Michael Savage
posted 20 March 2006

Reviewers love didactic and rhetorical artists, because so much can be said about them. But Jacob van Ruisdael is a quiet genius. Even his stormy seas, broody skies, dingy forests and tempestuous waterfalls are oddly calming. Most of Ruisdael's paintings have nothing to tell us. They resist fashionable symbolic explanations; they are just landscapes.

Here we have the full range of his talent, as painter, draftsman and engraver. The simple brilliance of small, flat landscapes with expansive clouds filling the skies is seen alongside large paintings of castles and waterfalls and great towering trees. 'Rough Sea at a Jetty' shows Ruisdael at his best. The restricted palette of greys shows him as a wonderful colourist - a talent rarely displayed with such flamboyance in landscape painting. The action is tightly orchestrated. To the left a tall beacon inclines to the left, balanced with a small sailing boat buffeted to the right. It is balanced with an expanse of waves highlighted by the sun breaking through the dense dark clouds above, with smaller boats and a wooden structure at the far right. Each element plays a role, with nothing superfluous or out of place.

I cannot say the same of the exhibition. The parts rise to great heights, but the whole is actually less than those parts; comparing paintings of different scenes are periods is not rewarding as it is for, say, Rembrandt. There are plenty of the 'greatest hits' on show, which gives a one-sided picture of his art. The more pedestrian are often most satisfying.

The hanging is also disappointing. Pairs of landscapes showing a calm and a storm were common in the seventeenth century, particularly in France. But the hanging of the 'Rough Sea at a Jetty' next to a calm woodland scene of similar dimensions is too contrived. The difficulty is compounded by framing; their frames are of similar designs, but the Jetty is dark and the Calm is light, making comparison difficult. On the subject of framing, the dark frames are historically accurate and especially effective, but dull gilt works too, especially on the smaller paintings. The Carter collection's 'Grainfields', however, is in a burnished gilt frame, whose bright reflection competes with the sunlight illuminating fields and detracts from Ruisdael's intended effect. Exhibition organisers have little influence over framing. But the lighting is also dreadful. The combination of drawings, prints and paintings means that light levels have to be controlled carefully, so the skylights are closed and we can see only in artificial light - in worse circumstances than they would be seen in the usual homes.

It would have been better if these great paintings had stayed home, where they can generally be enjoyed in a more unhurried context with better lighting and a wider context. But the behaviour of London's National Gallery is a mark of how little care is paid to permanent collections, rather than prominent exhibitions. The 'Extensive Landscape with a Ruined Castle and a Village Church' generally hangs there in a room with a smaller version of the same scene, and it is telling that the wall text for the other version still refers to this one as being in the same room; no one bothered to change it for the full year that this exhibition runs. All energy is directed towards special exhibitions. No one cares much about the permanent collection, and no one much looks at Ruisdael when there isn't a special exhibition. The room at the National Gallery is often an oasis amid the nearby bustle of Rembrandt and Hals.

There is an audio guide available for the exhibition, but the uptake was mercifully low when I visited. These paintings do not call for explanation; just shut up and look. Seymour Slive, the guiding light behind the exhibition and author of the excellent catalogue, knows this. Most catalogues are collaborative efforts, but this one is by Slive alone, which allows him to share a long obsession at appropriate length. But he says only what he needs to say; no more and no less. Some paintings have many pages of commentary. But for 'Village in Winter' he says only this: 'None of the artist's winterscapes better succeeds in capturing the brooding mood of a winter day darkened by threatening storm clouds'.

I have nothing to add.

Till 4 June 2006