The Jewish cemetery

The Jewish cemetery
Jacob Isaacksz. van Ruisdael , after 1655
Oil on canvas
84 × 95 cm
State Art Collections , Dresden

The Jewish Cemetery or Der Judenfriedhof ( English The Jewish Cemetery ) is a painting by the Dutch landscape painter Jacob Isaacksz. van Ruisdael , which was made around 1655. It shows a romantic landscape in which allegorically the transience of life, human creativity and the passage of time are depicted as a river. The picture has belonged to the Old Masters Picture Gallery of the State Art Collections in Dresden since 1754 .

description

The work has the dimensions 84 × 95 cm and is executed in the painting technique oil on canvas . Ruisdael signed it with his name on a grave slab with an oval at the bottom left.

In front of a sky with a dramatic cloud formation of a retreating rain shower with a rainbow leading out of the picture to the left, the ruins of a perhaps sacred building with high window caves rise in a mountainous landscape with bushes. In front of it there are tombs made of different types of stone, such as white marble, black granite and reddish sandstone. On the vertical white marble stone slab below the center of the picture, characters can be seen that are reminiscent of a Hebrew inscription. On the right edge of the picture is a dead tree leaning to the left, its counterpart on the bank of the stream is only present as a stump. A stream with a small waterfall flows from the left background to the lower right into the foreground.

The retreating rain clouds reveal the sky again at the point of view of the beholder, so that the sun can illuminate the front parts of the picture and thus set dramatic lighting effects.

In the background rises a derelict building for which van Ruisdael used the ruins of the Egmond monastery near Alkmaar as a model. He took the sarcophagi in the foreground from the real models of the old Jewish burial place Beth Haim in Ouderkerk . This cemetery still exists today and the tombs, although partially sunk and damaged, can be assigned to certain people. The bright sarcophagus below the center of the picture, with the prism-like attachment and the damaged plate, belongs to Doctor Eliahu Montalto, originally from Portugal, died in Leghorn in 1616, who was initially the personal physician of Ferdinando I de 'Medici and later of Maria de' Medici . To the right of it is the grave of the Amsterdam rabbi ( Chacham ) Isaac Uziel , who served from 1617 until his death in 1622. On the right below the dead birch is the grave of an Israel Abraham Mendes , who died in 1627, and on the far left is the black grave with a half-column by Melchior Franco Mendes on it.

Provenance, exhibition

Much is known about the provenance of the Dresden painting from the early years. It was probably sold at de Beukelaar on September 16, 1739 , and appeared in Gerard Hoet's sales catalog in 1752 . In 1754 it appeared in an inventory list of the Dresden gallery. In 1945 it came to the Soviet Union and was returned in 1955.

The picture was shown in several exhibitions:

• Berlin 1955/1956
• Zurich 1971
• Washington, New York, San Francisco 1978/1979
• October 1, 1981 to January 3, 1982, The Royal Cabinet of Paintings in the Mauritshuis in The Hague.
• January 18, 1982 to April 11, 1982, Fogg Art Museum , Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• Brought to light January 18, 2001 to April 1, 2002, Hamburger Kunsthalle and Haarlem.
• Brought to light April 27, 2002 to July 29, 2002, Frans Hals Museum Haarlem.

interpretation

The Jewish cemetery
Jacob Isaacksz. van Ruisdael , around 1655–1660
Oil on canvas
142.2 x 189.2 cm
Institute of Arts , Detroit

Ruisdael painted this motif twice in oil and made several chalk drawings which, next to the stone graves of the cemetery in the background, show no ruins, but a church tower in some sheets ( Teylers Museum collection , Haarlem). A younger, lighter version of the painting exists at the Detroit Institute of Arts . These pictures belong to the few landscapes of Ruisdael that contain an allegorical intention . The already romantic composition of ruins, dead trees, to be understood as vanitas symbols, graves and a flowing body of water symbolize, according to those authors who first discussed Ruisdael's pictures in the early 19th century, the transience of life and the ultimate futility of human life Striving. On the other hand, the emerging sun could be a clear indication of the hope of eternal life in the hereafter, just as the rainbow striving to the left of the picture can be seen as a symbol of hope. Such conceptions were a common theme in 17th century Dutch painting.

Description and provenance of the Detroit painting

The existence of a painting with very similar content, which is now in the Detroit Institute of Arts, did not become known to research until 1920. It has the much larger dimensions of 142.2 × 189.2 cm and is said to have been created later than the Dresden picture, around 1668, and it is said to be based on a completely different conception than the Dresden picture. It is also painted with oils on canvas. The depiction shows a decaying Jewish cemetery, which lies under dark thunderclouds, the rainbow is brighter and more colorful. The ruin of a church building rises in the background in the center of the picture. On the right front edge of the picture stands a dead birch, the white bark of which seems to shine in the cold thunderstorm light. The front of the three sarcophagi are also bathed in cold white light.

