Salomon van Ruysdael

Naarden, 1600 (1603?) - Haarlem 1670

Salomon Jacobsz van Ruysdael, originally called van Gooyer, lived in Haarlem in the Netherlands from the 1620s until the end of his life. He was a highly regarded landscape painter in the city, a man who sometimes also painted still life. Ruysdael was a member of the Mennonite Church.

Ruysdael's teachers are not known, but there are signs in his early works of the influence of Esaias van de Velde. Ruysdael had some contact with a pupil of Van de Velde's from Leiden, Jan van Goyen; and, taking examples from each other's work, Ruysdael and van Goyen began in the 1630s to develop a new, `tonal' landscape, which in their composition, colouring, and choice of subject aimed at landscapes with a strong overall effect.

Salomon van Ruysdael's manner of painting began to distance itself from that of van Goyen during the 1640s, as Ruysdael began to develop his own, clearly defined, carefully detailed, style of landscape. The views he painted were fresh and peaceful, spacious and clear. In central place were the magnificent trees, whose foliage Ruysdael had the habit of painting as a mass of countless, small, luminescent spots, all pointing in the same direction. The trees were painted against an immense vault of heaven, where small clouds driven by the wind often create energetic diagonal formations.

Expansive river views were a frequent subject in Ruysdael's landscapes. These paintings of rivers, in which Ruysdael's landscape compositions are most clearly seen, are in a sense a synopsis of Holland's watery countryside and her wet and windy skies.

Salomon van Ruysdael's nephew and evidently also his pupil, Jacob, became an even more famous landscape painter than his uncle. Particularly in the 19th century, Salomon's paintings remained in the shadow of those by Jacob van Ruysdael, who was hailed as a genius. Over the last hundred years, however, Salomon van Ruysdael has become an object of the enthusiastic interest of both art historians and collectors of fine art.