The Jewish Cemetery is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Dutch landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael, now at the Detroit Institute of Arts. The Jewish Cemetery is an allegorical landscape painting suggesting ideas of hope and death, while also depicting Beth Haim, a cemetery located on Amsterdam's southern outskirts, at the town of Ouderkerk aan de Amstel. Beth Haim is a resting place for some prominent figures among Amsterdam's large Jewish Portuguese community in the 17th century. The tomb monuments commemorate leaders of the newly arrived Portuguese-Jewish population. The central elements of the painting differ from what one would see in Ouderkerk, as Ruisdael made adjustments to achieve compositional and allegorical intent. The picture's physical dimensions are twice that of typical landscape painting from the 17th century. After being cataloged in England in 1835, the work disappeared from public display for many years, before emerging at various auctions in London and Berlin. The Detroit Institute of Arts acquired the painting in 1926 from Julius H. Haass, given in memory of his brother. Jacob van Ruisdael created two versions of The Jewish Cemetery in 1653 and 1655 while in his mid-twenties, according to Erich Simon.
Subject and symbols In both versions, Jacob van Ruisdael presents the cemetery as a landscape variant of a vanitas painting. Vanitas works tend to be still-life or genre scenes, with skulls, books, flowers, and candles as common subjects in this theme. Similarly, Jacob van Ruisdael employed deserted tombs, ravaged churches, stormy clouds, dead trees, changing skies, and flowing water to symbolize death and the transience of all earthly things. Jacob Rosenberg and Seymour Slive describe the "compelling and tragic mood in nature" of the Jewish Cemetery—"a moralizing landscape .... painted with a deliberate allegorical programme." The central building's foundations are overrun by leafy foliage arising from decaying wood in the foreground. Beyond, many likely symbols of death prevail. As the brook rushes over large stones under the broken arch, possibly symbolizing the fast-flowing passage of a human lifetime. That may correspond to beams of light that break through billowing rain or storm clouds in the upper sphere. The upright but broken column—here presented as a half-cylinder—likely signifies death. In addition to serving as a memento mori, a reminder of the inevitability of death, the painting may also offer themes of hope and renewal. Water constantly flows, changes, and regenerates in the stream, perhaps symbolizing life and aliveness while the decaying tree bending over it represents death's inevitable arrival. Nature revitalizes and replenishes neglected areas as they become submerged in encroaching woodland over time. Although a rainbow bears varied symbolic meanings, it often been regarded as a harbinger of hope and divine promise. At the top of the picture, the curve in the rainbow's arc may suggest a "bridge to the heavens." It has also been theorized to symbolize the renewal of life, connecting the work to a theological message: rabbis have said that the resurrection of the dead would be the first sign that the moshiach (the anointed one from the House of David) would be coming. This message would have been clear to Portuguese Sephardi, who would wait for this event from within Beth Chaim. It is possible that this added meaning would have been at the direction of a patron, though it is unknown who, if anyone, might have commissioned the painting.
Tombs
Ruisdael's paintings depict tombs he would have observed when visiting Beth Hamin. (Michael Zell writes that "Ruisdael focuses on a corner of the cemetery, isolating four of the oldest, most unusual and most conspicuous Sephardi tombs" with "illegible pseudo-Hebraic inscriptions.") They marked the remains of the first Portuguese settlers in Amsterdam at the time, many of whom were from old families that had obtained wealth and noble titles before coming to Amsterdam. In the illuminated white marble tombstone, adorned with a large stone box and colorful cap, lie the remains of Elias (or Eliahu) Montalto. Dr. Montalto was physician to Maria de' Medici, and upon his death in 1616 his remains were brought to Ouderkerk for burial. Inscribed on the marble slab are Hebrew block letters. Montalto's first name is spelled out in an acrostic poem on the vertical rear plate.
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