A richly illustrated celebration of Ruisdael's achievements as the greatest and most versatile of seventeenth-century Dutch landscape painters. No old master or modern artist begins to match the variety of landscapes Jacob van Ruisdael depicted during the course of his career, nor his grandeur of conception and skill in portraying natural phenomena. His themes span identifiable towns, cities, and castles; rural scenes, both cultivated and wild; seascapes and shore scenes; rivers, bridges and sluices; rushing torrents and Scandinavian waterfalls.
In this beautifully illustrated book, Seymour Slive demonstrates Ruisdael's unrivaled range and quality through a vivid evocation of his career not only as a painter, but also as a draftsman and etcher. Slive discusses the artist's clientele, early collectors and critics, as well as his influence on another preeminent landscapist, John Constable.
This exhibition has been jointly organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art