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| A Country Road |
Artist:Salomon van Ruysdael (Dutch, Naarden, born ca. 1600–1603, died 1670 Haarlem)
Date:1648
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:38 7/8 x 52 7/8 in. (98.7 x 134.3 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1906
In this mature work Van Ruysdael seems to follow the advice given to painters by Karel van Mander in 1604: "But above all do not forget to put small figures under tall trees. . . Make the countryside, the town, and the water full of activity, the houses inhabited, and the roads traveled." The composition, with its curving forms focused on a low bridge and trees sweeping up to clouds, is typical of the late 1640s: similar designs were employed by the artist's famous nephew, Jacob van Ruisdael, and by other Haarlem landscapists such as Pieter Molijn.
Catalogue Entry
In the center of this quietly colorful canvas, a coach and a wagon filled with travelers slowly make their way past a farmhouse. The roof on the rear half of the dwelling is tiled; its brick color (echoed in two of the cows) contrasts attractively with the foliage of the trees and of the arbor covering the thatched roof. Smoke wafts up from the chimney, suggesting that someone is inside cooking on this springlike day. Two riders and a dog approach the low bridge over the canal or stream; beyond them (in the area below the chimney), the mast of a small sailboat is visible. A freestanding dovecote is seen slightly farther to the left. Two cowherds, one of them on horseback, and a large dog accompany eight cows on the road leading to the right, where the view of a meadow and a distant village creates a sense of continuity with the immediate area and the more expansive countryside.
The composition is typical of the late 1640s in Ruysdael's oeuvre and in works from his artistic circle. Broadly similar designs were employed about 1647–50 by Jacob van Ruisdael, Isaack van Ruisdael (1599–1677), and Pieter de Molijn. Several pictures by Ruysdael seem to anticipate this one by a few years, for example Travelers Halting before an Inn, of 1644 (J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles). In the late 1650s and early 1660s, Ruysdael appears to have recalled this composition in a number of pictures that often show travelers stopping at an inn.
[2016; adapted from Liedtke 2007]
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