:
Zecker de Gratiën zijn 't, die een konststuk ten Hemel voeren: wanneer de volmaektheeden
elkandeten gelijkelijk ontmoeten: wanneer de vindinge rijk en vernuftich is, de Teykeninge vast en
zeeker, de beroeringen beweeglijk, d'omstandicheeden eygen, de schikkinge groots en gevoeglijk, de
koloreeringe natuurlijk, en het daegen en schaduwen op vaste reeden staet. 135
130
Van Hoogstraten 1969: 179. Also cited in Weststeijn 2008: 155.
Weststeijn 2008: 130, 131.
132
Weststeijn 2008: 131.
133
Weststeijn 2008: 132.
134
Weststeijn 2008: 371 n. 250.
135
Van Hoogstraten 1969: 278.
131
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Something as the ‘divine invention’ could make the work of art perfect. This is precisely what
Longinus saw as one of the necessities for making a work sublime. Here it seems Van Hoogstraten
was in debt to Longinus for his idea of grace as the untouchable aspect of a work of art that is
created by the divine invention of the artist.
Van Hoogstraten cited Junius when he mentioned Longinus. It seems possible that Van
Hoogstraten even read Longinus himself. But would this be the only source for him to learn about
the ideas of the sublime? Van Hoogstraten was, next to the writer of the Inleyding also a painter
himself. He was a pupil of Rembrandt van Rijn from 1640 to 1646. In his Inleyding Van
Hoogstraten devoted a chapter on how to depict the passions, or emotions; something that was so
vitally important in Rembrandt’s works. Next to that Van Hoogstraten gave special attention to
color and chiaroscuro. 136 Looking at Rembrandt’s oeuvre it seems like there is always this
heightened drama and grandeur in it, a form of contemplative astonishment or an awe-inspiring
form of terror, like in Michelangelo’s works.
In his days, when Rembrandt gave away a painting it was not always accepted, like for
instance the painting of The Blinding of Samson (1636) [fig. 18] which was presented to Constantijn
Huygens but sent back. 137 Why? The theme is a very harsh one, but Rembrandt also depicted it
that way, very confronting. There is a lot of movement and violence in it and it is happening right
before the viewer’s eyes. It is as if the viewer stands right in between all this violence. This arouses
a feeling of terror, yet the viewer knows he will not actually be harmed. The viewer gets a strong
impression of the pain Samson must have. It is almost tangible. Rembrandt used the idea of the
terribilità much more than Ruisdael did. Ruisdael’s works are truly great because of their
intriguing, contemplative nature. Rembrandt’s works have the terribilità Michelangelo’s works
also have: to contain a form of terror, but at the same time be awe-inspiring. It could be possible
that Van Hoogstraten is in debt to Rembrandt for some ideas relating to the way the sublime
could be depicted. This thesis is too short to describe all of Van Hoogstraten ideas that relate to
elements of the sublime but he surely seems to have used ideas that Longinus expressed in his Peri
hypsous. 138
136
Weststeijn 2008: 215.
Weststeijn 2008: 214.
138
See the book by Thijs Weststeijn: The visible world (2008) to read about the theories and sources of Van
Hoogstraten.
137
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Art theorist Willem Goeree (1635-1711) wrote in his Inleyding tot de praktyk der algemeene
schilderkunst (1704) the following:
Want den Geest kan door d’inbeeldingen van verheven stoffen, levendige en statelijke
Vertooningen in ‘t gemoed verwekken. 139
Here, emphasis is again laid on the ability of the mind to conjure up great thoughts to stir the
emotions of the viewer. It seems that this was an important focus point in seventeenth century
Dutch art theory. To arouse a strong emotions in the viewer was something that was seen as
vitally important in the work of art. Alberti urged painters to even paint a spectator in their works
so to mirror the viewers emotion and to let him contemplate the depicted scene. When
Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in 1508-12 people were completely
astonished by it. They called it ‘the new way of painting’ because, instead of painting beautiful and
graceful figures, Michelangelo depicted a terrible force, a strength and a roughness that aroused a
different sort of emotion. The way of conjuring up a sublime experience through painting was
found. This was before the rediscovery of the term and Longinus theories altogether in 1554.
Four important Dutch art theorists of the seventeenth century have been mentioned: Karel
van Mander, Franciscus Junius, Samuel van Hoogstraten and Willem Goeree. Of these five writers
only two mention the actual term ‘sublime’, the others however strongly refer to ideas relating to
the sublime. Karel van Mander urged painters to paint the invincible, the ungraspable. A painter
must also transmit his feelings onto the audience. Franciscus Junius laid emphasis on the relation
between the artists and the viewer. The mind, the emotions and the feelings of the painter must be
taken to a higher plane. Great mind, heavenly reason and divine ecstasy are words he uses to
describe the sources of the sublime. Artists with a noble mind will have a lively and heightened
imagination. With this heightened imagination painters should be able to depict heightened ideals
(the sublime).
Paintings must appear to the viewer as natural but they must not depict the world simply
‘as it is’. The painter must use his fantasy to form compositions from different elements and make
them into a perfect whole. A world as it is will not astonish the viewer but a world conducted in
the mind of the artist by means of his heightened invention and fantasy will. This means that a
139
Goeree 1704: 42.
48
painter could easily paint hills in a place where there are none because it will nevertheless seem
natural to the viewer and he will be astonished by all the beautiful elements of nature that come
together in the painting. This might be the reason Ruisdael’s painting of the Ruins at Egmond castle
would seem so natural to the viewer.
Samuel van Hoogstraten uses Junius to cite Longinus laying emphasis upon the artwork as
something that has to appear fresh and new each time it is looked at. It must be impossible to
banish from the mind and erase from the heart. It pleases all who look at it, no matter what social
class they come from and it must show a great and lofty invention, if not overdone too much.
Willem Goeree wrote about the mind of the artists as being capable of conjuring up lively and
heightened feelings and emotions in the viewer through his paintings.
One of the reoccurring notions is that a painter must transmit his own feelings onto the
viewer via his paintings. The viewer must be overwhelmed with emotion leaving him breathtaken. To be able to conjure up such an emotion in the viewer the artist must possess a noble mind
full of high ideas and inventions. Special emphasis is laid on the mind of the artist as being able to
conjure up sublime thoughts. Only a genius painter shall be able to do this. The then depicted
painting must show an image so strong that is impossible to banish from the mind. This image can
be created by combining different elements seen in nature into a harmonious whole. This is how
the seventeenth century art theorists used the notion of the sublime. Now the question remains is,
in what way Ruisdael could have made use of these notions of the sublime and, does he really
succeed in arousing a sublime experienced as described by seventeenth century Dutch art theorists?
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CHAPTER 5
Ruisdael and the ideas of the sublime
Paintings by Ruisdael that have always aroused the most astonishment in art historians and
viewers are his Landscape with the ruins of Egmond castle at Egmond aan den Hoef (1653), his waterfalls,
the Windmill at Wijk bij Duurstede (c. 1670) and his two versions of the Jewish cemetery (1654-55,
now in Detroit and 1655-60, now in Dresden). That is why some of these paintings will be
analyzed more closely.
