Talk:Jacob van Ruisdael

There is no image of Jacob
The Dutch version of this page had a fantasy portrait as lead image. But Slive and other experts all say there is no portrait known of Jacob. On Wiki Commons there are these 2 fantasy portraits. There's also in the Louvre a marble statue of Jacob made by Louis-Denis Caillouette, although there is no public domain image as far as I can tell. It seems wrong to use any of these images as lead image, or in fact anywhere in the article. I fear most people will not read any caption and think it is real portrait. I have stated in the Life section that there is no portrait.

The best image available for the lead therefore is of one of his famous paintings. Edwininlondon (talk) 20:22, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Johnbod (talk) 19:46, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Featured on the Main Page
I would like to get Ruisdael featured as Today's Featured article on the Main Page. Is anyone else interested in helping improve the quality of this article? First to Good Article status, then on to Featured Article status. I have a few books on him, including a Dutch one (I speak Dutch).

I don't want to offend anybody who has done so much already to get the article to where it is today. I'm happy to support rather than lead. Let me know. Edwininlondon (talk) 06:25, 14 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Great idea to have the works of relatives and influencers side by side. Fancy joining me in trying to get this article to Featured Article status? Edwininlondon (talk) 06:49, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Nice idea, but I have no experience in that process and I believe it is quite time-consuming for the pay-off (temporary increase in page hits). I am perfectly willing to help you with the article though. I am compiling the images from the first Slive catalog here: c:Jacob van Ruisdael exhibition 1981-1982. When I am done I will make a List of paintings by Jacob van Ruisdael, which you can see developing here: User:Jane023/Paintings by Jacob van Ruisdael. If you have access to the actual complete catalog that would be great, as that one I don't have. I only have the two Slive exhibition catalogs and the one by Watford. Unfortunately in order to discuss his drawings and etchings these will have to be uploaded - the paintings are spotty, but the etchings non-existent. Can you upload some of these? Jane (talk) 07:12, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately I only have the 1981 Slive one as well. And a 1983 Russian one, with 4 drawings from the Hermitage collection, 3 of which do not appear in the 1981 Slive (landscape with ruined castle, Town fortifications and a wooden footbridge, Watermills). I could upload these (where?) On getting the article to a Good Article status and beyond, I too have zero experience, but I am willing to give it a go. I would appreciate you help. My plan is to first sort out the notes, references, bibliography, make that a system consistent with a Featured Article one, say Youth on the Prow, and Pleasure at the Helm. Then the Life section. Then get it reviewed and nominate it for Good Article. Edwininlondon (talk) 22:56, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your efforts! So it's a bit backwards completing his oeuvre without the main catalog, but there is so much online I think we can safely get about a third or maybe even half of these. His paintings are indexed by practically everybody who is anybody in the fine arts. I also created c:Jacob van Ruisdael exhibition 2005-2006, and will make a "2001 in progress soon". Yes please upload all of his drawings you can get your hands on. Though they may or may not have made it into the Slive 2001 catalog, generally these were models for lots of 19th-century copies, so it would be nice to get as many as possible. Are you comfortable on Commons? It's a pain using the default uploader. Generally I use a recent upload as a template and then copy/paste it into the old uploader here, using the previous upload data as a template. For a drawing I would use one like as a model to start with. The important thing is to make sure whatever template you use is suitable for international use. Jane (talk) 06:51, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Slive 2001 is on Google Books, https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=97ITM8WEXR0C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_book_other_versions#v=onepage&q&f=false which may help. Thanks for the upload tips, I'll give it a go. Edwininlondon (talk) 23:15, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I have uploaded a few drawings. I hope this helps you with your lists. Edwininlondon (talk) 20:17, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! Oddly, we already had one of those, but it couldn't be traced back to the original location because the source links are dead. If your book references any other catalogs you can include those in the descriptions as well. Jane (talk) 14:49, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

