0005

In the present painting, the idyllic shore is painted in atmospheric autumn colours. Two loaded wagons stand near a hut visible between tall trees, in front of which the horses are being fed. Above the lifelike shimmering reflections in the calm water, several boats are floating along the shore.
River scenes were Salomon van Ruysdael's main subject - he created more paintings on this theme than on any other landscape subject. For the present depiction, he used an oval horizontal format, which further emphasises the aesthetic impression of the landscape view. In the 1630s, the floating nature of the representational prompted the artist to use this format more frequently for his constantly varied river landscapes, for example in his "Baumreiches Flussufer" ("Wooded River Bank") in the Gemäldegalerie Dresden (c. 1633, inv. no. 1384).
Above the obliquely receding river view, the trees on the bank form a diagonal line which connects foreground and background and creates a unified pictorial space. Above the low-set horizon, space is given to the impressive depiction of the sky and clouds. This allowed the artist to capture the reflections of the sky and trees in the water. In this complementary treatment of water and sky, Salomon van Ruysdael is unsurpassed among his compatriots. In this sense, the interacting, transient natural phenomena that Ruysdael presents in his depiction of water, light and air are probably the real protagonists of this outstanding landscape.
Together with Jan van Goyen (1596-1656), Salomon von Ruysdael belonged to the group of Haarlem artists who were to revolutionise Dutch landscape painting from the 1620s onwards. Through their mutual influence, they developed a naturalistic style of painting that focused on the peculiarities and ephemeral details of nature and atmospheric effects.