Hobbenia

Hobbenia, Meindert, a great Dutch landscape painter, of whose personal history little is known, except that he was a pupil of Jacob Ruysdael, and flourished from 1638 to 1709. Unlike his master, whom he surpassed in warmth of colour and freedom of treatment, he sought his subjects exclusively in his native country, and chiefly in the provinces of Drenthe and Guelderland. He excels in depicting gloomy forest scenery with glints of sunshine, the foliage being rendered with marvellous fidelity. The figures introduced into his pictures are often the work of Berghem, Van de Velde, and other contemporaries.