"(or Ruysdael)"?
Is the remark "(or Ruysdael)" helpful? I thought Jacob Isaakszoon van Ruisdael's surname is conventionally spelt with an "i" precisely to distinguish him from his painter relatives, especially his equally famous uncle Salomon van Ruysdael. Frans Fowler (talk) 19:13, 13 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree it is not helpful. I removed it. Edwininlondon (talk) 20:18, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Lead section
The lead section should be a short overview of what is to come. I think it should mention the other members of the family and the places he is documented to live and work. Slive claims that attributions are tricky among members of the family. Most attributions of drawings are based on old mentions in early collections. Not all works are signed and dated. Therefore, saying he was prolific is enough (every 17th-century painter who made more than 100 works identifiable today was prolific). I would delete any numbers unless attributed to a specific catalog (which one is leading?). There is probably well over a thousand paintings attributed to Ruisdael and that is just what is hanging in museums. His works are also actively sold on the open market. Various historians have tried to catalog them, but there is no forensic project along the lines of the Rembrandt Research Project, so I think it is wrong to be specific in the lead. There is also no need to mention his quality as opposed to other members of the family, because we honestly don't know. I also wouldn't mention his best known works, as these differ per country. Pictures of the top works should be included at the bottom and probably these should have articles so you can blue link them in text outside the lead. His windmill is famous in the Netherlands, but his view of Haarlem is more famous in German-speaking countries, and elsewhere he is known for his seascapes. Also, his influences on later painters was huge, and way more than just the three Englishmen you mention. He is considered the most important member of the "Haarlem Landscape School of painting" which never existed, but which is used to pinpoint a group of paintings that have retained their value over the centuries, not all of which can be attributed to a specific painter, but which can be attributed to a specific style (twisted trees, windmills, waterfalls, dunescapes, seascapes, winter landscapes, and panoramas, all with and without figures painted in by others) Jane (talk) 06:40, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for that. My comments below:


 * The lead section should be a short overview of what is to come. I think it should mention the other members of the family and the places he is documented to live and work.
 * Done

Slive claims that attributions are tricky among members of the family. Most attributions of drawings are based on old mentions in early collections. Not all works are signed and dated. Therefore, saying he was prolific is enough (every 17th-century painter who made more than 100 works identifiable today was prolific). I would delete any numbers unless attributed to a specific catalog (which one is leading?). There is probably well over a thousand paintings attributed to Ruisdael and that is just what is hanging in museums. His works are also actively sold on the open market. Various historians have tried to catalog them, but there is no forensic project along the lines of the Rembrandt Research Project, so I think it is wrong to be specific in the lead.
 * I agree, done. Hope you like it. I didn't include the Rembrandt project in lead, but did put it in the legacy section.

There is also no need to mention his quality as opposed to other members of the family, because we honestly don't know.
 * But "most famous" is okay right?

I also wouldn't mention his best known works, as these differ per country. Pictures of the top works should be included at the bottom and probably these should have articles so you can blue link them in text outside the lead. His windmill is famous in the Netherlands, but his view of Haarlem is more famous in German-speaking countries, and elsewhere he is known for his seascapes.
 * Okay. I have refrained from naming top works and will include thumbnails of the ones Slive picks out in his brochure of the 2005 exhibition. I will also create stubs for top works.

Also, his influences on later painters was huge, and way more than just the three Englishmen you mention. He is considered the most important member of the "Haarlem Landscape School of painting" which never existed, but which is used to pinpoint a group of paintings that have retained their value over the centuries, not all of which can be attributed to a specific painter, but which can be attributed to a specific style (twisted trees, windmills, waterfalls, dunescapes, seascapes, winter landscapes, and panoramas, all with and without figures painted in by others)
 * I have added this to the lead. But do you have any more famous painters known to be influenced by Jacob? I have checked the list on https://rkd.nl/nl/home/artists/68835 but don't see any big names worth mentioning.


 * I also have a request: I only have the Dutch version of the Slive 1981 book. Can you do a page check for me? The Dutch version mentions on page 16: "Een waardevolle bijdrage tot de kennis van Ruisdaels schilderijen leverde Wolfgang Stechow met zijn Dutch landscape painting of the seventeenth century in 1966". Is that page 16 in English as well? Edwininlondon (talk) 07:51, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Very nice! What is your question exactly about Stechow's book? My library can give me access to that book. It may be interesting. My Slive 1981 is also in Dutch. An incomplete list of artists influenced by Ruisdael is in his RKD entry. See the list below for their names, but on this website there are other names, including Andreas Schelfhout. Jane (talk) 12:05, 6 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Any of these artists you think deserve a place in the lead? Don't quite seem of the Turner, Constable, Gainsborough level. Edwininlondon (talk) 18:16, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes and otherwise just mention the landscape painting schools in the lead. Maybe it's only worth mentioning the ones by name whose paintings we can match up ( I added Constable but I think I can get a few for others). We shouldn't claim something we can't show anyway. The main thing is that copies are hard to tell from originals, and that the copies are often still cherished and resold. Check the deaccessioning category on commons for a few paintings that were reattributed and then sold off by museums. Also, these later painters made a point of viewing paintings and making sketched copies in museums during the romantic movement, and Ruisdaels were popular objects of interest. You may want to check the page hits on some of these other guys before claiming those top three. I would say he was an influence on the romantic movement and the Hudson and Dusseldorf schools. Jane (talk) 06:41, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I added the schools to the lead and in article. Found some sources to back it up. Does Slive mention the schools anywhere? Edwininlondon (talk) 12:18, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Nice work! Slive himself doesn't seem to care much who copied the Ruisdaels, but I think you will find lots of comments about this by large museums. For example, the three you mention made copies that they saw in UK museums, Russians copied works in the Hermitage, and Germans copied works in their museums in Berlin and Munich and so forth. Often museums own the copies so it's easy for them to show them side-by-side. Because travel was so much easier for artists in the 19th century you will see some interesting oddities - painters made copies of popular paintings in other cities possibly because they could easily buy a print, which they couldn't do for paintings in their local private collections. Again, I think it is easier to make statements once you have the matches that you can just include next to your text. It's hard to make sweeping statements without the visual evidence to back it up. Jane (talk) 15:36, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