The ruins of Egmond castle at Egmond aan den Hoef (1650-53)
The ruins of Egmond castle at Egmond aan den Hoef [fig. 19] was painted in about 1650-53. An old
looking, broken down red-brick tower and parts of broken down walls stand in a hilly green
landscape with a water pond in the foreground. To the right of the tower the small figure of a man
can be seen standing on the river bank leaning on a stick and looking at the ruined structure. The
colors used are orange-brown, blue, green and a touch of red. Concerning the composition, the
hills and the river bank form two diagonal lines towards the trees and bushes on the right. The
ruin-tower forms the centre of the painting. The light yellowish color used on the bottom and
centre of the tower makes it stand out from the darker green background. The clouds consist of
different shades of blue therefore creating lighter and darker parts. The darker parts of the clouds
form a half-circled shape around the top of the tower emphasizing it even more.
Clouds, hills, tower, water. These are the basic visible elements. Do these elements make a
painting sublime? Longinus never mentioned the use of mountains and ruins to conjure up a
sublime experience, but artists and art theorists like Da Vinci, Van Mander and Van Hoogstraten
did see these elements as containing a form of greatness. Ruisdael depicted the ruins of Egmond
castle. There were however never any mountains or hills in Egmond. Just like Junius instructed,
Ruisdael used his fantasy to add elements into this painting that were not really present at the site.
He might have specifically chosen to depict hills because this element of nature was seen as aweinspiring.
50
There is another element in this painting that is more akin to Longinus’s notion of the
sublime. Longinus saw literary passages as sublime when the reader has to fill in some of the story
for himself, finishing the story with his imagination. A writer, or painter in this instance does not
have to mention or paint everything ‘as it is’, some parts must be left for the viewer to finish.
Ruisdael’s Ruins work in the same way. The viewer can ask questions like: what has happened
here? Why is that building so broken down? Is it referring to events happened in the past? Why
are the clouds swirling? Are those really clouds? Looking closely at the picture, it even gives the
impression that the leaves of the tree on the right are moving in the wind. There is just this idea
that a lot is happening in the painting, that there is true movement in a something as static as a
landscape.
Contrast is another recurring theme in sublime literature. The ruin emanates a certain
tranquility. The water is still very calm for there are hardly any ripples visible on the surface. But
then there are the clouds, swirling violently above. Violently, like they really could suddenly emit
a bolt of lightning. Strong and violent clouds oppose the calm water. The ruin, forms a part of this
contrast. This building must have been as strong as the clouds one day but now all that is long
gone and the remains are as calm as the water in the pond.
But Hector warned the Trojans with loud cry,
To rush upon the ships, and pass the plunder by:
‘But whom elsewhere than at the ships I sight,
Death shall be his that moment. 140
This citation from Homer’s Iliad shows, according to Longinus, a great force that comes very
suddenly. It is suddenly Hector himself who urges that the ones who shall not fight shall die. This
sudden surge of emotion, like an outbreak is a very important aspect of sublime literature. The
clouds that seem like they could suddenly emit a lightning bolt or heavy rainfall have that same
intensity. The very thread is tangible and to be able to depict that in a painting is indeed genius.
In The ruins of Egmond castle at Egmond aan den Hoef Ruisdael has combined various different
elements. There is a ruin, there are hills, there is a small figure of a man, there is calm water and
there are violent clouds. Elements like the hills were not actually present on the site so he included
140
Homerus. Illiad, xv. 346-9. Also cited in Longinus 1901: 51.
51
them for some reason. Maybe it made the scene look more ‘grand’ and add that extra touch of ‘the
unknown’. They hide some of the landscape from the viewer, who will never know what lies
beyond the hills. In some form they arouse a sublime experience. Ruisdael might have included
these elements, which are not present in Egmond aan den Hoef, precisely to arouse this experience.
Next to that, the painting is not telling the viewer the whole story. What has happened
here? A seventeenth century viewer will recognize the ruin. He will see that it is Egmond castle, a
castle that was burned down in 1573 by William the Silent (1533-1584). Perhaps the clouds above
could also be interpreted as smoke, referring to the burning down of the castle. 141 The calmness of
the pond as opposed to the violent clouds shows a form of ambiguity. They are two opposites that
actually cannot be combined. There is mostly a lot of wind when such clouds are seen in the sky
and then the water in the pond would not be calm. Still, this fact is not experienced as being
unrealistic. Similar, the presence of hills in Egmond is not something that seems unrealistic. Just
like Junius mentioned when he cited Longinus, a painting must seem natural to the viewer but
must still consist of the different elements combined by the painter with the help of his fantasy.
Ruisdael seemed to have succeeded perfectly in doing this. The painting keeps conjuring up
questions that can never be answered because there does not seem to be one perfect answer for all
of this. It is a bit disconcerting, because the viewer might never find out what is going on, or what
is to make of this painting. The viewer can spend hours before the painting contemplating the
scene. The viewer will not be able to answer all the question it asks himself about the painting and
that is very unnerving. The viewer just cannot grasp what this painting is. Ruisdael did not
conjure up emotions such as happiness or sadness but rather a heightened and intellectual emotion
of not being able to grasp what is going on. Hereby Ruisdael shows his power of lively and
heightened invention as well as the power to conjure up an emotion in the viewer. Both ideas that
were mentioned by seventeenth-century art theorists.
To see what Ruisdael has done in the Egmond painting is especially striking when compared
to a painting of a similar subject by Jan Abrahamsz. van Beerstraten (1627-1666) [fig. 20]. Here the
ruins of the burned down city hall of Amsterdam are depicted. The ruin sure looks mighty
compared to the little figures of men around it, but there is little other contrast between the
building itself and its surroundings. Also the colors seem to be of an ‘even’ tint: there are no strong
contrasts between light and darker colors. If that contrast was heightened and he had enhanced the
141
This was noted by Worth Bracken when looking at the painting.
52
drama that is the breaking down or burning down of a building it would have had a greater effect
upon the viewer. What is there to tell from this painting? It is a broken down building in a citylike surrounding. A seventeenth-century viewer (from Amsterdam) will recognize the town hall
and will know what has happened. People are busy removing the wreckage. It is very clear to the
viewer what is going on in this picture. The picture is easy to understand and most importantly
easy to grasp. The viewer is not tempted to ask questions or to think about the painting, like in
Ruisdael’s Ruin. It is a beautiful painting with that ‘lazy-factor’ the beautiful always has.
Jewish Cemetery (1654-55)
Jacob van Ruisdael painted two version of the Jewish cemetery, one of which is currently in Detroit,
the other in Dresden. Both seem to be different interpretations of the same compositional theme.
The elements look different but they are composed in the exact same manner. Here the Detroit
version is explained because it is mentioned more often in art historical treatises. [fig. 6]. It is a
very unique work within the genre of landscape painting in the Netherlands in this period (the
1650s).
A set of tombstones is placed in a hilly and rocky landscape featuring some trees – one of
which is dead – a river, a rocky cliff in the distance and a broken down building which could be
the ruin of a church. There are white clouds in the distance mixed with darker clouds and a
rainbow. The colors are overall blue, grey, orange-brown, green and white. The composition is
crowded. The eye moves in a zigzag line from the river in the foreground to the white tombstone,
to the rainbow, to the lighted part of the broken down tower and then to the white clouds. Darker
places in the painting, like the clouds in the top left and the shadows below the tree on the bottom
right, balance the composition and direct the eye to the centre: the lighted part of the ruin. The
depth is enhanced by the placement of a large tree in the right foreground, but otherwise it is hard
to tell how far the viewer is removed from the rocky cliff in the centre-left of the painting.
