# Landscape with a Windmill

**Jacob van Ruisdael** (Dutch, 1628/29–1682)  
1646  
oil on wood  
Framed: 69 x 88.5 x 4 cm (27 3/16 x 34 13/16 x 1 9/16 in.); Unframed: 49.5 x 68.5 cm (19 1/2 x 26 15/16 in.)

Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1967.19. [The museum's record](https://clevelandart.org/art/1967.19).

## About this work

Even this early work by Jacob van Ruisdael—painted while he was still a teenager—shows his unique approach to landscape that made the simplest motifs seem grand and heroic. Dark forms are massed in the foreground, creating a stark contrast to the expansive, sunlit plain at left.

_Text from the Cleveland Museum of Art._

Jacob van Ruisdael painted this in 1646, aged 18. It is now at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

### How it was made

- **Oil on panel.** Oil paint on prepared wooden boards, usually oak in the north and poplar in Italy. The rigid, smooth surface suits fine detail and thin, glowing glazes.
- **Oil paint.** Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.

### [Jacob van Ruisdael](https://www.ochreeditions.com/artists/jacob-van-ruisdael)

Dutch, 1628/29–1682; born in Haarlem; died in Amsterdam

Ruisdael was the leading Dutch landscape painter of the seventeenth century. Probably trained by his father Isaack and his uncle Salomon van Ruysdael in Haarlem, he painted dunes, woods, waterfalls, beaches and wheat fields under towering skies, giving familiar scenery a dramatic, sometimes melancholy weight. He moved to Amsterdam around 1656, and Meindert Hobbema was his pupil. Views such as Wheat Fields show his gift for the low Dutch horizon and the moving clouds above it.

_Written by Ochre Editions._

## Facts

- Type: Painting
- Culture: Netherlands
- The artist was 18
- Real size: about 19 × 27 in (50 × 69 cm). The 18 × 24 in print is close to life size.
- Century: 17th century
- Movement: [Dutch Golden Age](https://www.ochreeditions.com/movements/dutch-golden-age)
- Colour: black
- Rights: public domain (CC0 1.0); free to use for any purpose.

## Get it

- Free download, full resolution: https://img.ochreeditions.com/m/666.jpg?dl=1
- Image: https://img.ochreeditions.com/a/666/1920.jpg
- Giclée reproduction on Hahnemühle Photo Rag: 8 × 10 in $28; 11 × 14 in $38; 12 × 16 in $42; 16 × 20 in $56; 18 × 24 in $68
- Framed reproduction: 8 × 10 in $78; 11 × 14 in $98; 12 × 16 in $108; 16 × 20 in $138; 18 × 24 in $164
- Canvas reproduction: 8 × 10 in $58; 11 × 14 in $72; 12 × 16 in $79; 16 × 20 in $98
- Print-ready file: 8 × 10 in $2; 11 × 14 in $2; 12 × 16 in $3; 16 × 20 in $3; 18 × 24 in $3

Sizes stop where the museum's file would print below 150 pixels per inch. Everything sold is a reproduction, made to order. [Order a print](https://www.ochreeditions.com/art/landscape-with-a-windmill-cma-143234).