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 :. | Cottages beside a Track through a Wood | The Watermill Oak | Hut among Trees | The Avenue at Middelharnis | Road on a Dyke |
Related Artists:
John Morgan
British 1823-1886
Jan Veth
(18 May 1864 Dordrecht - 1 July 1925 Amsterdam), was a Dutch painter, poet, art critic and university lecturer. Jan Veth was the son of Gerradus Huibert Veth, a Dordrecht iron merchant and liberal politician, and Anna Cornelia Giltay. On his mother's side he descended from the Dordrecht painter family of Van Strij (his mother was a granddaughter of Jacob van Strij). He married Anna Dorothea Dirks on 10 August 1888, from which marriage came five children. Veth received his art education at the Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. With several of his fellow students he founded the St. Luke group. From 1885 he worked with the painter Anton Mauve in Laren. After his marriage in 1888 he settled in Bussum. Jan Veth is especially noted as a portrait painter. Amongst his sitters were Max Liebermann, Lambertus Zijl, Frank van der Goes, Antoon Derkinderen and other contemporaries including various fellow painters. In addition he was a well-known poet, belonging to the Eighties movement and publishing work in the De Nieuwe Gids. He designed the cover for "De Kleine Johannes", a book written by his friend, Frederik van Eeden, contributing to the development of book-art in Holland. As Professor Extraordinary in History of Art and Aesthetics, he was associated with the Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam.
Jusepe de Ribera
1591-1652 Spanish Jusepe de Ribera Galleries Jusepe de Ribera (January 12, 1591 - 1652) was a Spanish Tenebrist painter and printmaker, also known as Jos?? de Ribera in Spanish and as Giuseppe Ribera in Italian. He was also called by his contemporaries and early writers Lo Spagnoletto, or "the Little Spaniard". Ribera was a leading painter of the Spanish school, although his mature work was all done in Italy. In his earlier style, founded sometimes on Caravaggio and sometimes on the wholly diverse method of Correggio, the study of Spanish and Venetian masters can be traced. Along with his massive and predominating shadows, he retained from first to last a great strength in local coloring. His forms, though ordinary and sometimes coarse, are correct; the impression of his works gloomy and startling. He delighted in subjects of horror. In the early 1630s his style changed away from strong contrasts of dark and light to a more diffused and golden lighting. Salvator Rosa and Luca Giordano were his most distinguished followers, who may have been his pupils; others were also Giovanni Do, Enrico Fiammingo, Michelangelo Fracanzani, and Aniello Falcone, who was the first considerable painter of battle-pieces. Among Ribera's principal works could be named "St Januarius Emerging from the Furnace" in the cathedral of Naples; the "Descent from the Cross" in the Certosa, Naples, the "Adoration of the Shepherds" (a late work, 1650), now in the Louvre; the "Martyrdom of St Bartholomew" in the Prado; and the "Pieta" in the sacristy of San Martino, Naples. His mythologic subjects are often as violent as his martyrdoms: for example, "Apollo and Marsyas", with versions in Brussels and Naples, or the "Tityus" in the Prado . The Prado and Louvre contain numbers of his paintings; the National Gallery, London, three. He executed several fine male portraits and a self-portrait. He was an important etcher, the most significant Spanish printmaker before Goya, producing about forty prints, nearly all in the 1620s.