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For lack of knowledge about him we can think of him as a man of moods, sad, desolate ones at that; because his work is too extreme and uniform in its character for us to believe his method was affected. This perhaps is one of the most characteristic of Hobbema's pictures.
For it is a countryside of interminable straight lines straight roads, straight hop-poles, and poplars not less straight, reminding one in winter of one of Hobbema's landscapes without their colouring.
To many of us the picture smiles less than it thrills with sadness. Perhaps it speaks thus only to those who find a kind of hurt in the revival of the spring, which promises so much and may fulfill so little." Hobbema's "Watermill" is very well-known and so are his "Wooded Landscape," and "Haarlem's Little Forest."
Whoever desires a faithful and minute picture of this singular region, which reminded me of many scenes in Holland and many of Hobbema's paintings, should read The Goddess of Noon. It contains a number of descriptions whose truth and vividness are matchless.
Sums as large as four thousand pounds have been paid more than once for a Hobbema, yet his name was not found in any dictionary of art or artists for more than a century after his death. The English were the first to acknowledge Hobbema's merit, and nine-tenths of his works are in England, where he is the most popular Dutch landscape painter.
Whoever desires a faithful and minute picture of this singular region, which reminded me of many scenes in Holland and many of Hobbema's paintings, should read The Goddess of Noon. It contains a number of descriptions whose truth and vividness are matchless.
The French have made a phrase for his kind of work, paysage intime meaning the beloved country the one best known. It is a fine phrase, and it was first used to describe Rousseau's and Corot's work; but it especially applies to Hobbema's. While this artist was not yet recognised, his uncle van Ruisdael was known as a great artist.
In Hobbema's case it has never been decided whether he was born in the little town of Koeverdam, or in the city of Haarlem or in Amsterdam. Nor is it quite certain when he was born; but what he did afterward, we are all acquainted with. No one knows much about the life of this artist, but his master was doubtless his uncle, van Ruisdael.
For a moment I had a horrible fear that it really was the field of Waterloo; but I was comforted by remembering that it was in quite a different part of Belgium. It was a cross-roads, with one cottage at the corner, a perspective of tall trees like Hobbema's "Avenue," and beyond only the infinite flat chess-board of the little fields.
The greater number of Hobbema's pictures are as much characterized by a warm and golden tone as those of Ruisdael by the reverse; his greens being yellowish in the lights and brownish in the shadows both of singular transparency. In pictures of this kind the influence of Rembrandt is perhaps perceptible, and they are superior in brilliancy to any work by Ruisdael.
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