On the images
Some thoughts on the images in this article: – Editør (talk) 13:09, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * The articles opens with "... painter, draughtsman, and etcher" which suggest that also his drawings and etchings were of importance to Ruisdael as an artist. Maybe one of each could be shown somewhere in the article?
 * The images in the Life section suggest a comparison of Ruisdael's work with that of people he knew, but this is not the case in this section (nor in the captions). So maybe the pairing should be done elsewhere? Although it would perhaps be even more informative to pair his paintings with those of artists that are indicated as his influences. In the Life section it might be more interesting to have contemporary images of the places he lived Blaricum (of the Ruisdael Castle?), Naarden, Amsterdam, or Haarlem (of the St. Bavo Church?)?

Why are the images so bad?
It is wonderful to see a featured article on one of the old masters. Never thought it'd happen again – I mean, look at Hieronymus Bosch, who's so much more popular than Ruisdael! My compliments and congratulations to all involved – a great effort, and a noble one, drawing attention to a painter who I think is very underrated and somewhat neglected.

That said, is there a specific reason for such terrible images used througout the article? Perhaps a license issue? Examples include practically all of the images in the article. I'm sorry if the word "terrible" is too strong, but they really are... To be more specific:
 * The picture from the infobox seems to be a bad scan from a book. Yellowish-green water instead of Ruisdael's original, wonderful grey gradients. This picture is available in pristine quality from the Rijksmuseum itself here.
 * The Bentheim castle picture: too small and has horrible colors, could easily be replaced by a similar format Rijksmuseum painting from here, which is even closer in composition to the picture we're comparing Ruisdael's with.
 * Dune Landscape, which is a dark, blurry, altogether unsuitable picture, which can be replaced by virtually any early work (it is there because it is early, right?) in good quality, e.g. this one from Google Art Project, or this one from Sotheby's, etc.
 * View of Naarden, which is a fine image, but not at all characteristic and could be replaced by one of Ruisdael's famous "huge sky" pictures, e.g. this example from Boston, or the one from Rijksmuseum here (although the colors are a bit off in this particular image), etc.
 * The Detroit version of Jewish Cemetery, which is completely discolored. In reality, the picture looks like this - not a very large image, but at least it doesn't show black muck instead of the actual dark greens.
 * Winter Landscape with a Watermill is a very, very bad scan that shows nothing of Ruisdael's sophisticated treatment of the colors of winter. One example of an image that does the job much better is here. The Mauritshuis image is too dark, unfortunately, but is still better than the image in the article.
 * The Ruisdael vs. Constable pictures both had a contrast setting far too high, and the Constable has magenta all over it, obviously not present in the original (as in, you don't mix magenta into every color you use). A much better pair would be this picture and this one, even if the Ruisdael original is not ideal - too small and too bright, but not that bad.
 * The ruined castle/mountain torrent picture - once again, a terrible reproduction, which could be replaced by any one of the available late mountain torrent pictures, e.g. this one, or this one. Or a ruined castle picture from an earlier period, e.g. this one or this one - both small, but at least the colors are right. Also, since we're doing comparison pictures here, why not have one of Everdingen's mountain pictures? here is one from Boijmans in OK quality, and here's another, more complex and maybe more interesting to compare with.
 * Dunes by the Sea is a small image of an early picture. Why not have one of Ruisdael's marines instead, which aren't represented in the article? This picture from the Thyssen museum is a terrific example, while here Google overdid it with the contrast/brightness settings... but I suppose most people won't notice.