The painting has been identified as depicting the Jewish cemetery of Beth Haim in
Oudekerk aan de Amstel by the identification of the tombstones, also mentioned in chapter two.
Again, this is not a realistic depiction of the site. It has that same great tension in it like in the Ruins
of Egmond castle. Suddenly a bolt of lightning from the sky might strike into the ruin making it fall
apart entirely, or something of the sort. Yet everything seems to hold a tension, there is nothing
53
that really appears to look ‘calm’ in this painting. Even the tombstones seem to hold some sort of
force.
Parts of the painting could be cut out of it, like for instance the tombstone, the rushing river
and the fallen dead tree in the lower left of the painting. They could form perfect little paintings
on their own. The same goes for the tombstones and the trees on the right, and the rainbow, the
rocky cliff and part of the sky on the left. This was something Junius mentioned as wrong. A
painting should have separate elements but these should work together and must always form a
whole. Trying to make it as impressive as possible, Ruisdael appears to have put too much into this
single picture. He again made use of elements that, in his days were considered to be awe-inspiring
like mountains and ruins, but he also included violent elements of nature like rushing torrents and
dead trees. There is no clear contrast in the Jewish cemetery like there is in the Egmond painting. In
the Cemetery everything has a violent feeling about it. It might be possible that Ruisdael tried to
put too much elements into one painting. On the other hand, he might have done this on purpose
in an attempt to trigger a strong emotion in the viewer. As was told by the Dutch art theorists the
viewer has to be moved. He has to feel the emotion the painter felt when he painted this scene.
Here such an emotion could be a violent and impassioned one, an unreasonable emotion that
might result in an unreasonable painting. But Dutch art theorists also warned against this. A
painter consumed by violent passion will not be able to conjure up a sublime experience in his
works. His feelings must be strong but controlled.
Still many questions arise on what this painting should be telling the viewer, yet it seems
that Ruisdael used too much elements that will only provoke sheer confusion. This is not the kind
of confusion that triggers the viewer to look better to answer his questions, but the confusion that
makes the viewer want to shake his head and walk away. The viewer is bombarded with so much
energy that the contrast between the calm and turbulent elements cannot be felt anymore. Because
of the energy the painting could be linked to the fierce and impassioned emotion, one of the
elements of Longinus’s sublime. This is something the seventeenth-century art theorist lay great
emphasis on, as was mentioned in chapter four. Therefore it could have that ‘truly greatness’ about
it as it, as described by Van Hoogstraten. It is impossible to banish from the mind and it appears
fresh and new each time it is looked at. By using all the elements seventeenth-century art theorists
described as those that should be used to create sublime art, Ruisdael created a very special and
unique painting. However it can be debated whether it really succeeds in conjuring up this sublime
experience or that Ruisdael simply overstepped himself.
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Windmill at Wijk bij Duurstede (c. 1670)
The Windmill at Wijk by Duurstede [fig. 21] is one of Ruisdael’s most famous paintings. This has
probably for a large part to do with the fact that it features a mill: a typical Dutch building. 142 It is
altogether remarkable that Ruisdael is seen as the best, and especially the most ‘Dutch’ landscape
painter while most of the time he painted waterfalls and hilly landscapes that seem much more
German than Dutch. 143 This, again testifies that Ruisdael might have added hills and waterfalls
here and there, it still seems as very natural to the viewer. In the last decade of his life Ruisdael
often chose to leave the hills, ruins and waterfalls out and just depict the ‘Dutchness’ of the Dutch
landscape.
An exceptionally large windmill can be seen standing centre-left of the painting on a slightly
sloping piece of land. In the foreground and on the left there is a pond with a small sailboat. On
the right of the mill there is a house and some other structure and on the left of the mill a large
mansion or castle can be seen. Behind the bank, just off the centre of the painting, two masts can be
seen and in the bottom left there are three small figures. The sky fills up three quarters of the
painting and consists of paint dabs in various shades of blue, grey and white forming lighter and
darker clouds. The colors used are blue, grey, brown, green and orange. The composition is
horizontal, dividing the painting into two parts. The depicted scene is concentrated on the right of
the painting, so via the bank and the two masts, the eye follows the slope upwards to the windmill,
the house and the three figures. The clouds break open and a beam of sunlight blasts through and
hits the windmill with full force. Just one side of the windmill, the roof of the house next to it and
a small part of the water in the foreground is lit, all else is hidden in the shade cast down by the
clouds. Again, just like in his The ruins of Egmond castle, the clouds seem to be swirling around in a
circle.
Study of the remaining foundations have proven that the windmill must have been at least
twenty meters high. 144 This height has been greatly emphasized by Ruisdael. The effect created by
this is that the mill becomes larger than life, giving it a divine presence. In this view, the
comparison to Christ on the cross as stated by Kauffman seems a very reasonable interpretation. At
142
Slive 2005: 122.
Brown 2002: 15. Brown mentions Ruisdael as the greatest of Dutch landscape painters.
144
Becker 2002: 145.
143
55
this point in his career, when Ruisdael was in his forties, he seemed to have changed his views
about how the sublime should be depicted. He does not use specific awe-inspiring element of
nature anymore, but used the Dutch landscape and started to depict the elements of nature that
cannot be seen. Van Mander saw it as a great virtue when a painter could paint the invisible like
sound or specific natural elements like mist. In the Windmill at Wijk by Duurstede Ruisdael used
small hints that gives the viewer the impression of wind blowing. Small white-crested waves roll
towards the bank in the foreground. Still, the reeds seem to be calm, like the wind has not reached
them yet. The sails of the small boat in the distance are up but not yet billowed: the sailors are
waiting for their sail to catch a strong gust of wind. A boat just behind it has already found that
gust and is sailing away in high speed. Ruisdael seemed to have found a new way of depicting the
sublime and now he could use the Dutch, flat landscape to depict it in. Not only did he now
depicted the invisible forces of nature, he also started to greatly enlarge specific buildings like the
mill or the St. Bavo-church of Haarlem.
By painting the sky full of clouds in different hues and shades of grey and blues, Ruisdael
made the sky look very dynamic. By dabbing the paint onto the painting lighter and darker spots
have been created next to each other. This contrast shows the shape of the clouds and sets darker
clouds off against the white clouds. Because the darker clouds are arranged in a circle the clouds
seem to be swirling. The overall blue color of the painting makes it look like it must be very cold
out there. All these elements combined with the colors used and the way it is painted all give the
impression of wind, movement and a chilly temperature. The viewer gets this strong impression
that wind is blowing but he is unsure what exactly gives him this idea. The motives mentioned
above help to enhance the idea of wind, but why does the viewer gets such a strong impression
that there is actually wind blowing? It is precisely that ungraspable aspect of this painting that
makes it sublime. Ruisdael really managed to paint the invisible. Next to that the mill that stands
so large in the landscape is very intriguing. It is a large and overpowering structure. Next to the
water – it can be a pond, a lake or even the sea – it seems more like a lighthouse, looking over the
water. It is almost as if the mill is waiting for something to come, to sum it all up, the mill can be
contemplated over for hours.
