Jacob van Ruisdael (c. 1629 – 1682) was a prolific and versatile Dutch artist, generally considered the pre-eminent landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age. During this period of great wealth and cultural achievement when Dutch painting became highly popular, his father and uncle were also landscape artists. His earliest works, dating from 1646, show remarkable quality for his age. He moved from his Haarlem birthplace to Amsterdam around 1657, where he lived until his death. Ruisdael painted a wide variety of landscape subjects, including Dutch countryside scenes, city panoramas, seascapes, and Scandinavian waterfalls. The sky often takes up two thirds of the canvas. His accurate rendering of trees was unprecedented, and he is particularly known for his paintings of mills, such as Windmill at Wijk bij Duurstede(pictured). Ruisdael shaped landscape painting traditions worldwide, influencing the English Romantics, the French Barbizon School, and the American Hudson River School, as well as generations of Dutch landscape artists. The National Gallery, the Rijksmuseum, and the Hermitage Museum hold the largest collections of his paintings. (Full article...)
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The Kuwait Towers are a group of three slender towers in Kuwait City, standing on a promontory into the Persian Gulf. Built as part of a water distribution project, they were officially inaugurated in March 1979. Today they are rated as a landmark and symbol of modern Kuwait. The largest tower holds 4,500 cubic metres of water, a restaurant, a café, a lounge and a reception hall. The towers have been closed since March 2012 for maintenance.
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