Waterfall in Norway

Ruisdael never visited Scandinavia, but he borrowed the idea of Norwegian landscapes from Allaert van Everdingen, an artist who worked for a time in Haarlem and had success with such works. A rush of water carrying away a broken tree, a house huddled on a slope, and tiny figures beneath a clouded sky - all these components make it possible to see the painting as a piece of 17th-century speculation on the romantic opposition of man and the elements.