Ruisdael managed to conjure up a sublime experience in at least some of his paintings. He
started off with using awe-inspiring objects like ruins, waterfalls and hills that he placed into the
Dutch scenery as he pleased. In 1650 Ruisdael travelled to Bentheim. Seeing the mountainous
landscape there, that differs so much from that of his homeland, must have greatly inspired him
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and made it possible for him to include mountains and hills in his landscapes. It was most
important that the painter saw nature himself, and not only copied it from prints, or other
paintings. Van Mander had written that it was highly important, for a young painter to venture
out into nature as often as possible and experience it. 145 In 1650 Ruisdael experienced the German
nature which resulted in him portraying the hilly landscapes in a large portion of his paintings
even when these hills were not even present on the site he depicted, like in the Egmond-painting.
In art theories, but also in ordinary literature like the song Droeve Gheests’ vermaeck nature
was praised highly and especially some elements like mountains and rushing torrents were seen as
terrifying, but yet awe-inspiring. At this point in his career – the 1650s and 60s – Ruisdael seems
to have used these ideas to try and display greatness in his works. He also seemed to have used
ideas by art theorists like Van Mander and Junius. He combined elements using his fantasy to make
them into a perfect whole. Next to that the viewer must contemplate the scene and will never
truly find out what is going on in the painting. This shows Ruisdael’s power of sublime invention.
The artist as a sublime inventor was something that was often mentioned in art theoretical treatises
of the seventeenth century, especially Van Hoogstraten laid emphasis on this point.
In the 1670s Ruisdael returned to views of his hometown, leaving out the hills. His View of
Haarlem (1670-75) [fig. 22] for the greatest part consists of sky with swirling clouds that really
look like they are moving. Ruisdael did not need the hills here to create a sublime experience.
Now he was able to use the Haarlem landscape and add to that the invisible elements of nature. In
the 1670s Ruisdael’s works became ‘calmer’. Walford wrote about this decade as a decline in
Ruisdael’s work, but instead of a decline it could also be viewed as Ruisdael approaching the same
theme in a different manner. Instead of using objects to conjure up a sublime experience, he now
used the invisible elements of nature. When the viewer looks at Ruisdael’s works from the 1670s
he is confronted with wind blowing or cold weather or large contemplative structures standing
alone in the flat Dutch landscape. The wind is tangible but seems ungraspable. Ruisdael managed
to depict the invisible as was praised by Van Mander. Next to that, the large objects he depicted
kept the scenes contemplative. They draw the attention of the viewer and the viewer will wonder
over their size or placement in the landscape. The viewer can remain standing in front of a
145
Come let us, soon as the city gate opens, while away the time together and enlighten our minds by going to see the
beauty outside, where beaked musicians sing in the open. There we will look at many views, all of which will help us
to create a landscape either on canvas or on solid Norwegian oak panels. Come, you will – I am sure – be pleased with
the journey. Mander 1969: fol. 34v. Also cited in Brown 1986: 36.
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painting for hours, looking and asking questions about it but never getting to an answer. There is
something ungraspable in his paintings that screams to be explained but it cannot be explained.
There is always ambiguity, of violent clouds opposed to calm water, of dark clouds opposed to
sunlight and of man opposed to large trees or objects like the windmill.
One of the last works Ruisdael made was the Winter landscape with lamp-post and distant view of
Haarlem (1670s) [fig. 13]. In this painting an overpowering dark sky combined with the snowcovered landscape gives the strong impression of a really cold day. It is incredible how Ruisdael
makes the viewer feel this. The painting has this ungraspable natural element in it but is also
contemplative like the Egmond-painting. The biggest question that immediately arises when
looking at this painting is: what is that lamp-post doing there in the middle of nowhere? The town
seems to be quite far away. Why are those people even walking there so far away from their warm
homes? There is deep feeling of loneliness in this painting. So strong it is chillspining. By
combining specific elements like the lonely lamp-post, the far away town and the people walking,
together with the overall darkness of the painting the Winter landscape with lamp-post really
transmits a strong melancholic feeling of coldness and loneliness onto the viewer. It works
incredibly well, as the viewer really starts to imagine what it must be like to walk there, or even
what is must be like to be that lamp-post. Winter landscape with lamp-post is one of Ruisdael’s most
sublime works of art.
Sublime to Ruisdael
It can never be said with certainty that Ruisdael knew about the sublime as first described by
Longinus and later cited and interpreted by Junius and Van Hoogstraten. Little information is
known about his life. 146 Junius’s book was published in 1641, when Ruisdael was thirteen years
old. In artistic environments such as the guild of St. Luke, which Ruisdael joined in 1648 such
books could have been circulating. 147
The term ‘sublime’ was not in full use, but ideas strongly relating to the sublime were very
prominent in the seventeenth century. As early as 1604 when Van Mander wrote his Schilder-boeck
he included ideas that seem closely related to theories around the sublime. He described the
importance of the viewer to finish the artwork, and the importance of showing emotions through
146
147
Walford 1991: 16.
Brown 2002: 15.
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a painting. He also emphasized the point of painting the invisible. All of these are elements that can
conjure up a sublime experience. All the theories relating to the sublime come together in Van
Hoogstraten’s Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst that thereby forms a conclusion to art
theoretical ideas of the Dutch seventeenth-century art world. It has always been so vitally
important to appeal to the viewer’s emotion, even to his mental health. 148 The viewer must be
astonished. Looking at the work of art must really do something to him. Only then will the
viewer look at a painting more intensely and will he think about it. When the viewer walks away,
the image of the painting must be impossible to remove from the mind so that there is always a
desire to go back to the painting and see it again. This way looking at the painting never gets
boring. When a painter achieved that goal the painting is perfect, something that seems very
logical for a painter to try to achieve.
The thing that probably influences a painter the most are the works of his teacher. Ruisdael
is a very original painter on his own but influences by Porcellis, Vroom and Van Everdingen are
clearly visible as well. Allart van Everdingen’s works express the same sort of heightened grandeur
and drama that Ruisdael’s works have. Dark clouds fill the sky and rushing waterfalls play a
prominent role. Ruisdael probably got acquainted with Van Everdingen’s works when he moved
to Amsterdam at the age of 28-29 in 1656-57. It was also then that Ruisdael could have seen
Rembrandt’s landscapes, who also have something ‘ungraspable’ about them. These two examples,
Van Everdingen and Rembrandt, could have played a vitally important role in Ruisdael’s
perception of the landscape. Ruisdael did not just came up with the idea of the ‘truly great’ on his
own. Perhaps he did know about Rembrandt’s paintings before 1656. With a large amount of
landscape painters just in Haarlem, it could also be that his sources were closer to home. Jan van
Goyen perhaps? Philips Wouwerman? Or maybe Hercules Seghers, a painter of which Rembrandt
owned a lot of works. 149 Ruisdael had enough examples to choose from but still, most of them do
not have this unexplainable air, this ungraspable feeling about them that Ruisdael’s paintings have.
It still seems most likely that Ruisdael knew about the sublime or elements of it through literature
or that he was told about the idea of the sublime by other painters.
