Hut among Trees

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.

Hobbema painted three other versions of a Hut among Trees, but the National Gallery painting is the only one in which the house is in such disrepair. Hobbema’s compositions tended to become more open over the course of the 1660s, so the comparatively dense band of trees stretching across the middle section of this painting suggests that this may be the earliest of the four similar works. Before this canvas was cleaned, a different figure group—probably added in the nineteenth century—occupied the center. The addition had covered the original figures of a woman and child, which were then restored.