I - Dunes: Man in Nature

Summary

Abstract

“Dunes: Man in Nature” considers the way Ruisdael distinguishes distinct types of soil, not only various sands and clays but also the sorts of mires and boggy soil characteristic of particular patches within the dunes, as well as the crofts built on such unfruitful soil. This chapter examines Ruisdael's work across media to analyze his labor in recording such specifics. His choice and treatment of this locale is also considered in the light of its transformation through land sales and removal, as well as its transition from hardscrabble farmland to a desirable spot for country houses that ranged from farmsteads to landed estates. In contrast to his early dune landscapes, his Haarlempjes exemplify his later more distanced perspective.

Keywords: wildernisse, afzanderij, transformation, soil, Haarlempjes, country houses

Dune Landscapes and Pleasant Places

It is appropriate that landschop, the likely etymological source for the word landscape and subsequently landscape painting, originally referred to shoveled land thrown up against the sea to produce viable agrarian land at sea level along what is now the Dutch coastline. It is even more appropriate that the city of Haarlem and its environs are central to making landscape in both cases. Historically, Haarlem and its surroundings (figure 5) were distinguished by a terrain made up of dunes and peat; the elevated sandy areas were suitable for building, and eventually, with considerable labor, much of the marshy areas were drained for grazing and arable use. This history is documented in maps, surveys, and legal records. Both sand and peat were in themselves valuable resources and were treated as such in real estate transactions and in their extensive sale and removal, a practice which dated from as early as the fourteenth century and became more prevalent with the increased land speculation of the seventeenth. The long-vanished peatlands rarely appear in pictures, but the protective dunes which feature from the earliest descriptions of the city still exist now, even if reduced. Indeed, dunes have consistently figured among the pleasant places around Haarlem whose beauties, history, and productivity were celebrated in poems and descriptions, and were among the earliest native landscapes depicted by Dutch artists. The Haarlem dunes were also well represented in maps, surveys, and topographical views which documented property rights and land use. These latter supplement literary and historical sources and underscore the selective choices of artists for landscape pictures.