A broken white and gray birch tree trunk has fallen across a rocky, shallow waterfall at the edge of a dense, deeply shadowed forest in this horizontal landscape painting. The narrow stream winds toward us from the forest to splash into a rocky pool that nearly spans the width of the painting along the bottom edge. The tree trunk angles from our right down into the pool, having lost most of its branches. Broken off near the base, the gnarled roots of the tree dig into a rocky outcropping along the right edge of the composition. Farther back and tiny in scale, two people walk along the…
Gallery mode Full size at the museum

Forest Scene

Jacob van Ruisdael (Dutch, c. 1628/1629 - 1682)

c. 1655

Medium
oil on canvas
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
overall: 105.5 x 123.4 cm (41 9/16 x 48 9/16 in.)
Culture
Dutch
Museum
National Gallery of Art, CNE-B
Credit line
Widener Collection
Rights
Public domain (NGA Open Access, 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 National Gallery of Art

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