Windmill at Wijk bij Duurstede

The Windmill of Wijk bij Duurstede (c. 1670) is an oil on canvas painting by the Dutch painter Jacob van Ruisdael. It is an example of Dutch Golden Age painting and is now in the collection of the Amsterdam Museum, on loan to the Rijksmuseum. The painting shows Wijk bij Duurstede, a riverside town about 20 kilometers from Utrecht, with a dominating cylindrical windmill, harmonised by the lines of river bank and sails, and the contrasts between light and shadow working together with the intensified concentration of mass and space. [1] The attention to detail is remarkable. Art historian Seymour Slive reports that both from an aeronautical engineering and a hydrological viewpoint the finest levels of details are correct, in the windmill's sails and the river's waves respectively.[2]