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With far-reaching stylistic similarities in their monochromatic, tonal treatment of the subject, Salomon van Ruysdael's river landscapes and those of Jan van Goyen from the 1630s are almost indistinguishable. However, around 1645 the first-named artist discovered the pictorial possibilities of the tree motif in compositions, through the work of his much more famous nephew Jacob Isaacksz. van Ruisdael, in which this element plays a key role. This gave his variations on the theme a new impulse, and between 1645 and 1655 he painted a series of peaceful, limpid views with which he reached the summit of his art. With the cautious expansion of his palette and the more self confident style typical of these years, his work is also much more distinctively his own.
The compositional structure to which this landscape owes its attractiveness is of a bold simplicity. A quarter of the way up the picture the horizontal axis intersects a vertical axis provided by the dark silhouette of a group of trees rising up on the opposite river bank. This divides the picture into two zones, of almost identical size, but in formal contrast to each other. In the left half each individual motif, under a highly atmospheric sky, bathes in an aura of lightness and weightlessness, contrasting with the right half, where mass and volume are piled up in the form of a farmstead, overshadowed by the tree group. Within this constellation even the ferry in the left foreground, laden low with a four-in-hand and a large number of passengers, appears like a fallen leaf carried along effortlessly by the river, the connecting feature stretching through this landscape.
Within Salomon van Ruysdael's work, catalogued by Wolfgang Stechow, this painting represents an exception from his otherwise typical use of diagonals in his compositions. But whenever in later works he returns to this traditional pattern, this Ferryboat appears to have been a key work for the discovery of new waterside motifs, providing the viewer with variety and entertainment during his visual walk along never-ending river banks.
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