1638-1709 Dutch Meindert Hobbema Galleries In the exercise of his craft Hobbema was patient beyond all conception. It is doubtful whether any one ever so completely mastered as he did the still life of woods and hedges, or mills and pools. Nor can we believe that he obtained this mastery otherwise than by constantly dwelling in the same neighbourhood, say in Guelders or on the Dutch Westphalian border, where day after day he might study the branching and foliage of trees and underwood embowering cottages and mills, under every variety of light, in every shade of transparency, in all changes produced by the seasons. Though his landscapes are severely and moderately toned, generally in an olive key, and often attuned to a puritanical grey or russet, they surprise us, not only by the variety of their leafage, but by the finish of their detail as well as the boldness of their touch. With astonishing subtlety light is shown penetrating cloud, and illuminating, sometimes transiently, sometimes steadily, different portions of the ground, shining through leaves upon other leaves, and multiplying in an endless way the transparency of the picture. If the chance be given him he mirrors all these things in the still pool near a cottage, the reaches of a sluggish river, or the swirl of the stream that feeds a busy mill. The same spot will furnish him with several pictures. One mill gives him repeated opportunities of charming our eye; and this wonderful artist, who is only second to Ruisdael because he had not Ruisdael's versatility and did not extend his study equally to downs and rocky eminences, or torrents and estuaries - this is the man who lived penuriously, died poor, and left no trace in the artistic annals of his country. It has been said that Hobbema did not paint his own figures, but transferred that duty to Adriaen van de Velde, Lingelbach, Barendt Gael, and Abraham Storck. As to this much is conjecture.  Related Paintings of Meindert Hobbema :. | Wooded Landscape with Travellers (mk25) | The Alley at Middelharnis | Avenue at Middleharnis | The Avenue at Middelharnis | The Water Mill |
Related Artists:
Matteo Di Giovanni
Italian Early Renaissance Painter, ca.1430-1495
Jan van Gool
Johan, or Jan van Gool (1685 - 1763) was a Dutch painter and writer from The Hague, now remembered mainly as a biographer of artists from the Dutch Golden Age. According to the RKD he learned to paint from Simon van der Does and Mattheus Terwesten. He became a member of the Confrerie Pictura in 1711. He was first regent, and then five years later became director, of the Hague Drawing School from 1720-1734. He spent most of his time in the Hague, but travelled to England twice and is recorded there in 1711. He specialized in Italianate landscapes. He is best known today for his book of artist biographies, otherwise known as the "Nieuw Schouburg". The full title is De Nieuwe Schouburg der Nederlantsche kunstschilders en schilderessen: Waer in de Levens- en Kunstbedryven der tans levende en reets overleedene Schilders, die van Houbraken, noch eenig ander schryver, zyn aengeteekend, verhaelt worden. (The Hague, 1750).
Hans Burgkmair
(1473 - 1531) was a German painter and printmaker in woodcut. Burgkmair was born in Augsburg, the son of painter Thomas Burgkmair and his son, Hans the Younger, became one too. From 1488 he was a pupil of Martin Schongauer in Colmar, who died during his two years there, before Burgkmair completed the normal period of training. He may have visited Italy at this time, and certainly did so in 1507, which greatly influenced his style. From 1491 he was working in Augsburg, where he became a master and opened his own workshop in 1498. Hollstein ascribes 834 woodcuts to him, mostly for book illustrations, with slightly over a hundred being "single-leaf", that is prints not for books. The best of them show a talent for striking compositions, and a blend, not always fully successful, of Italian Renaissance forms and underlying German style. From about 1508 he spent much of his time working on the woodcut projects of Maximilian I until the Emperor's death in 1519. He was responsible for nearly half of the 135 prints in the Trumphs of Maximilian, which are large and full of character. He also did most of the illustrations for Weiss Kunig and much of Theurdank. He was an important innovator of the chiaroscuro woodcut, and seems to have been the first to use a tone block, in a print of 1508.His Lovers Surprised by Death (1510) is the first chiaroscuro print to use three blocks.and also the first print that was designed to be printed only in colour, as the line block by itself would not make a satisfactory image. Other chiaroscuro prints from around this date by Baldung and Cranach had line blocks that could be and were printed by themselves.He produced one etching, Venus and Mercury (c1520),etched on a steel plate, but never tried engraving, despite his training with Schongauer.