Fishermen's cottages in the dunes
Meindert Hobbema·1680
Historical Context
This 1680 Städel panel — Hobbema's latest dated work in the museum's collection — belongs to his very last phase of landscape production. By 1680 Hobbema had largely ceased painting, having taken a position as a wine gauger for the Amsterdam excise and needing to paint only occasionally for supplementary income. Fishermen's cottages in the coastal dunes represent a subject distinct from his standard woodland and watermill themes, suggesting an awareness of the coastal landscape tradition associated with Jan van Goyen and Salomon van Ruysdael earlier in the century. The dune environment's spare, sandy character and low shrubby vegetation called for a different handling from the lush inland woods Hobbema more typically depicted.
Technical Analysis
The dune landscape's characteristic palette — sandy ochres, muted greens, silver-grey sky — differs markedly from the richer, warmer tones of Hobbema's woodland interiors. The low, irregular terrain of the dunes creates a more horizontally extended spatial field than his wooded compositions.
Look Closer
- ◆The dune vegetation — low marram grass, coastal shrubs, wind-bent elder — is rendered with specificity appropriate to a distinct ecological environment
- ◆The fishermen's cottages are built into or against the dunes rather than standing freely in a cleared farmyard, their integration with the terrain suggesting habitual adaptation
- ◆The sky over the dunes is given maximum emphasis, the low flat terrain providing no obstacle to its full expression across the upper canvas
- ◆Figures — fishermen, women, children — near the cottages document the social life of a coastal working community Hobbema rarely depicted
