When I come to think about the painting I am going to use for My Daily Art Display I like to try and find one by an artist I haven’t featured before. I also like to showcase an artist I had not heard of previously so that when I research his or her life it is a learning curve for me. Today, however My Daily Art Display is a three-fold repeat which limits what I can say, without being accused of repeating myself.
Firstly I have offered you a painting by Jan van Ruisdael before (January 9th) but I will not apologise for that as he is an amazing painter and has completed many superb works of art. Secondly, the painting today is a Vanitas-type painting, a type of painting, which I talked about when I offered you the Still Life of Food and Drink by Willem Heda on February 11th, and lastly this painting resembles in many ways the painting by Arnold Böcklin which I gave you on January 5th. Having said all that, I have to tell you that when I was looking through some art books for my next presentation I was immediately taken aback by the strength of this painting and the aura that emanates from it.
My Daily Art Display today is The Jewish Cemetery by Jacob van Ruisdael which he completed around 1660 and now hangs in the Gemäldegalerie Alter Meister in Dresden with a larger version in the Detroit Institute of Arts. This is a Vanitas genre painting, which is a type of painting that depicts an object or collection of objects symbolizing the brevity of life and the transience of all earthly pleasures and achievements. In other words it is a painting which reminds us that we are not immortal and notwithstanding how rich or powerful we are – we will all die sooner or later.
There is a definite melancholic and depressing feeling about this painting. There is also that sense of foreboding which was present in Arthur Böcklin Island of the Dead which I gave you on January 5th. The ruins, the graves and the dark skies set the mood of the painting. Ruisdael had this uncanny talent to be able create such feelings in how and what he depicts. This is a painting of the Portugeuse-Jewish Cemetery at Ouderkerk on the Amstel River close to Amsterdam, however to be absolutely accurate, I must tell you that only some of the elements in the painting actually exist such as the three large tombs shown in the mid-ground, but that’s about it !
The backdrop to the cemetery bears no similarity to the place at Ouderkerk. There are no ruins overlooking the actual cemetery. The ruins Ruisdael painted were the remains of the Egmond Castle which is situated near Alkmaar some thirty miles away. There is no river running through the cemetery but Ruysdael just used it to portray the fact that the water like time rushes away from us. The landscape, the river and the “added-in” ruins were just figments of Ruysdael’s imagination but one has to admit they do lend themselves well to the atmosphere he wanted to project.
The three large tombs in the middle ground, which immediately catch one’s eye, the dead beech tree in the right foreground and the broken tree trunk overhanging the fast flowing river all indicate allegorically the fast approach of death. However, Ruisdael does offer us a glimmer of hope in the way we can see a shaft of light penetrating the black clouds. We can also see a rainbow and if we look carefully there are signs of flourishing growth amongst the dead trees, so he is telling us there may be a better life still to come after death. Art historians have interpreted this painting simply as a reminder that man lives in a transient world and that despite being beset by sinful temptations there is always hope for salvation and deliverance.
my daily art display 