For some time, I've been working on a detailed copy of the painting Evening Landscape: A Windmill by a Stream by Jacob van Ruisdael (around 1650). Below, I'm sharing my impressions of the painting and the process of copying,  photos of my painting in progress, as well as written information and links about the original painting held by the Royal Collection Trust.Â
In September, I attended a two week workshop in copying master paintings held at the Florence Academy of Art lead by professor and artist Igor Naskalov, who introduced me to the techniques and materials necessary to copy a painting by Ruisdael. During the workshop I was able to achieve the imprimatura and detailed underpainting (drawing) on canvas then I completed the painting and glazing in my atelier.Â
View of the work in progress at the Florence Academy of Art, Photo credit: Maria and Igor Naskalov
This work is compelling because it has a complex structure and beautiful movement. It is most likely based on studies that Ruisdael made in the landscape surrounding Haarlem but composed in the atelier. For me this painting represented several technical aspects of painting that I'd like to learn more about. I initially selected it because of the impressive cloud structure. I also observed that it is a layered painting with considerable spatial depth. These are aspects of painting composition that I would like to bring into my own painting practice.Â
There is a clockwise circular movement in the painting that is emphasized by the perspective lines of the road, the field and row of houses to the left, the sky and clouds above, the large windmill to the right, and the horizontal reflections in the water and multiple layers of grasses in the foreground. I discovered that Ruisdael made use of all the possible methods to create an image with an impressive pictorial space. He used an asymmetrical composition, perspective lines, objects in perspective, overlapping objects, variations in value and chroma, and dashes of light that travels through the image.
View of the painting in progress at the Florence Academy of Art, September 7, 2022
At first it seems like the whole lower part of the painting is painted in a uniform dark earth tone. This isn't the case. There is a minute difference in value and color intensity from one layer and type of grass to the next.  Ruisdael also commonly used warm and cool colors with the same value next to each other to create variety and to reveal details in the image. This can be seen in the grasses, in the water, and in the clouds.Â
The paint application goes from a very smooth and soft painterly technique of the clouds to a very tight, highly detailed drawing of the grasses and trees in the foreground. The contours of the larger shapes were transferred using transfer paper; however in this case, most of the canvas is very dark so impossible to transfer in this way. Most of the copying was made by eye or, when needed, by actual measuring.
The amount of detail in the lower part of the painting is extraordinary and requires a very systematic painting method. Even though I was very careful I found that sizes and locations of elements had to be adjusted multiple times. Working very close to the canvas, I used 0/2 and 0/3 brushes for the finest details and I found myself getting lost between one patch of grass to the next! The species of the grasses are described precisely, for instance the grasses close to the pond aren't the same as the grasses in the field and the species vary from one patch to the next. The trees are also very detailed. Ruisdael painted every single leaf! The detail is at the level of a drawing. In contrast, the painting of the sky required me to step back from the canvas and to use large brushes. The shifts in value and chroma that shape the clouds can only be perceived at a distance. So the clouds require the  painter to walk back and forth between the strokes. This is also necessary when it comes to comparing the overall structure, value, and chroma.
View of the work in progress, September 9, 2022
View of the work in progress at the Florence Academy of Art, Photo credit: Maria and Igor Naskalov
The pigments in this painting are: raw umber, burnt umber, burnt sienna, sienna, yellow ochre, ivory black, ultramarine blue, cerulean blue, cadmium yellow scarlet, cadmium yellow medium, viridian, and titanium white.
The original painting measures 77,6 cm x 100,8 cm. The printed copy that I've been using as a model is full size but because of logistic reasons it was mounted on a stretcher that measures 70x90 cm; subsequently, my stretched linen canvas also measures 70x90 cm so that the two can be compared side by side.
Top: Painting to the left, print to the right, November 25, 2022
Bottom: Print to the left, painting to the right, November 25, 2022
There are still elements in the painting that can be improved upon but I think that I've gone as far as I'm compelled to at this time. My skill level increased considerable through this experience and it was a rewarding experience in many ways. While comparing the printed copy and my painted copy it is now difficult to distinguish between the two at a distance. The painted copy has however a painterly presence that the print doesn't have. The surface is very beautiful and I find that the painting has more depth. It may invite a viewer to study the painting and landscape closely. It was a pleasure to be able to count the leaves on the trees, study the different species of plants, watch the sky unfold, and spend time in this 17th century country scene in Holland in year 2022!Â
The photos below are of my painting in morning (blue light) and evening light (golden light).
