View of Haarlem with Bleaching Fields (c. 1670–1675) is an oil on canvas painting by Dutch landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael.
The horizon line is relatively low, allowing the cloud-filled sky to dominate roughly two-thirds of the canvas; the base of the skyline is dotted with windmills surrounding the town of Haarlem and the Church of St. Bravo, also known as Grote Kerk.
[2] The low horizon line in View of Haarlem with Bleaching Fields is one of the key features of Dutch landscape paintings during the seventeenth century, emphasizing the heavens.
[4] The billowing clouds dominating the scene create patches of sunlight shining down on the land below; this was a carefully calculated move on Ruisdael's part.
[2] Through these patches of sunlight, Ruisdael places emphasis on the bleaching fields, a leading source of Haarlem's economic well-being at the time, and directs our eye across the canvas all the way back to the towering Church of St.
[1] Although landscape paintings were popular in seventeenth-century Dutch art, the depiction of a specific industry and its connection with a particular place was relatively rare at the time.
[3] Art Historian H. Perry Chapman argues that landscape paintings with views of Haarlem with its bleaching fields were inspired by a series of landscape prints featuring Haarlem's bleaching fields, titled Pleasant Places Around Haarlem, done years earlier by printmaker Claes Jansz Visscher the Younger during the Twelve Years' Truce, a time during which the Northern Netherlands first tasted independence from Spain and struggled to begin to unite into what would eventually become the Dutch Republic.
The passage describes the biblical story of Joseph of Arimathea wrapping the body of Jesus Christ within a linen sheet.
[1] Wiegand also uses other Biblical passages in to support this view: according to Revelation 19:8, "[...] for the marriage of the Lamb is come and his wife hath made herself ready.
[1] This scene is very similar to other panorama paintings Ruisdael made in this period, often referred to as "Haarlempjes" or "Haerlempjes," meaning little views of Haarlem.