A View of Deventer seen from the North-West, Salomon van Ruysdael
Three small boats head up river, towards the rising sun. Their taut, curved sails are outlined against a cool, luminous sky as they lean with the wind. Moving clouds reveal a patch of intense blue that is reflected silvery grey on the translucent water below. Cattle wade up to their knees by the far bank, with a single white animal picked out in the growing light. Close to us, the corks of the drag net held by a fisherman in a rowing boat midstream bob on the water.
Van Ruysdael was one of a group of Dutch artists who, in the early seventeenth century, pioneered the painting of naturalistic scenes with vast skies; like them, he restricted his palette to a range of greens, greys and blues. They depicted what they saw but, at the same time, captured the essence of the Dutch landscape.
