A View on a High Road

Meindert Hobbema studied under the noted landscape artist Jacob van Ruisdael, and quite a few of his compositions evolved from the work of his erstwhile master. Hobbema approached nature in a straightforward manner, depicting picturesque, rural scenery enlivened by the presence of peasants or hunters. He often reused favorite motifs such as old watermills, thatch-roofed cottages, and embanked dikes, rearranging them into new compositions. Hobbema’s rolling clouds allow patches of sunshine to illuminate the rutted roads or small streams that lead back into rustic woods. All six of the National Gallery’s canvases by Hobbema share these characteristics.

In this work, the dirt road meanders diagonally through the village, passing half-timbered houses nestled among the trees. Figures strolling along the road or resting beside it are integrated harmoniously into this peaceful pastoral setting. Hobbema often had other artists paint staffage figures in his works. The elegantly dressed couple walking along the road was painted by one such unidentified collaborator. The idyllic qualities of Hobbema’s scenes, combined with the realistic effects of light and atmosphere, appealed tremendously to English collectors. In the nineteenth century, this painting along with its possible pendant (now in the Mauritshuis, The Hague), belonged to the collection of the Duke of Westminster.