Pieter de Hooch

Pieter de Hooch ( baptized on 20 December 1629 in Rotterdam, buried on March 24, 1684 in Amsterdam) was a Dutch Baroque painter. His work fell into the time of the Golden Age, in which the Netherlands experienced a cultural flowering.

Life

On December 20, 1629 Pieter de Hooch was baptized in the Reformed Church in Rotterdam. He came from a family that had no artistic tradition. Hendrick de Hooch Hendricksz his father was a bricklayer. The mother, Annetge Pieters, was a midwife. Pieter de Hooch was the oldest of five children of the family, of which the other four died early.

The apprenticeship De Hooch is not clearly assigned. According to Arnold Houbraken was Pieter de Hooch around 1645 to 1647 together with Jacob Ochtervelt student of Nicolaes Berchem, a landscape painter from Haarlem. However, there is no stylistic influences in his work of that teacher. Contrast, was represented by Fleischer 's opinion, De Hooch learned from Ludolf de Jongh in Rotterdam. This possibility seems likely in view of stylistic similarities of De Hooch's early work with paintings de Jongh. Pieter de Hooch continued his education under the influence of Carel Fabritius and Rembrandt.

Pieter de Hooch moved to Delft. The exact date is not known, it was first mentioned in Delft in 1652, when he was a witness at the opening of a will together with Hendrick van der Burch. 1655 De Hooch was included in the Delft painters' guild. Van der Burch was a pupil of Pieter de Hooch and was also his brother in law, as de Hooch Jannetge van der Burch married. The main buyers of De Hooch's pictures was Justus de la Grange, a wealthy merchant from Delft, who possessed 1655 at least eleven of his paintings.

1660 or 1661 De Hooch moved to Amsterdam. 1661 there Diewertje his daughter was baptized, which was one of his seven children. Despite rich customers Pieter de Hooch lived in Amsterdam his first years at home in a poor neighborhood. It was not until 1668 he moved to a better neighborhood, but was never wealthy enough to buy their own house. Little is known about the final years Pieter de Hooch. He was in the dolhuys, the urban madhouse admitted. On March 24, 1684, he was finally buried in the Sint- Anthony - Kerkhof.

Work

Pieter de Hooch's works are genre paintings and often achieved high prices. He often painted scenes indoors Dutch town houses, where he dealt mainly with the light. He confined himself mostly on figures he showed quiet pursuits. Often De Hooch put two or more contiguous rooms with real-life treatment of perspective dar.

Aftermath

The eminent artist biographer Arnold Houbraken 1719 had little information about Pieter de Hooch. He judged him as "excellent in painting interiors, and is of small companies of men and women, have been in it ." Nevertheless Houbraken De Hooch, as well as Jan Vermeer took not on their list of the best artists of the 17th century.

The image of the woman reading in the possession of the Alte Pinakothek in Munich was incorrectly assigned to Pieter de Hooch. However, it comes from Pieter Janssens Elinga.

Works (selection)

• Society in the yard behind a house ( Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
• The mother ( Gemäldegalerie in Berlin)
• The game of cards ( Louvre, Paris)
• The funny song (National Gallery, London)
• The lady at the desk ( Städel, Frankfurt am Main )
• The Goldwägerin ( Gemäldegalerie in Berlin)
• The morning of a young man from the years 1655-57 (Pushkin Museum, Moscow )
• Woman with basket beans in vegetable gardens ( Kunstmuseum Basel)
• Teaching on the run - ( Museum of Fine Arts, Leipzig)
• Children in the doorway 1658-60 ( Polesden Lacey, Sussex )
• Court scene of a woman drinking with officers 1658-60 (National Gallery of Art, Washington)
• Portrait of Jacob Hoppensack family - (Johnny van Haeften, London)
• In the council chamber of the Mayor - (Museo Thyssen- Bornemisza, Madrid)