Castle Bentheim
The castle of Bentheim on its wooded hill just over the German border — Ruisdael raised the modest rise into a dramatic mountain.
Burg Bentheim
The painting shows a real, identified place that you can find today. The exact spot the artist worked from is not necessarily known.
Castle Bentheim — at a glance
- Artist
- Jacob van Ruisdael (c. 1628–1682)
- Year
- 1653
- Movement
- Dutch Golden Age
- Place
- Burg Bentheim, Bad Bentheim, Lower Saxony, Germany
- Viewpoint
- The real hilltop castle — but set on a far higher, steeper, invented hill; the castle survives and is open to visitors
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- c. 111 × 144 cm
- Now at
- National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin (and other versions)
Overview
Castle Bentheim is one of the most ambitious landscapes of Jacob van Ruisdael's early maturity, painted in 1653 after a trip he made with his friend Nicolaes Berchem to the German borderlands. It shows the hilltop castle of Bentheim rising above dense woods and a winding track, with cottages and travellers at the foot, under a broad, cloud-filled sky. It is oil on canvas, about 111 by 144 cm; the finest version is in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, with related versions elsewhere.
Where was Castle Bentheim painted?
Scholarship Burg Bentheim is a large medieval castle in the town of Bad Bentheim, in Lower Saxony just across the border from the Netherlands — one of the largest hill castles in north-west Germany, still standing and privately owned but open to visitors. In reality it stands on a low sandstone ridge only some tens of metres above the surrounding flat country. Ruisdael dramatically exaggerated this, placing the castle on a tall, steep, almost alpine hill among towering trees, to heighten the sense of grandeur — so the castle is real, but the mountain is invented.
What is in the painting?
The pale stone castle, with its round tower and long walls, crowns a high, densely wooded hill in the centre-right. A sandy path winds up from the foreground past oak trees, a few low cottages, and small figures of travellers. Bracken and a fallen trunk in front; the land drops away to the left. Above, more than half the canvas is a sky of piled white and grey cloud with sunlight breaking through onto the castle and the trees.
Look closely
The exaggerated hill
The castle is set on a tall, steep wooded height — far higher than the modest real ridge.
The winding path
A sandy track climbs from the foreground past oaks, cottages and small travelling figures.
The shaft of sun
A break in the piled cloud throws light onto the castle and the treetops.
The individual oaks
The foreground oak trees are given almost portrait-like character.
Analysis
Composition and technique
The castle raised on an exaggerated wooded height, approached by a winding path, under a large luminous sky.
Scholarship Ruisdael builds the picture as a rising diagonal — foreground path and trees, wooded slope, castle, sky — and heightens the hill far beyond reality for drama. The oaks are given individual, almost portrait-like character; a shaft of sun singles out the castle against the cloud.
History & provenance
The prime version is in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin; Ruisdael painted the subject several times and other versions are in museums including the Rijksmuseum.
Sources
- National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin — collection entry for Jacob van Ruisdael, ‘The Castle of Bentheim’ (1653)
- Seymour Slive, ‘Jacob van Ruisdael: Master of Landscape’ (2005)
Related paintings
The Windmill at Wijk bij Duurstede
1670
Ruisdael's most famous landscape — the same rearranging of a real place for effect.
View of Haarlem with Bleaching Fields
1670
Ruisdael's flat panorama of his home city — the opposite of this heightened hill.
Dolbadarn Castle
1800
Turner's Welsh castle keep of 1800 — a later Romantic exaggeration of a hill castle's setting.
More by Jacob van Ruisdael
The Windmill at Wijk bij Duurstede
The Jewish Cemetery