Jacob van Ruysdael: Bentheim Castle (1654)

Many painters of the so-called Romantic Movement (Caspar David Friedrich, William Turner) were inspired by the 17th-century artist Jacob van Ruisdael. The Haarlem-born Ruisdael, who lived between 1628 and 1682, was particularly famous for his expressive landscapes.
The admiration that the Romantics felt is understandable because in Ruisdael’s works Nature is not presented in a decorative way, but as an autonomous force. The ‘personality’ of the landscape is expressed in the spectacular sky and the meticulously depicted natural forms. The Romantic artists, who were also gripped by similar themes, considered him as a pioneer in this field.
In this view on Bentheim Castle from 1654, now in the Rijksmuseum collection, you can see how much effort Ruisdael took to depict the various natural materials. He deliberately put as many contrasting elements as possible into the painting; water, rocks, trees and other vegetation all get their own treatment by Ruisdael. Even more striking is the dark, dramatic tonality of the picture, the threatening clouds above the rough landscape, in which man plays only a humble role (when you look closely, you will notice some people in the background). Much later, in the Romantic age, this dramatic effect, based on the idea of the dominancy of Nature, would be described as ‘picturesque’.