Detail of Wheat Fields by Van Ruisdael in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 2019

Wheat Fields

Artist: Jacob van Ruisdael (Dutch, Haarlem 1628/29–1682 Amsterdam)

Date: ca. 1670

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 39 3/8 x 51 1/4 in. (100 x 130.2 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913

Accession Number: 14.40.623

Twenty-seven views of fields by Ruisdael survive today. In this celebrated example, the artist used the building blocks of land, sky, and sea to create an imposing vision of cultivated nature. On the road before us, a man with a traveler’s pack approaches a woman and child, while the cumulus clouds dominating the sky add their own element of drama. A glimpse of boats at sea on the far left knits this quintessentially Dutch landscape into the wider world.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437549