Meindert Hobbema(1638-1709) Hobbema was another genius who failed to impress anyone in his lifetime. The painting of landscape in the seventeenth century was not a profitable business, and though he painted out of doors quite beautifully, there was not much romance in his life.  Although he lived seventy-one years, there are in existence only about one hundred paintings credited to him. It seemed his works received little appreciation while he lived, though he and Ruysdael are now considered the greatest landscape painters of the Dutch school."Hobbema's paintings may be distinguished from those of Ruysdael by their placidity, truthfulness, and attention to small details. His skies -- always so significant in Holland for their substance, color, and movement -- are by no means cloudless, and are never turbulent. His waters are harnessed and still, and his trees seem not to move even as they stretch upward to join earth and sky and to break the monotonous and enclosure of small spaces. Hobbema's color is quietly soft, with deep greens, an occasional red-tiled roof, warm yellows, and sometimes the flash of a white coif or collar under the blue and white of the endless sky. The subtle balance of his compositions adds to the serenity of his effects; and the detail of tree branches, country roads, and small figures going about their daily tasks, increases this feeling of serenity that in Hobbema's painting seems to indicate man's contentment merely to be alive." (from review) Meindert Hobbema was born in Amsterdam and never left the city except for brief sketching trips to the surrounding countryside. He was a pupil of Jacob van Ryusdael when the master lived in Amsterdam.  The offices of the Burgomaster secured him a civil service position as wijnroeir, a minor customs official whose duty was to gauge the amount of wine in foreign casks by Dutch measure. This work assured him of a steady salary and was more lucrative than selling paintings. One year after his marriage to the Burgomaster's cook, he painted his last picture in 1689. Hobbema died a pauper in 1709, leaving behind work that rank him as one of the greatest of the seventeenth-century Dutch landscape artists. |
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