Ruisdael certainly was able to conjure up a sublime experience in his Ruins of Egmond castle
and his Windmill at Wijk by Duurstede. Also his View of Haarlem (1670-75) [fig. 21], View of Bentheim
148
149
Weststeijn 2008: 216.
Roscam Abbing 2006: 48-49 enclosure I.
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castle (1652-54) [fig. 23], Landscape with ruins (1665-75) [fig. 24], Winter landscape with lamp-post
(1670s) [fig. 13], and his Ships at rough sea (1655) [fig. 25] are examples of sublime paintings. There
is always a tension in these paintings that something is about to happen. In his Ships at rough sea
something is actually happening: a thunderbolt strikes from the sky. It can almost be audible, just
like the rushing of the sea. Here Ruisdael managed to depict the idea of sound which Van Mander
praised as a virtue. 150 Next to that, the extreme violence of the sea, the boats that nearly capsize
but at the same time behind the dark clouds blue and calm sky can be seen. There is often an
ambiguity in his works of contrasting elements. Ruisdael often painted little figures of men in his
paintings that seem to be looking at the large tree, ruin, castle or mill. They can be seen staring at
the object in contemplation. Hereby they model the viewer. This is something Alberti urged
painters to do, depict a onlooker that mirrors the emotion the viewer must have when looking at
the work of art. Ruisdael paintings are indeed contemplative. What is it the viewer sees? There is
no true answer. What is really depicted cannot be fully comprehended, causing a form of fear in
the viewer for not being able to understand. This, experiencing fear while standing safely in front
of a painting, is a very sublime experience. It is the ‘pleasurable shudder’. In every way, according
to the theories by Longinus, Van Mander, Junius, Van Hoogstraten and writers after them who
wrote about the sublime, Ruisdael was capable of depicting the sublime.
However, Ruisdael did not always seem to want to conjure up a sublime experience. For
instance in his 1670 Dam square in Amsterdam [fig. 26] everything relating to the sublime seems
totally absent. This painting shows a city square with one prominent building, the Weigh on the
left and a line of houses with a the church tower of the Old Church on the right. In the
foreground there are various groups of people conversing. Like a great deal of Ruisdael’s paintings
a large part of the painting consists of sky. The clouds are darker at the top of the painting and one
white cloud stands out. This is a sky that is different from most of the skies in Ruisdael’s paintings.
Usually his skies are thick with cotton cream-looking clouds in various shades of blue and grey and
swirling around. Here the clouds seem vague and fragmented. They are more separated into planes
like on a theatre stage and do not form a coherent whole like in, for instance his View of Haarlem.
There is a form of calmness and relaxedness emanating from the painting, but there are no strong
contrasts to leave the viewer thinking. It seems comparable to Van Beerstraten’s work mentioned
above as it seems very clear to the viewer what is going in. Also a painting such as The Ford (1670-
150
Van Mander 1969: fol. 35r, fol. 35v.
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82) [fig. 27] is very pastoral. It seems quite clear to the viewer what he is looking at, it does not
need contemplation. It could have been possible that these were commissioned paintings instead of
paintings made for the free market, which must have formed the majority of his oeuvre. Maybe
most people rather just looked at a ‘lovely scene’ instead of one that leaves them disconcerted
because they cannot comprehend it.
Ruisdael was never before directly connected to the sublime by any art historian. Dutch
painters painted what they saw exactly, or so critics like Félibien, De Piles and Reynolds seem to
have thought already in their time. 151 These old ideas have been discarded today in favor of the
idea of ‘keurlijke natuurlijkheid’: the picking up of elements from nature and combining them
into a desired composition. 152 Next to that it has been claimed that Ruisdael’s landscapes are full of
hidden symbolism. For instance, concerning Ruisdael’s Landscape with Bentheim castle (1651) Joshua
Bruyn wrote that the castle depicted the heavenly Jerusalem and the travelers on the road are the
pilgrims in search of it. 153 All interpretations are possible truths but they never go beyond the level
of ‘the common man must understand the paintings’. Sure, the ‘common man’, the burger was a
very important figure in the Dutch seventeenth-century world, now that the higher clergy and
nobility had fallen away. But does that mean that painters too had become ‘common men’? Art
theoretical treatises are full of philosophical ideas and citations of classical authors. Something
‘high culture’ such as rhetorical theory seems to have been common in art theoretical treatises.
And these treatises were always written by painters. It seems painters were no common men if
they understood these theories and used them in their works. Historians like Gerson and Stechow
touch the subject of the sublime, giving it the label ‘romantic’ but they never seem to actually
connect the theory of the sublime onto it. It is like they just do not consider the possibility that
painters might have used classical ideas about the sublime. Therefore they call it romantic. It seems
that the sublime is still a notion that is more commonly connected to the nineteenth century.
Maybe art historians are too much focused on the term ‘sublime’ and therefore do not see that
ideas relating to the sublime were extensively present in Dutch seventeenth century art theory.
Maybe art theoretical books like those by Junius just have not been considered important enough
by art historians. Considering those books as being important is something of recent date. Thijs
Weststeijn was one of the first to extensively study Van Hoogstraten’s Inleyding in his De Zichtbare
151
Walford 1991: 15.
Stechow 1966: 11.
153
Brown 2002: 20.
152
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Wereld: Samuel van Hoogstratens kunsttheorie en de legitimering van de schilderkunst in de zeventiende eeuw
of 2005. 154 Art theoretical treatises like those by Junius are full of rhetorical theory applied to art.
They seem to be an important source to consider when looking at Dutch seventeenth century art.
Ruisdael seems to have used theories that hold elements of the sublime in them, in his
paintings. His works seem to be directly linkable to some of Longinus’s theories but also to ideas
revolving around the sublime in Dutch seventeenth century art theories. The sublime is very
difficult to grasp and it is found only amongst the truly master painters, and not even in all their
works. This might be the reason that Ruisdael is seen as the best landscape painter the Netherlands
have known.
To assume that painters have tried to depict ideas of the sublime calls for a completely
different view of Dutch seventeenth century art. Because artworks like those made by Ruisdael
were not made for peasants and farmers. It was still art for nobility, only nobility had a different
name in the seventeenth century. Artists might have hidden symbols in their paintings but this
seems very meager considering all the theory that exists on how a painting should look and
especially what emotion it should arouse. Most painting must hold more than just hidden symbols.
In art theories great emphasis is laid on this deeper level; of the viewer that experiences a strong
emotion when looking at the painting or that the sublime invention of the artists shines through or
any other theory relating to the sublime as mentioned above. Ruisdael seemed to have constantly
made use of these art theories, therefore it would be very reasonable to call him a painter who tried
to conjure up a sublime experience in the viewer through his paintings and also to say that he truly
succeeded in doing so.
154
The book was First published in English in 2008. See Hoogstraten 2008.
