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The Jewish Cemetery
Jacob van Ruisdael · Baroque & Dutch Golden Age
- Artist
- Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael (c. 1629–1682)
- Date
- c. 1655–1660
- Dimensions
- 142.2 x 189.2 cm
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Location
- Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, United States
The Jewish Cemetery shows a group of tombs in a wild landscape beside the ruins of a church, under a stormy sky. The tombs are based on real ones in the Portuguese Jewish cemetery at Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, near Amsterdam, but the setting is imagined.
A closer look
Ruisdael turned an accurate record of the tombstones into a powerful meditation on death and the passing of time. A torrent rushes between the graves, a dead tree with broken branches leans over them, and the church lies in ruins. Yet a rainbow arches across the dark clouds, and light breaks over the stones, suggesting hope and renewal. The painting is one of the earliest landscapes to express moods and ideas through nature itself, and the Romantics later admired it deeply.
More by Jacob van Ruisdael
In this gallery
Famous works elsewhere
- The Ray of Light 1665
- Castle Bentheim 1653