Landscape with a Church by a Torrent
Jacob van Ruisdael (Dutch, 1628/29–1682)
c. 1670
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Framed: 100.3 x 83.8 x 10.8 cm (39 1/2 x 33 x 4 1/4 in.); Unframed: 71 x 55.2 cm (27 15/16 x 21 3/4 in.)
- Culture
- Netherlands
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Bequest of Jane Taft Ingalls
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
It is not known if Ruisdael considered his paintings to be social or moral commentary, for no documents from his lifetime indicate how the artist or his patrons interpreted the works. But in this painting dangerous rapids block access to the chapel, and severed logs litter the middleground, hinting at life’s transience and the challenge to reach salvation.
