# River Scene [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [RUYSDAEL, Salomon van]() - Date: 1601-1650 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 33,6 x 50,5 cm ## Commentary In this painting the formation of trees and bushes on the bank almost seems to rise as a mirage from the motionless water. The whole picture, which is without a sharply drawn line, is a modulation within an almost monochromatic scale; while staying in the same greyish key, this monochromatism is only subtly adjusted towards the sky, where it acquires a bluish tinge, or towards the water with hints of blue and brown, while in the foliage on the bank a greenish grey predominates. In a distant haze the horizon is only vaguely discernible, which makes this calm picture into a harmony of air and water in which the shore, gently receding until it is lost to the eye, delineates a deep, wide space. So refined and delicate is this painting that one feels that it must be something more than a sensitive approximation to a real view along the bank of a Dutch river, early on a cool summer morning before the wind has blown the mist away. A concious aesthetic element is involved. ## Related artworks - [A Country Road]() - [A Ferry Boat near Arnheim]() - [A Winter Landscape]() - [Drawing the Eel]() - [Dutch Vessels at the Mouth of an Estuary \(detail\)]() - [Dutch Vessels at the Mouth of an Estuary]() - [Ferry near Gorinchem \(detail\)]() - [Ferry near Gorinchem]() - [Fishing Boats on a River]() - [Halt at an Inn \(detail\)]() - [Halt at an Inn]() - [Landscape \(detail\)]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()