The painting was presumably sold by Pieter Locquet on September 22, 1783, went to M. Marin Lebrun via an auction on March 22, 1790 in Paris and to GJ Constantin on January 15, 1794. In 1802 it moved to London in the collection of Christian William Huygens, the George Gillow collection, the Michael Zachary collection, the Davis Mackintosh collection; via Anthony Reyre to Romford and on April 30, 1924 to Berlin to Leo Blumenreich and Frantz M. Zatzenstein. It reached the Julius H. Haass Collection in Detroit via the Matthiesen Gallery , and from 1926 it was shown at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

reception

Goethe visited the Dresden gallery and described the picture as a poet in his 1816 essay Ruysdael . He writes that the picture is “solely dedicated to the past”. He sees the tombs as destroyed, he sees the ruins in the background of the picture as the remains of the cathedral of a monastery:

"The tombs even point, in their destroyed state, to something more than the past, they are tombs of themselves. [...] In the background you can see [...] the meager ruins of a once immense cathedral, which was striving towards the sky. […] The whole of the otherwise certainly fertile surroundings of the monastery is overgrown, […] this wilderness penetrates the churchyard, of whose former pious satisfaction no trace can be seen. "

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe : Ruysdael as a poet

A melancholy-romantic perspective was therefore far from him. He also did not see the picture as a specifically Jewish cemetery, but only as the remains of a formerly important abbey and the cemetery as the resting place of wealthy old families. The French painter and art critic Jean-Joseph Taillasson , who knew the picture or one of its copies, wrote in 1807 of a "sweet melancholy" that the picture would convey. The English art dealer John Smith listed the Detroit painting in his first Ruisdael catalog raisonné in 1835, and writes that it came from Paris to England in 1815. He was also familiar with the Dresden picture, but only mentions it in the preface to his catalog and writes:

“Two pictures also, of a highly classical character, merit particular […]. They are styled 'The Jews Burying Ground'; but are evidently intended as allegories of human life. "

- John Smith

The Dresden picture impressed him less than its counterpart, he describes it as a duplicate. The English landscape painter of Romanticism John Constable on wrote a treatise on Jacob van Ruisdael for the Art Association British institution with An Allegory of the Life of Man . So it seems that he knew the picture from England. Constable writes:

“We see nothing till we truly understand it. In another instance he failed, because he attempted to tell that which is outside the reach of art. "

- John Constable

The recipients from the 19th century praised the painting for its use of light and colors, but today it appears dark and color-balanced. An applied thick layer of varnish softens the contrasts.

The German graphic artist and painter Konrad Klapheck associates the memory of the death of his wife with the picture. He and his Jewish wife Lilo visited the Ruisdael exhibition in The Hague in 1982, where both versions of the painting were shown. Klapheck found the Detroit image better because the bare tree leans to the right and the rainbow appears clearer. His wife, however, preferred the Dresden version, and there was an argument. When visiting the real cemetery of Ouderkerk near Amsterdam in 1985, the couple found themselves closer to each other again. She died in 1987.

literature

• Helen Rosenau: The dates of Jacob van Ruisdael's “Jewish Cemeteries”. In: Oud Holland - Quarterly for Dutch Art History. Volume 73, No. 1. 1958, pp. 241-242, ISSN  0030-672X , doi: 10.1163 / 187501758X00378 .
• Seymour Slive, HR Hoetink: Jacob van Ruisdael. Meulenhoff, Amsterdam 1981, ISBN 90-290-8471-5 .
• Seymour Slive: Jacob Van Ruisdael. A Complete Catalog of His Paintings, Drawings, and Etchings. Yale University Press, New Haven 2001, ISBN 0-300-08972-4 , pp. 180 ff, ( books.google.de ).
• Martina Sitt, P. Biesboer, Karsten Müller (eds.): Jacob van Ruisdael. The landscape revolution. Waanders / Hamburger Kunsthalle, Zwolle / Hamburg 2002, ISBN 90-400-9606-6 . ( Review )
• Horst Woldemar Janson, Anthony F. Janson: History of Art. The Western Tradition. Prentice Hall Professional, Upper Saddle River, NJ 2003, ISBN 0-13-182895-9 , ( books.google.de ).

Web links

• Web Gallery of Art: Ruisdael, Jacob Isaackszon van - The Jewish Cemetery.
• The Jewish Cemetery. on artble.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} The Jewish cemetery. (No longer available online.) In: SKD Online Collection. skd.museum, archived from the original on February 1, 2016 ; accessed on February 1, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ^ Seymour Slive: Jacob van Ruisdael - Master of Landscape. Yale University Press, 2006, pp. 201 f.
3. ^ Seymour Slive: Jacob van Ruisdael - Master of Landscape . Yale University Press, 2006. ISBN 1-903973-74-0 , pp. 84 ff.
4. ^ Michiel C. Plomp: The Dutch Drawings in the Teyler Museum . Volume 2, Haarlem 1997, p. 361
5. ↑ Martina Sitt, P. Biesboer, Karsten Müller (eds.): Jacob van Ruisdael. The landscape revolution. Waanders / Hamburger Kunsthalle, Zwolle / Hamburg 2002, ISBN 90-400-9606-6 , p. 122
6. ↑ Jacob Isaaksz van Ruisdael. The Jewish Cemetery. (No longer available online.) In: dia.org. The Detroit Institute of Arts, archived from the original on February 1, 2016 ; accessed on February 1, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ^ German Academy for Language and Poetry. Wallstein Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-89244-376-9 , ( books.google.com ).
8. ↑ Goethe's works. Complete edition last hand. 39th volume. JG Cotta 1831, p. 270 f.
9. ↑ Jean Joseph Taillasson: Observations sur quelques grands Peintres, etc. Paris in 1807, OCLC 752421 .
10. ^ John Smith: A Catalog Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters. .... Smith and son, 1835, ( books.google.com ).
11. ^ Seymour Slive: Jacob van Ruisdael - Master of Landscape. Yale University Press, 2006, p. 87.
12. ↑ Martina Sitt, P. Biesboer, Karsten Müller (eds.): Jacob van Ruisdael. The landscape revolution. Waanders / Hamburger Kunsthalle, Zwolle / Hamburg 2002, p. 122
13. ↑ Konrad Klapheck in: ZEIT-Museum der 100 Bilder . Edited by Fritz J. Raddatz. Insel Verlag Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-458-32913-7 , p. 344 ff.