Wooded and Hilly Landscape

Jacob van Ruisdael (Dutch, 1628/29–1682)

1660s

Medium
oil on canvas
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
Framed: 73 x 81.5 x 11 cm (28 3/4 x 32 1/16 x 4 5/16 in.); Unframed: 51.6 x 59.4 cm (20 5/16 x 23 3/8 in.)
Culture
Netherlands
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art, European Painting and Sculpture
Credit line
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
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

Jacob van Ruisdael, one of the most eminent Dutch landscape painters, is revered for his brooding woodland compositions. With much of this painting's composition dedicated to nature alone, an underlying sense of sublimity is heightened by Ruisdael through the inclusion of several diminutive figures. A mother and child trudge through a weathered path in the foreground, their pet dog following closely at their side, while a lone traveler approaches from the foliage ahead of them. This work is an excellent representation of the artist's later period, speaking to both his preoccupation with meticulous detail and the transitory relationship between humans and nature.