Above: Evening Landscape: A Windmill by a Stream by Liselott Johnsson after Jacob van Ruisdael, 2022, oil on canvas, 70x90 cm, photos in morning and evening light, November 24, 2022
REFERENCES:
Above: Evening Landscape: A Windmill by a Stream by Jacob van Ruisdael (around 1650), two photos of the original as shown on the website of the Royal Collection Trust
Description of the original painting by the Royal Collection Trust (web):
JACOB VAN RUISDAEL (HAARLEM C. 1628-AMSTERDAM 1682)
Evening Landscape: a Windmill by a Stream c.1650
Oil on canvas | 79.1 x 102.4 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 405538
Description
Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/9-82) is thought to have trained in Haarlem with his father, Isaack van Ruisdael, and his uncle Salomon van Ruysdael. Ruisdael had moved to Amsterdam by 1657 and stated before an Amsterdam notary in 1661 that he was 32, thereby indicating a birth date of either 1628 or 1629. He is generally regarded as the greatest of the seventeenth-century Dutch landscape painters.
In 1821, when John Constable saw Evening Landscape on display at the Royal Academy, his friend David Lucas, a printmaker, recorded that he particularly admired the ‘acres of sky expressed’. This vast expanse of sky dominates the composition, with its ominous clouds rolling over the carefully constructed scene below. Although only in his twenties Ruisdael seems to be honing his skills in this painting by repeating a landscape that he had created when aged 18: A Windmill near Fields (The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland). The location depicted in both works has not been identified; it may be a specific place, but is more likely to be an idealised landscape constructed out of various sketches and studies which Ruisdael would have made outdoors in the area around Haarlem. Ruisdael appears to have considered such sketches as working drawings, with the result that familiar motifs recur in many of his finished paintings.
The windmills in this and the Cleveland painting are old-fashioned ‘standard-mills’ (standerdmolen), meaning that the entire body of the mill rotates around a central pole (once the ladder has been raised), which is why it is entirely logical that the paintings show different alignments. Ruisdael has painted out smoke rising (in the wrong direction) from the chimney to the right and added some rising (in the right direction) above the cottage to the left. When comparing the composition of the earlier and later work it is as though the viewer has stepped backwards, in order to gain a clearer, more striking impression of the foreground. The greatest difference between the two paintings occurs in the sky. In the decade between the two works, Ruisdael perfected his ability to create dramatic visual tension, so that the heavy clouds in this painting imbue the scene with character and emotion. The questions remains: does such an image have a moral or religious meaning? The scene certainly reflects mankind’s dependence upon nature, but the main message lies in the prominence of the windmill – an enduring symbol of the Dutch Republic which played a significant role in the new country’s industry and resulting wealth.
Between 1646 and 1657 Ruisdael regularly dated his works, but this painting is undated. It has been placed in the mid-to-late 1650s on the evidence of the sophistication of handling and the unyielding, harsh colours which define the artist’s work of this period.
Signed: 'JvRuisdael' (JvR in monogram)
-The Royal Collection Trust
https://www.rct.uk/collection/405538/evening-landscape-a-windmill-by-a-stream
Description by Cornelis Hofstede de Groot in a catalogue raisonné published in 1907:
173. A VIEW IN HOLLAND: LANDSCAPE WITH A WIND MILL. Sm. 102 -On the farther bank of a pool in the right foreground stands a large wooden wind-mill, inside a paling amid trees. To the right of it are low cottages. To the left of the pool a winding road runs from the left foregrounds across a plain with sunlit bleaching-grounds and cottages amid trees beyond them. On the road in the middle distance a man with a white dog goes towards a hut, near which is a woman with a child. Cloudy sky. Signed in full on the left at foot; canvas, 31 inches by 40 inches.
- Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A catalogue raisonné of the works of the most eminent Dutch painters of the seventeeth century based on the work by John Smith. Macmillan and Co, London, 1907
https://archive.org/details/ac...
Description by Seymour Slice in an exhibition catalogue, 1982:
Slive, Seymour. Jacob van Ruisdael, pages 46-47. Abbeville Press, New York, 1981
Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Mauritshuis, the Royal Cabinet of Paintings, the Hague, 1 Oct. 1981-3 Jan. 1982 and at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 18 Jan. 1982-11 April 1982
https://archive.org/details/jacobvanruisdael0000sliv/mode/2up
Above:  Evening Landscape: A Windmill by a Stream by Liselott Johnsson after Jacob van Ruisdael, 2022, detail, photo in evening light, November 24, 2022