Being Rachel Ruysch
A associative portrait of Rachel Ruys
In 2021 I saw a painting of Rachel Ruys in the Boijmans van Beuningen museum in Rotterdam. A tree trunk with an abundance of flowers and small insects. The details, the colours, and the joy in the painting, were mesmerising. Later in 2023 I saw one of her iconic paintings of a vase with flowers in Innsbruck. How come I had never heard of Rachel Ruysch before?
Rachel Ruysch was one of the most successful Dutch still life painters of the 17th and 18th centuries. Her refined paintings with colourful, lifelike flowers were among the best of the kind at the time. Ruysch was appointed a court painter for a German prince and the first woman to be a member of the artists’ society Pictura in The Hague. She was famous both at home and abroad. Unfortunately, like in many other fields of work, woman were often left out of the spotlight. Their work being absent in study books and publications and with time passing, these female voices were forgotten.
Luckily today 'we' look at the past with different eyes and we see the achievements of woman and we put them again in the spotlight to celebrate their skills, their experience, and their struggles. I hope I will contribute a little with this associative portrait I made of Rachel Ruysch.
Portrait of Rachel Ruys | Ink drawing, digital colored, feb. 2025
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