File:Jacob van Ruisdael - The Castle of Bentheim (1653).jpg

(b. ca. 1628, Haarlem, d. 1682, Amsterdam)

Bentheim Castle 1653 Oil on canvas, 111 x 144 cm National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin

During the years from about 1650 to about 1655, the heroic quality of Ruisdael's landscapes increases. The forms become larger and more massive. Giant oaks and beeches as well as shrubs acquire an unprecedented abundance and fullness. Colours become more vivid, space increases in both height and depth, and there is an emphasis on the tectonic structure of the compositions. He strove to achieve heroic effects without sacrificing the individuality of a single tree or bush. An outstanding example of this tendency is his mighty view of Bentheim Castle.

Ruisdael visited Bentheim, a small town in Wesphalia near the Dutch-German border, when he travelled to the region with his friend Berchem in the early fifties. Bentheim's castle is, in fact, on an unimposing low hill, but in his painting Ruisdael enlarged it into a wooded mountain providing the castle with a commanding position. His invention is a superb expression of his aggrandizement of solid forms during this phase. The dense mass of the mountain, obliquely stretching away into depth, and the coulisses on either side of the front edge of the painting are reminiscent of compositional schemes used by the generation of his teachers, but the spatial clarity is new, as are the strong colours, the energy of the brushwork, and the way he unifies the close view of a nearly overwhelming wealth of detail with the most distant parts of the landscape into a consistent whole. The impact of the broad prospect is as intense as the vegetation seen close up.

Ruisdael continued to include Bentheim Castle in his landscapes, seen in various settings and from different viewpoints, until his very last years.

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Author: RUISDAEL, Jacob Isaackszon van Title: Bentheim Castle Time-line: 1651-1700 School: Dutch Form: painting