Jacob van Ruisdael
Winter Landscape with a Village and Frozen Canal
Oil on canvas (relined). 65 x 100 cm.
This work shows snow-covered houses and trees lining the banks of a canal running from the left to the right of the image. In the background, a white church spire rises up into the winter sky. A few figures can be seen walking on the frozen canal, and a boot is enclosed in the ice near the bank. The scene takes place at dusk, with the soft warm light of the sun breaking through behind the dark clouds. It is bracketed on either side by frost-covered grass, a rickety shack, and some wooden poles in the foreground.
The current condition of the work, tightly relined with wax adhesive, is presumably the reason why Seymour Slive refused to reinstate this monumental work to Jacob van Ruisdael's œuvre. However, this opinion is contested in a lengthy expertise by Dr. Pieter Biesboer, former curator of the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, author of the exhibition catalogue on Jacob van Ruisdael, and recognised specialist for Dutch painting. According to Biesboer, no other Netherlandish landscape painter but Ruisdael “could be the author of this impressive winter landscape, and he is the only artist able to render such a monumental composition with such an impressive use of light”. Jacob Ruisdael only painted 25 winter landscapes, of which the present work is the largest.