It seems the Dutch painters always had a special thing for showing the winter in their country. In today’s Art Blogmas, we’re hosting one of the most famous Dutch 17th-century landscape painters, Jacob van Ruisdael and his Winter Landscape.
Art Blogmas 2021
Jacob van Ruisdael is a Dutch Golden Age painter who specialised in landscape paintings representing his country. It was something quite popular during that time. He left several winter landscapes among his work, one of which we’re hosting in our Art Blogmas today.
With today’s Art Blogmas, we’re once again taking a trip outside Europe to one of the best museums in the US – the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
⤷ Read more: A guide for the perfect museum visit
Jacob van Ruisdael: Winter Landscape
⤷ Where is it? Philadelphia Museum of Art
In his Winter Landscape, Ruisdael includes a few motifs typical for the Netherlands – windmills, frozen canal and a woman dressed in traditional Dutch clothes from the 17th century.
During the 17th century, Dutch painters looked for the motif that symbolised the Netherlands in their landscape paintings. They have soon found it in a cloudy sky.
To show it as well, Ruisdael paints a low horizon on his painting to stress that dark cloudy, typical Dutch sky. He’s using muted and darker colours to show the winter mood in the Netherlands.
⤷ Read more: Christmas traditions in Europe
Like it was on Hendrick Avercamp’s Winter Landscape with Ice Skaters, he wasn’t showing nature only, but also the people in it. We can see two men collecting the branches. A woman is slowly walking towards the village. And some people who are enjoying the winter – two men ice skating on a frozen canal.
These 17th-century Dutch painters successfully captured real life and focused on realism in their paintings by showing different activities.
If you don’t want to miss other paintings I will share with you in this year’s Art Blogmas, be sure to check in here tomorrow at 7:30 am. Or, follow along on the Culture Tourist Facebook page and Instagram profile.