And finally, I wonder why the above question about drawings wasn't answered? We don't have too many drawings at Commons, but is a decent enough picture, and  is even better. And of course at least one etching should make it into the article, as Ruisdael's incredibly detailed etchings are very much worth explporing - unfortunately we only have at Commons, but it would work better than nothing. (There is a larger image of another etching, but it is an earlier work, not entirely characteristic of Ruisdael's other etchings.)

I'd replace all of those images myself, but since they were all bad, I suspected a license issue with museum images and decided to take the question here first.
 * All museum images that are 2-D and this old can be uploaded to Commons, it just needs doing. Johnbod (talk) 15:45, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Er, have you clicked any of my links? They are all images already present at Commons. My question is, why are HQ images not used in this article? Is it a coincidence, or some licensing issue? To put it simply, I don't know if museume would like it if Wikipedia used their imagery in major painter articles (Commons being a different project). --Jashiin (talk) 15:57, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
 * No, I haven't, but I was aware the images weren't great (as with most art articles that haven't been changed much since all we had was the Yorck Project). I seem to remember checking Commons at some point in the past and changing some. There may be lots of new ones available. No-one should object to upgrading the version of the same painting. I'd wait for more reactions before changing the works, but I'm sympathetic myself. To repeat, anything correctly on Commons is fine to use here, so you should not worry about rights. I always like lots of images in art articles, & most art FAs have one or more galleries. Johnbod (talk) 16:03, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Ah, OK. Commons does indeed receive some impressive contributions. For instance, check out some of the new Bosch images it now has (I've had them all linked form List of paintings by Hieronymus Bosch – the single panels with saints, the Crucified Martyr triptych, and others). As for reactions, I also agree we must wait for a while. For example, I've just found out that the lead image was changed by User:David Levy from the better quality version to the lower quality one currently in the article. I wonder why he would consider the current image an improvement - it clearly contains extra green and extra yellow, is smaller, less detailed, a scan instead of a photograph, not showing any of the brushtrokes, etc. --Jashiin (talk) 16:12, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
 * To my eye, the copy to which I switched looks sharper and less washed out, with better contrast. Having not seen the work in person, I have no means of gauging the files' respective color accuracy (which could be adjusted independently).
 * You're welcome to revert, of course.
 * I'm curious as to why multiple versions exist at Commons, cross-linked with no indication of which is the most accurate. —David Levy 23:18, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the reply. I've had an actual painter's input here who had some experience with Ruisdael, they confirmed the accuracy of the older image (and also pointed out the evidence of an extraneous green layer added to the current image - I can elaborate elsewhere, if you're interested). I think that's grounds enough for a revert, in this one case. As for Commons, one reason for the mess may be that they have a guideline (see here) that seems to expressly forbid you from replacing even obviously bad pictures. Any "major changes" such as massive improvement in size and detail are to be uploaded as new files. I imagine this leads to an increase in the number of files, and while it is difficult enough to find knowledgeable people willing to upload good images, it must be even more difficult to get those same people to cross-reference everything for each file and point various deficiencies, changes, and differences out, etc. --Jashiin (talk) 00:08, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's right, essentially. Plus the task of cleaning up Commons is so huge that very few bother. You can usually get away with creating a category called eg "Poor images of paintings by Hieronymus Bosch" and moving bad exact duplicates there. The non-English Wikipedias are generally much worse, not having had any image curation for the last 10 years. There are people who go round at least the English wiki replacing with Google Art project images Commons has. People's ideas of what the best image is can be very different, and anyone who has ever compared even a "good" image in a catalogue with the original in the "flesh" knows how different the colours can be. Now they are all printed in the Far East I rather doubt that proofs are checked against the originals. Johnbod (talk) 03:15, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I realize that it isn't unusual for Commons to host multiple versions of an image, but those of lower quality often go largely ignored/disregarded. In this instance, each of four files links to the other three, with no information regarding their comparative quality (i.e., whether any or all have pros and cons and which is superior overall).  That seems unhelpful.  (Of course, this is a Commons matter.)  —David Levy 21:30, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm very glad that two images – at least – have been replaced with much better versions. I'd love to see more discussion on the rest of them, though, and maybe thoughts on adding a gallery of good quality pictures, as Johnbod suggested? I've also located a large image of Dune Landscape at the new Hermitage website: the image is here (or, if the link doesn't work, it is possible to save one from here). Having been to Hermitage a few times, I can vouch for the image. It is still a bad choice for the article, I think, because the Hermitage is notorious these days for having very, very few restoration jobs done, and neither this, nor any other of the Ruisdaels had any work done on them. The yellow you see isn't the painting, of course – only the very old layer of varnish. --Jashiin (talk) 19:12, 15 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Sorry for the delay, Jashiin, and thanks for your insights and image searches. Please go ahead and make the changes you see fit. I just changed the Dune Landscape image for the one you found. I think the illustration in the last section, Context, should have a bit of Dutch-ness to it, given the opening paragraph of that section, and Winter Landscape was just one of many options. Overall most important is to show across the article the breadth of his oeuvre I think. There was a gallery but at FAC1 it was suggested it was better not to have one, so I took it out. Edwininlondon (talk) 20:29, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the reply – I was worried my comments offended you somehow, and I'm glad to see that's not the case. I have some HQ images I've saved over the years from various sources. I'll sort through those, maybe upload some to Commons, then we'll see what precisely can be done about a gallery – I think I'll post a draft here first. --Jashiin (talk) 01:02, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

