Window on the World - Dutch Master

Excerpt: 'What did Jacob van Ruisdael see when he looked at the world with his keen painterly eye and rendered it in oil on canvas? What view of reality is represented in his work?

To begin with, Ruisdael delighted in nature's beauty. At first he saw this beauty mainly in the trees, which he painted with masterly skill and exquisite detail. Many of the paintings in the present exhibition are dominated by Ruisdael's tall oaks and other stately trees, each rendered with painstaking accuracy, according to its species. Ruisdael also came to see God's beauty in the rushing waters, and he became justifiably famous for his waterfalls—nearly two hundred of them in all. He was equally fascinated with changing patterns in the weather, and with the way sunlight and shadow played among the clouds. Many of his later landscapes are dominated by large expanses of sky in which dark, dramatic banks of clouds open to let in streams of sunlight and reveal pure blue sky. Ruisdael saw and painted nature in all its divinely-created glory. '

The Window on the World is our weekly opportunity to examine our culture from the vantage point of biblical Christianity.

Many of these are now published in 'My Father's World: Meditations on Christianity and Culture', 2002, and 'He Speaks to Me Everywhere', 2004, both by Philip Graham Ryken, P&R Publishing.

For the complete text of this and other Window on the World articles click the link below.