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At first glance Jacob van Ruisdael’s
View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds (
c. 1670–75) depicts a pleasant pastoral scene. Half of the painting – one of a series of popular
Haerlempjes, or ‘Haarlem views’, for which Ruisdael was well known – is filled with sky, the billowing clouds emphasising the stark flatness of the Dutch landscape beneath. On the horizon lies the busy market town of Haarlem, dominated by the solid 15th-century Grote Kerk, which looms over the surrounding houses like a ship. In the foreground are a lake, trees and fields, on one of which bolts of linen have been laid out to bleach in the sun. It’s a beautiful detail. The bright white sheets cutting across the green and brown of the field give the painting an almost abstract geometry. Yet this formal beauty obscures one of the things that many contemporary viewers would have most associated with the bleaching fields: their overpowering, unavoidable stench.