Hotspur🏳️🌈🇺🇦<p>"Grove of Large Oak Trees at the Edge of a Pond," Jacob van Ruisdael, 1665.</p><p>Van Ruisdael (c. 1629- 1682) was the pre-eminent landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age. Born into a family of artists, it's unknown exactly who taught him. It's assumed he learned from his father and/or uncle, but there's no documentation. His earliest known work is dated 1646.</p><p>Details of his life are sketchy and unclear; he might have studied medicine, some claim he was Jewish (although he's buried in a Protestant cemetery), there are no known likenesses of him, no known marriages or relationships, and there were rumors he died in poverty although that was disproven. </p><p>This painting works well as an allegory; we have the tall oaks but also the fallen, broken one under a stormy sky; all comes to an end. Also worth noting that the herdsman and cattle were added by another artist much later; this is known as "staffage" and makes me cringe.</p><p>From the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe.</p><p><a href="https://social.vivaldi.net/tags/Art" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Art</span></a> <a href="https://social.vivaldi.net/tags/DutchArt" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>DutchArt</span></a> <a href="https://social.vivaldi.net/tags/DutchGoldenAge" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>DutchGoldenAge</span></a> <a href="https://social.vivaldi.net/tags/JacobVanRuisdael" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>JacobVanRuisdael</span></a> <a href="https://social.vivaldi.net/tags/Landscape" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Landscape</span></a> <a href="https://social.vivaldi.net/tags/Allegory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Allegory</span></a></p>