Getty Museum
Two Watermills and an Open Sluice
Creator
Jacob van RuisdaelDutch Artist · 1628–1629
All works by this person →Jacob van Ruisdael learned to paint from his father, a framemaker, art dealer, and painter, and from his uncle, Solomon van Ruysdael. After studying landscape painting in Germany for ten years, he settled in Amsterdam. There he maintained a flourishing painting studio, where he trained the next generation of Dutch landscape painters, including Meindert Hobbema. Ruisdael's dramatic, naturalistic re
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- 1653
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Culture
- Dutch
- Department
- Paintings
- Institution
- Getty Museum
Jacob van Ruisdael captured the tension between nature's power and human needs. Glimpsed from the bank of a stream amid thick foliage, turbulent waters rush through an open sluice. Inclement weather is suggested by the dark clouds; uneven, craggy branches and spreading trees grow on either side of the river. Against the ominous sky, the buildings appear solid and sturdy, and a solitary male figure with his dog seems dwarfed by the natural setting. Sunlight breaks through the heavily clouded sky and settles on the central motif of the two half-timber thatched millhouses. When he was in his early twenties, Ruisdael traveled to Germany from his native Haarlem. He became captivated by watermills on his travels and painted a series of views featuring them as a central motif. This painting is one of six known variations on this theme and the only one that is dated.
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