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CONCLUSION
Jacob van Ruisdael made his landscapes look very different from those made by the previous
generation of landscape painters. In the sixteenth century, landscapes were often used as
backgrounds for biblical themes and were seen from a high vintage point, bathing in full light. It
was not until 1559-61 when a series of prints was published by Hieronymus Cock in Antwerp that
the style in which the landscapes were painted started to change. These prints showed an entirely
different type of landscape. The high viewpoint was abandoned and replaced with an eye-level
view. Instead of the rocky pointy cliffs and fantasy landscapes usually depicted, these prints show
scenes of everyday life: villages, cottages, fields, etcetera. These were realistic landscapes with no
form of idealization. They formed the beginning of the type of landscapes that are now known as
typically Dutch. By 1610 these scenes were painted by Dutch landscape painters such as Willem
Buytewech, Esaias van de Velde, Hercules Seghers, Jan van de Velde, Pieter de Molijn, Cornelis
Vroom and Ruisdael’s uncle Salomon van Ruysdael. They are still even lighted and painted in
grayish colors, which has led to this time period being called the ‘tonal phase’ in landscapepainting. When Ruisdael appeared on the scene in the 1640s he started to use more color in his
paintings. Next to that he gave his paintings a certain drama by including dark swirling clouds and
chiaroscuro. Salomon van Ruysdael still laid a lot of emphasis on the figures in his paintings.
Ruisdael, instead dwarfed his figures, making the nature in his paintings look oversized and
powerful. There is a form of grandeur in Ruisdael’s paintings that cannot be found in the paintings
made by previous generations of landscape painters.
It was as if Ruisdael used elements in his paintings the painters before him simply failed to
see. For instances painters like Salomon van Ruysdael would never think of including hills in a
Dutch scene such as Jacob van Ruisdael did in the Ruins of Egmond castle. Ruisdael seemed not to be
bothered by the un-Dutchness that are large hills. Salomon van Ruysdael’s paintings always seem
calm and peaceful. It is clear for the viewer what is going on in the painting. With Jacob, there is a
lot of ambiguity in his works. Not only formal elements seem to be contrasting, like violent clouds
as opposed calm water, but also the interpretation of the scene is often ambiguous. There are a lot
of possible ways to interpret a depicted scene but it is never really clear which interpretation is the
right one. There are so many object in the painting that are contrasting that it can never be said
63
with certainty what is going on. Like in the Egmond-painting. The violent clouds predict a storm,
yet the water in the pond is still very calm. Are the clouds actually smoke? What is it that the
viewer is looking at? It is a constant stream of questions that will never be answered because there
is no right answer to them. There is something in the painting that might answer these questions
but the viewer is unable to grasp what this is. This causes a feeling of unease. Pleasurable unease.
Ruisdael’s paintings conjure up a feeling in the viewer that can be specified as the sublime.
Even before the first century AD there had been a notion of the sublime. It was used in a
connection to a form of lofty writing or speaking that uplifts the reader or audience or it was
found in the divine presence of God in nature. In the first century AD a writer called Longinus
was one of the first to bundle these various existing ideas on sublime theory together into a thesis.
This work, called Peri hypsous, was aimed at literature and rhetoric and was meant as an instruction
on how a sublime effect could be reached in speech and text. Sublime passages were passages that
excelled in the use of language. Mastering language to the fullest was something Longinus
considered to be vitally important for a writer or orator. Next to that, sublime passages are
timeless. They move and astonish the audience. They come as a surprise to the audience and they
cannot be ignored. Sublime passages leave a lot to the imagination. Readers and listeners think
they have made the passage up themselves. Sublime passages take the soul to a higher plane and
leave the audience contemplating the passage or spoken words long after he has read or heard
them. The memory of the sublime passage is so strong it cannot be erased from the mind and it
appears before one’s eyes each time anew.
Longinus’s ideas withstood oblivion in the form of a tenth-century manuscript now kept in
Paris. This manuscript was discovered in the sixteenth century and immediately printed and
published. It was reprinted multiple times during the seventeenth century. Eventually in 1674
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux published his Traité du Sublime, ou du merveilleux dans le discourse, traduit
du grec de Longin, an annotated translation of Longinus. This book suddenly showed the world the
ideas about the sublime at a much larger scale. It was not until 1756/57 when Burke published his
A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and the beautiful that the sublime became a
widely known term.
Somewhere between its first publication in 1554 and 1641 Longinus’s ideas were picked up
by artists and art theorists in the Netherlands. In 1641 Franciscus Junius published De Schilderkonst
der oude, in which an attempt is made at reconstructing classical art theory. In this book Junius
literary cited a short piece of Longinus’s treatise in which special emphasis is laid on the genius of
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the author and the following of great masters. He also stressed the point that a work of art must
consist of different separate elements that must be combined into a harmonious whole by the use
of the fantasy of the artist. This will make a work of art astonishing, depicting the world ‘as it is’
will not. He also mentioned that the mind of the artist has to be full of heightened invention
instead of ‘frivolous and ridiculously swelling conceits’. The painter must not overdo it by trying
to eager to achieve a sublime effect, he instead must show his true genius by his heightened
invention. Junius mostly refered to the sublime in connection to Longinus. He also cited
Longinus’s most clearly defined definition of the sublime, as cited in chapter one. Here it is made
clear that the painting must show an image that is impossible to erase from the mind and will
appear as fresh and new before the viewer’s eyes each time he looks at it. It is also liked by all who
look at it, no matter where they come from.
In 1678 this citation was again used by Samuel van Hoogstraten in his Inleyding tot de hooge
schoole der schilderkonst; anders de zichtbaere werelt. Van Hoogstraten copied Junius’s citation but added
more to it, showing he was probably acquainted with Longinus’s work. Van Hoogstraten used the
term ‘waerlijk groots’ to describe the sublime. He lay the emphasis on the overpowering effect the
sublime has.
Jacob van Ruisdael painted no less than seven-hundred paintings, starting at the age of
sixteen. He used various different motifs to create drama and ‘grandeur’ in his paintings. Most of
his landscapes contain an object that plays a leading role. This ‘prominent object’ is placed just off
the center of the painting to the left or right and is an immediate eye catcher. It can be a tree, a
ruin, a castle or a waterfall and it catches the light of the sun, which falls on it in the form of a ray
or spotlight. The other side of the object is therefore hidden in dark shadows. Ruisdael also made
extensive use of chiaroscuro in his works. The sky, with a lot of thick, cotton-candy swirly clouds,
is painted in tints of blue and grey and it always takes up a large portion of the painting. Next to
using all these motifs Ruisdael also portrayed the nature in his paintings very accurately. The trees
are nearly always recognizable as a certain species. This makes his paintings all the more intriguing.
The extremely realistic nature, the working with chiaroscuro and the one-object-catches-the-light
motif works especially well for the dynamic and ‘mystery’ of the painting. There seems to be
something ungraspable about his works.
One motif Ruisdael often painted – no less than 150 times – were waterfalls. It cannot be
said with certainty that Ruisdael never saw a waterfall for himself. Nevertheless, he was obviously
greatly influenced by the work of Allart van Everdingen. Van Everdingen went to Scandinavia in
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1644 and after his return he started to paint the waterfalls he had seen. Van Everdingen used many
motifs also seen in Ruisdael’s works. His work also tend to have this certain je ne sai quoi. Next to
Van Everdingen, Ruisdael might have been influenced by the works of Rembrandt.
Ruisdael did travel, for he went to Bentheim in Germany in 1650. Here he saw Bentheim
castle, a motif he often painted. In the 1650s his works showed a strength and force by the use of
strong colors, spatial clarity, energetic brushwork and a lot of detail. Nature became more
oversized and out of man’s control. This was often done by the placement of very small figures
near large rock formations or trees. His paintings are also contemplative. Mostly Ruisdael added
motifs to the scene that were not really present at the site, like hills for instance or rocky cliffs.
Junius mentioned the use of the fantasy to think of elements in the painting that are not present in
the real world that is depicted. By including these elements and placing them rightly in order to
form a harmonious scene, a painting can conjure up ‘astonished admiration’. This will not happen
when the painter chose to depict the world as it is. Ruisdael continued this trend in the 1660s. In
this period however, he did not always add extra motifs to his landscape to give them grandeur.
Instead he made more use of the present motifs in the landscape. In the 1670s his landscapes show
more ‘Dutchness’ as he returned his attention to the countryside of Haarlem. These landscapes
depict an ungraspable force of the elements of nature in a masterly way. Ruisdael thus used a new
motif to make his paintings truly great. Now he started to depict the elements of nature that are
invisible to the naked eye, like the wind. Van Mander also mentioned this as something a painter
should be able to achieve: to paint the invisible like sound. In Ruisdael’s Windmill at Wijk bij
Duurstede (c. 1670) the idea of wind is so strong, it is like the viewer looks out from a window onto
the scene. It is an open space panorama in which the wind roams freely through the cold air.
Clouds burst open to let the sun fall through directly onto the very large windmill. There is a
reoccurring tension that keeps the painting interesting. It keeps the viewer wanting to walk back
to the painting to look at it again, to see if that gust of wind has blown yet, or that thunder has
struck yet. It is a chilling, astonishing tension, perfectly amazing. Even though Ruisdael changed
his view about the depiction of the sublime throughout his life his paintings always had a certain
ungraspable aspect, this je ne sais quoi de sublime. For his ideas on the sublime it would seem that
Ruisdael made use of Karel van Mander’s Schilder-boeck and Franciscus Junius’s De Schilderkonst der
oude.
Karel van Mander might have known about ideas relating to the sublime. Ideas that are
similar to those by Longinus have been around since Alberti in 1435. Alberti described how the
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eye and the emotion of the viewer should be directed by the painter. Ruisdael uses this motive
often. He paints little figures of men and women that can be seen resting, leaning or staring at the
‘prominent object’ in the painting in a very contemplative way. They urge the viewer to
contemplate on the painting.
Some of Longinus notions on the sublime were used by seventeenth-century art theorists
and used for the purpose of creating master artworks. Especially Junius cites Longinus often in his
book. It is plausible that ideas relating to the sublime circled around in artists’ guilds. Art
theoretical treatises like those by Van Mander, Junius and Van Hoogstraten, amongst others, were
written especially for artists. Therefore it can be assumed at some degree that artists knew about
the theories they contained. In these theories great emphasis is laid on the emotional reaction the
viewer has on the work of art. The work of art always had to conjure up a strong emotion in the
viewer. Next to that the painting had to be painted in such a way that the viewer has to finish the
story for himself. It was therefore important that a painting had a contemplative nature. That the
viewer could go back and look at it over and over again and it will never get boring. It will appear
fresh and new every time it is looked upon. These ideas relating to the sublime were considered
important by seventeenth century Dutch art theorists. Ruisdael seems to have made use of their
theories as a great portion of his paintings seem to contain these ideas. They truly express this
seventeenth century notion of the sublime.
Dutch landscapes have been viewed in many different ways throughout history. In the
eighteenth century, art critics such as Félibien, De Piles and Reynolds believed that the Dutch
landscape painters merely painted the landscape as they saw it before their eyes, like a mirror of
reality. It has also often been said by art historians, like for instance Christopher Brown or Hans
Kauffman that the Dutch landscape painters disguised symbols in their paintings, or that they
painted emblems. Seymour Slive even claimed that they painted simply for the sheer enjoyment of
painting. Next to that, it has been claimed by Huigen Leeflang for instance, that the Dutch
landscape painters tried to depict the divine power of God. In seventeenth century writings, such
as Den Schepper Verheerlijckt in de schepselen (1685) by Jan van Westerhoven, nature was often praised
as God’s divine creation and it appears that some writers truly endured a sublime experience when
they were out in the landscape. Especially the landscape around Haarlem conjured up very strong
emotions.
Previous art historians have never considered the possibility that Dutch seventeenth-century
artists have tried to depict something that would arouse such a lofty experience. Dutch artists
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painted nature as it was, they disguised symbols or emblems or they merely painted for the fun of
it. Looking at the theories written down in treatises like those by Van Mander or Junius it would
do these artists no justice to merely dismiss them to the realm of ‘the hidden symbolism’ or
‘depicting the world as it is’. That would mean their paintings were always painted for the ‘fun’ or
simple pleasure of the viewer who could discover the little hidden meanings in all the objects or
just feel pleased when looking at a lovely painted picture. Arousing a strong emotion in the viewer
was seen as vitally important in Dutch seventeenth-century art and trying to find the meaning in
the symbolism would not really conjure up an emotion. Artists wanted to have the same status as
poets. They were not fooling around. They used ideas from classical theory in their paintings
making them rise above the status of ‘craftsmanship’. Still, it seems that, throughout art history
these artists were viewed as craftsmen, while in reality they seem closer to intellectuals and
scientists.
Ruisdael painted landscapes in a very unique manner. His landscapes are powerful and aweinspiring. They are of a contemplative nature making the viewer look at it for hours without
finding the meaning of the painting. There is a certain something in his paintings that is
ungraspable. This causes fear in the viewer of never being able to understand. Yet this is a kind of
fear that feels nice. The ‘pleasurable shudder’. Ruisdael’s works linger in the mind and they never
get boring. The idea of a natural element like wind is strong in his works. It is even tempting to
just wait in front of a Ruisdael to see if something will actually happen. To be able to depict
something as static as a landscape in this way is genuinely marvelous. It was not seen in landscapes
before Ruisdael’s days and rarely afterwards. This can only be the work of a genius. Ruisdael’s
artworks rise above the status of mere beautiful landscapes. They are ‘truly great’ landscapes
capable of conjuring up a sublime experience.
It seems that Ruisdael might have used art theoretical treatises like those by Junius and
therefore indirectly knew the ideas about the sublime as formulated by Longinus. Many elements
of Longinus’s ideas that are found in Ruisdael’s paintings. Instead of focusing on symbolism or the
depiction of the world as it is, it would be wise for future art historians to focus more on the
meaning of art theoretical treatises for Dutch seventeenth century artists. It seems some art
historians get close to the idea of the sublime when they mention painters such as Rembrandt and
Ruisdael as having a ‘romantic vein’ in their works. These art historians never considered this
romantic vein to have anything to do with the sublime. Maybe they are too focused on the term
and relate this term to the nineteenth century. Therefore they will not consider that the ideas of
68
the sublime might have also been around in the seventeenth century. It is true that the term
actually did not exist before Burke, but the ideas were certainly present and should not be ignored.
Theories as formulated in the art theoretical treatises of the seventeenth century might have
important in a young artists career. Art historians should focus more on the importance of these
books. Then it shall be clear that notions such as the sublime that are seen as belonging to the realm
or writing, rhetoric or philosophy were also applied on art. And notably very successful by
Ruisdael. His paintings truly have that chillspine.
