Meindert Hobbema

Meindert Hobbema (bapt. October 31, 1638 – December 7, 1709), was a Dutch Golden Age painter, almost exclusively of landscapes and specializing in views of woodland, although his most famous painting, The Avenue at Middelharnis (National Gallery, London), shows a different type of scene.

Hobbema was born and died in Amsterdam. Son of a carpenter named Lubbert Meyndertsz, he adopted the surname Hobbema quite early on, although it is not known why. He spent a period in an orphanage from 1653, but by about two years later he had left, and soon became a pupil of the leading Amsterdam landscapist, Jacob van Ruisdael, whose influence was to dominate his work. His signed pictures come from 1658 to 1689. For a considerable period it was profitable to pass Hobbemas as Ruisdaels, and the name of the lesser master was probably erased from several of his productions.

There have been no critical or biographical monographs written on Hobbema since 1938, with the single exception of "Hobbema and Heidegger; on Truth and Beauty" by Rivca Gordon and Haim Gordon, published in 2008.

Meindert Hobbema was married at the age of thirty to Eeltije Vinck of Gorcum; who was his serving maid; in the Oude Kerk (Old Church) at Amsterdam, on 2 November 1668. Witnesses to the marriage were the bride's brother Cornelius Vinck and Jacob Ruisdael. Of Hobbema's marriage there came between 1668 and 1673 four children. In 1704 Eeltije died, and was buried in the pauper section of the Leiden cemetery at Amsterdam. Hobbema himself survived till December 1709, receiving burial on the 14th of that month in the pauper section of the Westerkerk cemetery at Amsterdam.

Husband and wife had lived during their lifetime in the Rozengracht, at no great distance from Rembrandt, who also dwelt there in his later and impoverished days. Rembrandt, Hals, Jacob Ruysdael, and Hobbema were in one respect alike. They all died in misery, insufficiently rewarded perhaps for their toil, imprudent perhaps in the use of the means derived from their labours.

Posterity has recognised that Hobbema and Ruisdael together represent the final development of landscape art in Holland. Still their works differ in certain ways, and their character is generally so marked that we shall find little difficulty in distinguishing them, nor indeed shall we hesitate in separating those of Hobbema from the feebler productions of his imitators and predecessors Isaack van Ruisdael, Gillis Rombouts (1630–1678), Jacob Feytsz. de Vries, Cornelis Gerritsz Decker, Jan Looten, Adriaen Hendriksz Verboom, Guillam Dubois, Jan van Kessel (1641–1680), Joris van der Haagen, even Philip de Koningk.

...
Wikipedia