# Low Waterfall in a Wooded Landscape with a Dead Beech Tree

- By: Jacob van Ruisdael (Dutch, 1628/29–1682)
- Date: c. 1660–70
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: Framed: 123 x 157 x 9.5 cm (48 7/16 x 61 13/16 x 3 3/4 in.); Unframed: 99.2 x 131 cm (39 1/16 x 51 9/16 in.)
- Culture: Netherlands
- Credit line: Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/1967.63)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1967.63/1967.63_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Little Ones profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Jutting from a dune in the foreground, the massive silvery trunk of a dead tree leads the eye across a waterfall and toward a distant sunlit field where travelers and a dog traverse a sandy path. Partly masked by trees, a ruined building is turned gold by the sun. In Jacob van Ruisdael’s landscapes, dead trees, waterfalls, and ruined buildings were visual expressions of the passage of time. Ruisdael devoted equal attention to the cloud-filled skies looming above the land, creating dramatic patterns of light and shadow and revealing the unseen movements of the wind.