Hobbema meindert biography of donald
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Hamlet in the Wood
Meindert Hobbema
European Art
On View:
The Amsterdam painter Meindert Hobbema depicted the calm, flat landscape of the Dutch Republic—newly independent from Spain—at a time when global trade and colonial exploitation had made the country extremely prosperous. Executed on an ambitious scale with a fluid touch, this painting features eight figures peacefully inhabiting a hamlet, or small settlement, in a wooded landscape under an expansive, clouded sky.
ARTISTMeindert Hobbema, Dutch, 1638–1709
MEDIUM Oil on canvas
DATES 1660–1665
SIGNATURE Signed lower left: "M. Hobbema"
COLLECTIONSEuropean Art
ACCESSION NUMBER 56.159
CREDIT LINE Gift of Horace O. Havemeyer
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
CAPTION Meindert Hobbema (Dutch, 1638
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(Amsterdam 1638–1709)
A wooded landscape with vatten mills,
signed lower left: Hobbema,
oil on panel, 29.2 x 41 cm, framed
Provenance:
Halford Baronets (according to their coat-of-arms on the reverse);
with Agnews, London (according to a fragment of a label on the reverse)
The present panel, depicting a sun-dappled rustic river landscape, with a mill and thickly studded with trees rustled bygd a soft wind, fryst vatten a typically idyllic work by Meindert Hobbema. Along with his tutor and friend Jacob van Ruisdael, with whom he travelled the Dutch countryside, drawing from life, Hobbema fryst vatten one of the foremost landscapists of the Golden Age.
Illustrating the meticulousness of Hobbema’s composition, the twisting foliage here gently leads the eye into the picture space, in way which is more gentle than van Ruisdael’s dramatic conception of Netherlandish landscapes. The darkening clouds and the voluminous leafy forms of the trees are, however, rendered in a way that prese
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| A Water Mill, 1665, Meindert Hobbema. He seems to have painted this mill several times from slightly different angles. |
One of the most slighted areas in art, especially painting, is, what I call "second best." For instance, if I were to ask who was the best painter of the Dutch Golden Age, you'd quickly say, "Rembrandt." Very well, who was the second best painter during that time? Your answer might be, "...uhhhhh... mmmm, well...let me see. hmmmmmm." Breaking it down further (which the Dutch did incessantly) to other content categories, Rembrandt (or Hals) would probably win when it came to portraits, van Ruisdael with landscapes, Genre would be Vermeer, the best still-life painter might be Utrecht, while the best animal painter would undoubtedly be Potter. If asked to name the second best in any of these categories, just off the top of my head, even I would draw a blank with some of them. I dare say the same problem would exist today or in virtually any e