Meyndert Hobbema: a Dutch Landscape Painter
A one-hit wonder?
One of the most familiar Dutch landscapes, seen in any number of histories of art, and as an illustration of the power of persepetive, is The Avenue, Middelharnis by Meydert Hobbema (1638–1709). But who was he, and what other works of his should have more attention?
Little is known for certain about Hobbema’s career. Born in Amsterdam in 1638, he was Jacob van Ruisdael’s pupil from around 1657 to 1660 (and perhaps longer) and, as a result, the two men became friends. In 1668 he married a servant girl who was to bear him three children, and the following year was appointed comptroller of wine and oil in Amsterdam, an administrative post which obviously took up a lot of his time, for his activity as a painter diminished considerably after 1669. He would seem to have spent his whole life in Amsterdam, although it has also been suggested that he worked at Geldorp or Overijssel or even in the Rhineland near Diisseldorf.
Few of Hobbema’s landscapes represent a real locale. Instead, they abound with motifs inspired by the earlier compositions of Ruisdael, in whose footsteps Hobbema followed until around 1664. His earliest known work, a Landscape with River, dates from 1658 and was a favourite subject of the young artist. The Landscapes of 1659 are derived from Ruisdael, to whom he again turned…
