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 :. | kvarnen | The Travelers | The Alley at Middelharnis | Windmill at the Riverside | The Water Mill |
Related Artists:
Francisco Rizi
Spanish painter, 1614-1685
Edward Matthew Ward
British Painter. 1816-1879 His parents encouraged his early interest in art. He was sent to a number of art schools, including that of John Cawse (1779-1862), before gaining entry to the Royal Academy Schools in 1835. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1834 with Adelphi Smith as Don Quixote (untraced). In 1836 he went abroad for further study, visiting Paris and Venice on the way to Rome, where he spent three years. His first work of any consequence was Cimabue and Giotto (untraced), which he sent back to the Royal Academy show of 1839. On the way back to England at the end of that year Ward visited Munich to learn the technique of modern fresco painting in order to take part in the competition to decorate the Palace of Westminster, but his cartoon, Boadicea (1843; untraced), was unsuccessful. However, in 1852 he was commissioned to produce eight pictures for the Palace of Westminster, on subjects drawn from the English Civil War, the best of which is the Last Sleep of Argyll (1860s) in the Commons Corridor of the Houses of Parliament
Joseph heard
British painter, 1799-1859