family name
The article reads: "Jacob's earliest biographer, Arnold Houbraken, called him Jakob Ruisdaal, and claimed the name resulted from his specialty in waterfalls, namely the "ruis" (rustling noise of water) falling into a "daal" (dale) where it foams out into a pond or wider river." Source is Arnold Houbraken (1718) De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, p. 65 here. The source writes about the part 'Ruis' in the family name: waar op zyn naam schynt te zinspeelen, translated: on which his name seems to be hinted. So, Houbraken isn't sure. He claims nothing! Furthermore: he doesn't mention waterfalls. He only mentions the noise which is made when water falls on rocks. He writes: "eindelyk met geruis (...) in en door de dalen, of laagtens zig verspreid: en wist de sprenkelingen, of het schuimende water door het geweldig geklets op de rotsen," Ruisdaal only started to paint waterfalls (mainly small rapids) since 1659. The family name was changed much earlier by his father and uncle, not by Jacob van Ruisdael. It is avowed that the origin of the family name is a castle's name, not waterfalls which actually don't exist in Holland. I write this to explain why I deleted the sentence about the non-existent claim of Houbraken. Happytravels (talk) 04:24, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for explaining, Happytravels. Would it be better to say something about Houbraken's speculation or just leave it out altogether?Edwininlondon (talk) 13:35, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

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van Ruisdael or Ruisdael
During most of the article's history it used "Ruisdael" to refer to the artist. In the last year, "van Ruisdael" has been used. While it is true that following Dutch rules, the surname is "van Ruisdael", all English language sources used in the article today (Slive, Walford, etc.) just use "Ruisdael". Even Dutchman Boudewijn Bakker, when writing in English, uses "Ruisdael" instead of "van Ruisdael". And even when he writes in Dutch he uses "Ruisdael" and not "van Ruisdael", see [], He's not the only Dutch art critic using "Ruisdael" even in Dutch, see []. So it seems to me that in art historian circles 'Ruisdael" is common.

Looking at what some English-language mainstream sources are doing:
 * BBC seems mixed: they use "van Ruisdael" here [], but "Ruisdael" here []
 * Guardian uses "Ruisdael" here [], here [], and here []
 * The Times uses "Ruisdael" here [] and here []

I think we should use here on WP what is commonly used in the sources, even though it would technically be wrong. In sum, based on what I find in the sources, I believe we should change all "van Ruisdael" instances back into "Ruisdael". Edwininlondon (talk) 09:25, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * General media aren't very authoritative on this. Getty ULAN has the "van", as does the National Gallery, as does the Rijksmuseum. So no for the title. Subsequent mentions in running prose are a different matter, both the NG & Rijksmuseum go to "Ruisdael". So we can do that, except perhaps at the start of paras. Johnbod (talk) 17:01, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Good point to check what the museums use. The National Gallery happily starts a sentence with "Ruisdael ..." I see. I checked Slive and he almost entirely avoided starting a sentence with the artist's name. I did spot on page 34 of the 2001 book a sentence starting with "Ruisdael also ..." It strikes me as odd to use both Van Ruisdael and Ruisdael, depending on the word position in the sentence. Ideally we follow Slive's idea and avoid starting with the name altogether, but that is quite a linguistic challenge. I can see well over a dozen such sentences. Edwininlondon (talk) 20:19, 5 June 2022 (UTC)