Questions to arouse interest. What occupies the most important part of this picture? Describe the trees bordering the road. Where does the road lead? What does it pass on its way to the village? Where must the artist have been standing? why do you think so? What can you say about the perspective of this road? How much of this picture is sky? What kind of lines predominate—curved, straight, vertical, or horizontal? In what country do you think it is? Why is it so level? What are the people in the picture doing? What do you like best about this picture?
Original Picture: National Gallery, London, England.
Artist: Meyndert Hobbema (hŏb’ĕ mä).
Birthplace: Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Dates: Born, 1638; died, 1709.
The story of the picture. There is a little village in the Netherlands by the name of Middelharnis, and if we should go there to-day we should find just such an avenue of trees as this one in our picture. The artist, Hobbema, spent many years in this village, painting scenes in and around it. Probably he traveled over this very road countless times. It would seem as if we, too, were walking down the road guarded by those tall, slender trees which border each side of it. They are poplar trees, trimmed so high that we scarcely recognize them. They lead direct to the little village beyond, which we see between the tree trunks.
Since the village is almost surrounded by the North Sea, its high church tower is not only picturesque by day but useful at night as a lighthouse or beacon to guide the sailor to a safe port.
In our picture the sun is half hidden in a sky as full of fleecy clouds as the sky near the North Sea generally is.
We must expect no hills nor elevations of any kind in the Netherlands, a land lying lower than the ocean. The great protecting dikes and the many canals extending in every direction make it one of the most interesting of countries.
In the picture we see on each side of the road a deep ditch full of water. These ditches irrigate the land, flowing into deeper, wider canals on which sail boats of various sizes and kinds.