The Dutch Golden Age: Jacob van Ruisdael’s trees

The Dutch Golden Age: Jacob van Ruisdael’s trees

Of the several hundred landscape painters of the Dutch Golden Age, the best-known and most influential is Jacob van Ruisdael, whose paintings were described by Vincent van Gogh as “sublime”. Van Ruisdael was starting his career just as Nicolas Poussin was reaching his zenith in Rome, and the two were major influences on all subsequent landscape artists, particularly Thomas Gainsborough, John Constable and JMW Turner. Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisda…