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 :. | The Travelers | Road on a Dyke | The Water Mill (mk05) | Wooded Landscape with Travellers (mk25) | Village with Water Mill Among Trees |
Related Artists:
John Downman
English Painter, ca.1750-1824, English painter and draughtsman. He became a pupil of Benjamin West in 1768 and entered the Royal Academy Schools, London, the following year. In 1770 and 1772 he exhibited portraits at the Royal Academy and showed his first subject picture in 1773. He left for a period of study in Italy and was in Rome with Joseph Wright of Derby from 1773 to 1774. When he next exhibited at the Royal Academy (1777) he was living in Cambridge, but from 1778 to 1804 his considerable annual contribution to the Academy exhibitions was sent from various London addresses. His very popular small portraits were often shown in groups of six or nine. His occasional subject pictures were based on themes from mythology, Classical history, poetry and the theatre. They included a scene from As You Like It (untraced) painted for John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery. Downman became ARA in 1795 and travelled widely in later life, marrying in Exeter in 1806 and sending works to the Royal Academy (1805-12 and 1816-19) from all over the country.
Aureliano De Beruete Y Moret
Spanish , Madrid, 1845 - Madrid, 1912 Spanish writer, painter and collector. After pursuing a political career and taking a doctorate in civil and canon law, he dedicated himself to writing on art and produced important studies on Diego Velezquez (1898), Joaqu'n Sorolla y Bastida (1901) and other artists. He travelled extensively and enthusiastically in Europe (France, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, England and elsewhere), studying especially the different national schools of painting. On his travels he also painted landscapes. After working for some time as a copyist in the Museo del Prado, Beruete decided in 1873 to concentrate his efforts on painting and on learning to perfect his craft. He enrolled at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de S Fernando in Madrid and also studied at the studio of Carlos de Haes. Beruete was among the founders of the Instituci'n Libre de Enseeanza, and with its members, and with Carlos de Haes, he made several study trips abroad. In Paris he came to know the painting of the Barbizon school, and in Belgium he assimilated the teaching of the generation of landscape artists who had adopted a form of Realism.
Elise Bruyere
French , Paris 1776-1842