Dutch Baroque Era Painter, ca.1628-1682 Ruysdael's favorite subjects are simple woodland scenes, similar to those of Everdingen and Hobbema. He is especially noted as a painter of trees, and his rendering of foliage, particularly of oak leaf age, is characterized by the greatest spirit and precision. His views of distant cities, such as that of Haarlem in the possession of the marquess of Bute, and that of Katwijk in the Glasgow Corporation Galleries, clearly indicate the influence of Rembrandt. He frequently painted coast-scenes and sea-pieces, but it is in his rendering of lonely forest glades that we find him at his best. The subjects of certain of his mountain scenes seem to be taken from Norway, and have led to the supposition that he had traveled in that country. We have, however, no record of such a journey, and the works in question are probably merely adaptations from the landscapes of Van Everdingen, whose manner he copied at one period. Only a single architectural subject from his brush is known--an admirable interior of the New Church, Amsterdam. The prevailing hue of his landscapes is a full rich green, which, however, has darkened with time, while a clear grey tone is characteristic of his seapieces. The art of Ruysdael, while it shows little of the scientific knowledge of later landscapists, is sensitive and poetic in sentiment, and direct and skillful in technique. Figures are sparingly introduced into his compositions, and such as occur are believed to be from the pencils of Adriaen van de Velde, Philip Wouwerman, and Jan Lingelbach. Unlike the other great Dutch landscape painters, Ruysdael did not aim at a pictorial record of particular scenes, but he carefully thought out and arranged his compositions, introducing into them an infinite variety of subtle contrasts in the formation of the clouds, the plants and tree forms, and the play of light. He particularly excelled in the painting of cloudscapes which are spanned dome-like over the landscape, and determine the light and shade of the objects. Goethe lauded him as a poet among painters, and his work shows some of the sensibilities the Romantics would later celebrate.  Related Paintings of Jacob van Ruisdael :. | View of Grainfields with a Distant town | Two Watemills and an Open Sluice near Singraven | Landscape with a cottage and trees | Hilly Wooded Landscape with Cattle | The Jewish Cemetery |
Related Artists:
BRESCIANINO, Andrea del
Italian painter (b. ca. 1487, Ferrara, d. after 1524, Ferrara)
Paul Peel
(7 November 1860 - 3 October 1892) was a Canadian academic painter. Having won a medal at the 1890 Paris Salon, he became one of the first Canadian artists to receive international recognition in his lifetime. Peel was born in London, Ontario, and received his art training from his father from a young age. Later he studied under William Lees Judson and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under Thomas Eakins. He later moved to Paris, France where he received art instruction at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts under Jean-Leon Gerôme and at the Academie Julian under Benjamin Constant, Henri Doucet and Jules Lefebvre. In 1882 he married Isaure Verdier and had two children with her: a son (Robert Andre, in 1886) and a daughter (Emilie Marguerite, in 1888). Peel travelled widely in Canada and in Europe, exhibiting as a member of the Ontario Society of Artists and the Royal Canadian Academy. He also exhibited at international shows like the Paris Salon, where he won a bronze medal in 1890 for his painting After the Bath. He was known for his often sentimental nudes and for his pictures of children.
William Alexander Coulter
(March 7, 1849 - March 13, 1936) was an American painter of marine subjects. Coulter was a native of Glenariff, County Antrim, in what is today Northern Ireland. He became an apprentice seaman at the age of 13, and after seven years at sea, came to settle in San Francisco in 1869. In the late 1870s, he went to Europe to study with marine artists Vilhelm Melbye, François Etienne Musin, and J. C. Jacobsen. In 1896, he joined the art staff of the San Francisco Call. Between 1909 and 1920, he painted five 16 by 18 foot murals for the Assembly Room of the Merchants Exchange Building. Coulter resided in the San Francisco Bay Area until his death at the age of 87, in his Sausalito home. During the course of his life, his paintings chronicled the history of shipping and navigation in the San Francisco and San Pablo bays.