A DUTCH HOUSE COURT BY PIETER DE HOOCH
PRACTICALLY nothing is known of the life of Pieter de Hooch, but the fifty or sixty examples of his exquisite genre painting are now almost priceless. He was a native of Rotterdam, and it is supposed he died in 1681 at Haarlem at the age of fifty. There are three of his pictures in the London National Gallery, from one of which the illustration herewith reproduced is taken. This is an out-door subject—a rather unusual choice for the master, who preferred interiors as a rule. He is noted for an extraordinary skill in depicting the atmosphere of rooms lighted by various doors and windows, and for his marvelous perfection in detail, which however, is never obtrusive nor does it interfere with the broad effect. There is an air of the greatest serenity in all his pictures, and the simple, homely subjects he preferred are transfigured into classics by the discrimination of his choice and the perfection of his mastery of the most difficult problems of light and shade and tone values. No reproduction can give the least idea of the delicate handling of tone in his works. His drawing is absolutely true to nature; the perspective of his buildings is more than photographically accurate, but it never obtrudes itself or interferes with the general effect of repose.
De Hooch painted very few large pictures; unfortunately the only one which came down to our time perished in a fire in 1864. He was little appreciated in his own lifetime—indeed it was not until the eighteenth century that he was recognized in his own country. He was a disciple of the school of Rembrandt, but his taste did not lie in the direction of life-size portraits or of the classical or scriptural stories which were the greater master's favorite subjects.
Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.
A DUTCH HOUSE COURT, BY P. DE HOOCH: B. 1630, D. 1677
(NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON)
Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.
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