A Watermill, Meindert Hobbema
In the Rijksmuseum.
The wonderful 17th century Dutch landscape painter Meindert Hobbema — who studied with Jacob van Ruisdael — gives us an idyllic view of a watermill, set amid trees and reeds bent in a breeze, perhaps in anticipation of a coming storm.
Hobbema had a masterful touch with foliage, and I love the way he’s created the textural masses of the trees here with loose, gestural paint marks. Seen in close-up, the entire painting is remarkably fresh and painterly.
