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Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/1629-1682), Wooded Landscape With Waterfall, c 1665-1670, Dutch. Oil on canvas. 104.1 x 143.5 cm. Courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh (http://www.ncartmuseum.org); purchased with funds from the State of North Carolina.

If Rembrandt may be said to have given us the human physiognomy of Holland, it is his contemporary, Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/1629-1682), who may be said to have delineated its geography. Indeed, van Ruisdael has been called, variously, Holland's "foremost," its "most influential," its "greatest" landscape painter; some went so far as to call him "one of the greatest of all landscape painters." A generation younger than Rembrandt, his history is hazy, its details elusive. It is known that he was born in Haarlem and trained by his father, Isaak, and by his uncle Salomon van Ruysdael, both of them painters. (To the gratitude of future art historians, young Jacob . . . [Full Text of this Article]