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IMAGES
Figure 1. Joachim Patinir. Landscape with St. Jerome, 16th century.
Figure 2. Herri met de Bles. Landscape with the Good Samaritan, 1540.
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Figure 3. Jacob van Ruisdael. The large forest, 1655-60.
71
Figure 4. Jacob van Ruisdael, View of Haarlem with bleaching grounds, c. 1665.
72
Figure 5. Rembrandt van Rijn. St. Bartholomew, 1661.
73
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Figure 6. Jacob van Ruisdael. The Jewish cemetery, c. 1654-55.
Figure 7. Romeyn de Hooghe. Track boat at the Portuguese-Jewish cemetery of Beth Haim at Oudekerk
aan de Amstel, 1670-90 (detail).
75
Figure 8. Jacob van Ruisdael. The forest road, 1646.
76
Figure 9. Jacob van Ruisdael. Landscape with a village in the distance, 1646.
77
Figure 10. Jacob van Ruisdael. View of Egmond-on-the-Sea, 1648.
78
Figure 11. Jacob van Ruisdael. Hilly landscape with large oak, 1652-55.
Figure 12. Jacob van Ruisdael. Edge of a forest with a grain field, c. 1655.
79
Figure 13. Jacob van Ruisdael. Winter landscape with lamp-post, 1670s.
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Figure 14. Allart van Everdingen. Landscape with waterfall, 1648.
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Figure 15. Jacob van Ruisdael. Waterfall in a mountainous Northern landscape, 1665.
82
Figure 16. Rembrandt van Rijn. Landscape with a stone bridge, c. 1638.
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Figure 17. Jacob van Ruisdael. Village street, 17th century.
84
Figure 18. Rembrandt van Rijn. The Blinding of Samson, 1636.
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86
Figure 19. Jacob van Ruisdael. The ruins of Egmond castle at Egmond aan den Hoef, 1650-53.
Figure 20. Jan Abrahamsz. van Beerstraten. Ruins of the old city hall of Amsterdam, 1666
87
88
Figure 21. Jacob van Ruisdael. The windmill at Wijk by Duurstede, c. 1670.
Figure 22. Jacob van Ruisdael. View of Haarlem, c. 1670-75
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Figure 23. Jacob van Ruisdael. View of Bentheim Castle, 1652-54.
90
Figure 24. Jacob van Ruisdael. Landscape with ruins, 1665-75.
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Figure 25. Jacob van Ruisdael. Ships at rough sea, 1655.
Figure 26. Jacob van Ruisdael. Dam square in Amsterdam, 1670.
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Figure 27. Jacob van Ruisdael. The ford, 1670-82.
IMAGE LIST
Cover: Jacob van Ruisdael. Landscape with a waterfall. 1665. Oil on panel, 142.5 x 196 cm.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Frontispiece: Gerard Bilders. Jacob van Ruisdael sketching a watermill. 1864. Oil on canvas, 86,5 x
61.5 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 1: Joachim Patinir. Landscape with St. Jerome. 16th century. Oil on panel, 74 x 91 cm. Museo
del Prado, Madrid.
Figure 2: Herri met de Bles. Landscape with the good Samaritan, 1540. Oil on panel, 29 x 42 cm.
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
Figure 3: Jacob van Ruisdael. The large forest. 1655-60. Oil on canvas, 139.5 x 180 cm.
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
Figure 4: Jacob van Ruisdael. View of Haarlem with bleaching grounds. ca. 1665. Oil on canvas, 62.2
x 55.2 cm. Kunsthaus, Zürich.
Figure 5: Rembrandt van Rijn. Saint Bartholomew. 1661. Oil on canvas, 86.7 x 75.6 cm. J. Paul
Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
Figure 6: Jacob van Ruisdael. The Jewish cemetery. c. 1654-55. Oil on canvas, 142.2 x 189.2 cm.
Institute of Arts, Detroit.
Figure 7: Romeyn de Hooghe. Barge at the Portuguese-Jewish cemetery of Beth Haim at Oudekerk aan
de Amstel, 1670-90. Etching, 23.8 x 28.5 cm. Rijksmuseum (inv. no. RP-P 1920-437),
Amsterdam. (detail)
Figure 8: Jacob van Ruisdael. The forest road. 1646. Oil on canvas, 23.5 x 18 cm. Statens Museum
for Kunst, Kopenhagen.
Figure 9: Jacob van Ruisdael. Landscape with a village in the distance. 1646. Oil on panel, 76.2 x
109.2 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Figure 10: Jacob van Ruisdael. View of Egmond-on-the-Sea. 1648. Oil on panel, 65.5 x 49.5 cm.
The Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH.
Figure 11: Jacob van Ruisdael. Hilly landscape with large oak. 1652-55. Oil on canvas, 106 x 138
cm. Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Brunswick.
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Figure 12: Jacob van Ruisdael. Edge of a Forest with a grain field. c. 1655. Oil on canvas, 103.8 x
146.2 cm. Private collection.
Figure 13: Jacob van Ruisdael. Winter Landscape with Lamp-post, 1670s. Oil on canvas, 36.2 x 31.2
cm. Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main.
Figure 14: Allart van Everdingen. Landscape with waterfall. 1648. Oil on canvas, 85 x 70 cm.
Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum, Hannover.
Figure 15: Jacob van Ruisdael. Waterfall in a Mountainous Northern Landscape. 1665. 99.7 x 86.36
cm. Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge.
Figure 16: Rembrandt van Rijn. Landscape with a stone bridge. c. 1638. Oil on panel, 29.5 x 42.5
cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 17: Jacob van Ruisdael. Village Street. 17th century. Oil on canvas, 36 x 32 cm. Munich,
Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen.
Figure 18: Rembrandt van Rijn. The Blinding of Samson. 1636. Oil on canvas, 206 x 276 cm.
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main.
Figure 19: Jacob van Ruisdael. The ruins of Egmond Castle at Egmond aan den Hoef. 1650-53. Oil on
canvas, 98 x 130 cm. The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.
Figure 20: Jan Abrahamsz. van Beerstraten. Ruins of the old city hall of Amsterdam. 1666. Oil on
canvas, 110 x 144 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 21: Jacob van Ruisdael. The windmill at Wijk bij Duurstede. c. 1670. Oil on canvas, 83 x 101
cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 22: Jacob van Ruisdael. View of Haarlem. c. 1670-75. Oil on canvas, 55.5 x 62 cm.
Mauritshuis, The Hague.
Figure 23: Jacob van Ruisdael. View of Bentheim Castle, 1652-54. Oil on panel, 51.9 x 67.7 cm.
Mauritshuis, The Hague.
Figure 24: Jacob van Ruisdael. Landscape with ruins. 1665-75. Oil on canvas, 34 x 40 cm. The
National Gallery, London.
Figure 25: Jacob van Ruisdael. Ships at rough sea. 1655. Oil on canvas, 35.5 x 44.5 cm.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Figure 26: Jacob van Ruisdael. Dam square in Amsterdam. 1670. Oil on canvas, 52 x 65 cm.
Staatliche Museen, Berlin.
Figure 27: Jacob van Ruisdael. The ford, 1670-82. Oil on canvas, 67.5 x 85 cm. Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam.
95
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