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| Jacob van Ruisdael The Jewish Cemetery ca. 1655-60 oil on canvas Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden |
Volatility in Nature
Among Dutch landscapists, Jacob van Ruisdael is the painter of upheavals, a forerunner of Romanticism. In this case, he depicts desolation – including ruins of what could well have been a synagogue, contrasting with his frequent theme of a new-built church. But this is not a church portrait. What stands out for attention against the ruins is a group of tombs, rigidly geometrical and almost glowing.
Water, Flowing and Falling
In the background, we sense tangles of dark foliage against a stormy sky. In the foreground at right is a large bare tree, the remains of a birch, dead-white – the ghost of a tree. At left, next to the tumbling waters, stands the stump where another sizeable tree has disappeared.
Descending, the stream has cut its way through the middle of the graveyard. There are tombs on either side. A slab of stone in the lower left corner bears the artist's signature. Might that indicate a family connection with this cemetery? Above, against the heavy undergrowth, a sort of rainbow-shape* in grey hints perhaps at a vaulted cave-opening. Clouds and branches mingle to close off the horizon.
Tombs as Crystals
The ruined synagogue has been encircled and overwhelmed by the wrathful elements. Yet the tombs appear intact, radiant. The grand Old Testament patriarchs continue to abide, their tradition lives on, not only within established Christianity, but in what endures of the synagogue itself – this shining geometry which draws to itself the only light remaining in a landscape of decay. These surviving sepulchers, encompassing decomposing bodies, also shield them from the surrounding annihilation. One among the tombs is lifted above the earth by three steps of black marble, another signal of stability. The venerable champions of the Old Law here await the Last Judgment. It will restore their living flesh to them and transform the synagogue into a renewed Temple fit to inhabit the New Jerusalem.
– translated and adapted from Le Musée imaginaire de Michel Butor: 105 œuvres décisives de la peinture occidentale (Paris: Flammarion, 2019)
*curators at the painting's home-institution in Dresden regard the rainbow-shape as a literal rainbow, signifying hope