Ruysdael was the largest landscape painter of his time. In the Dutch landscape school there are a wide variety of images of nature, and there are always people in them. Small nimble figures load or unload ships, hunt in forests, fill the streets of cities and villages. But there are other works of landscape painting, embodying a moment of philosophical generalization.
Among these canvases and refers “Swamp”. The painting depicts a deserted part of the forest, flooded with water. Powerful, slightly twisted trees direct their magnificent crowns towards the sky, but some of these giants are already dead trunks devoid of leaves. This is a powerful, once beautiful oak tree that fell into a swamp on the right side of the canvas, its neighbor is still trying to resist the fate, and strong growth develops around them. The dark waters of the swamp are still, but almost all of their surface is covered with light green water lily flowers.
Only the noisy family of a wild duck violates calm and silence in the old forest. The sun’s rays barely penetrate the wet thicket, and only small glares of light play on the surface of the water. Ancient oaks and young trees embody the outgoing, doomed old and emerging new generation. The picture thus acquires a hidden symbolic meaning, in which its philosophical content lies.
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