Description
A pupil of Jacob van Ruisdael, Meindert Hobbema often borrowed motifs from his teacher, such as the watermill seen here. Watermills, which Hobbema employed more than 30 times in his paintings and which abounded along country waterways, would have been understood as symbols of human transience and Dutch industriousness. The well-dressed figures farther along the path at the left are intended to suggest the rewards of productivity and diligence.
Provenance
Possibly John Ellis, London 1755 [according to Smith 1835]. Possibly Lord Mount Temple [Hofstede de Groot cites Durand Ruel as the source of this information]. Durand-Ruel, Paris, by 1890; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, June 1890, together with a group of Dutch and Flemish paintings, many from the Demidoff collection, using funds advanced by four trustees and reimbursed through the gift of Mr. and Mrs. Frank G. Logan in 1903 [sale agreement in Art Institute Archives; in the case of 1894.1031, there is no evidence that it was in the Demidoff collection].
Accession Number
869
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
81.3 × 110 cm (32 × 43 1/4 in.); Framed: 101.3 × 130.5 × 8.3 cm (39 7/8 × 51 3/8 × 3 1/4 in.)
Classification
oil on canvas
Credit Line
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Frank G. Logan
Background & Context
Background Story
Meindert Hobbemas The Watermill with the Great Red Roof from around 1665 is an oil painting that exemplifies the Dutch landscape painters approach to the rustic subject of the watermill, a motif he returned to throughout his career and that he transformed from a picturesque genre subject into a vehicle for exploring the effects of light and space on the flat landscape of the Netherlands. Hobbema, who was a pupil of Jacob van Ruisdael and became the most accomplished Dutch landscape painter of the generation after his master, developed a style in which the elements of the Dutch landscape, roads, mills, farms, and waterways, are organized into compositions of spatial clarity and atmospheric truth. The great red roof of the title provides a focal point of warm color in the verdant landscape, its horizontal expanse anchoring the composition and drawing the eye through the sequence of spatial planes that extends from the foreground road to the distant horizon. The watermill itself, with its wheel and sluice, provides the narrative element that animates the scene with the suggestion of human labor and engineering, while the surrounding trees and sky provide the atmospheric envelope that gives the painting its sense of lived experience rather than mere topographic description. The date of around 1665 places this painting in the period of Hobbemas most accomplished work, before his appointment as a wine gauger in 1668 reduced his artistic output and before the painting of his masterpiece The Avenue at Middelharnis in 1689.
Cultural Impact
Hobbemas watermill paintings are among the most beloved works in the history of Dutch landscape painting, and their influence on the development of landscape art extends through the 18th-century English landscape painters to the Barbizon School and the Impressionists. The Watermill with the Great Red Roof exemplifies the combination of topographic accuracy and atmospheric truth that distinguishes the best Dutch landscape painting.
Why It Matters
An oil painting by Hobbema from around 1665 depicting a Dutch watermill with a great red roof, combining topographic accuracy with atmospheric truth in a composition of spatial clarity anchored by the warm focal color of the roof against a verdant landscape.
