Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael is generally considered the pre-eminent landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age, a period of great wealth and cultural achievement when Dutch painting became highly popular. Jacob van Ruisdael was the foremost exponent of the classical phase of Dutch landscape painting. He was able to create a poetic and sometimes brooding or tragic mood in his landscapes.
The painting is one of nine known landscape paintings that bear the earliest date found on works by Van Ruisdael, 1646.
At the time the artist was about eighteen years old. Youthful exuberance and some losses of paint and glazes combine to make the topography in the foreground somewhat unclear.
Landscape with a Village in the Distance 1646 Jacob van Ruisdael
