The Watermill with the Great Red Roofc. 1665
A watermill with a striking red roof stands beside a muddy brown river at the right, water churning through its wheel, while a twisting tree leans across the foreground and three small figures pass in the distance under a grey and blue sky. More about this work
About this work
A watermill with a striking red roof stands beside a muddy brown river at the right, water churning through its wheel, while a twisting tree leans across the foreground and three small figures pass in the distance under a grey and blue sky. Meindert Hobbema, a pupil of Jacob van Ruisdael, made watermills one of his favourite subjects, painting the same or similar mills many times in the 1660s. His landscapes, with their dappled light and carefully observed textures of wood, water and leaves, were especially admired by British collectors in later centuries.
Written by Ochre Editions.
What you’re looking at
Landscape painting featuring a wavy tree tree in the foreground and a watermill with a red roof adjacent to a river at right. Colors are subdued earth tones, the foliage a dark green and the river a muddy brown. Water flows through the mill wheel under a cloudy sky of gray and blue. Three individuals can be seen in the distance at left.
Description from the Art Institute of Chicago.
How it was made
- Oil paint
- Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.
Meindert Hobbema
Dutch, 1638–1709
Hobbema studied with Jacob van Ruisdael in Amsterdam in the late 1650s and became the most accomplished of his followers, painting sunlit woodland, watermills, cottages and country roads. In 1668 he married and took a post as a wine gauger for the city of Amsterdam, after which he painted far less. Long overlooked, his work was keenly collected in Britain in the nineteenth century and influenced English landscape painting.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Art Institute of Chicago has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1894.1031
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
- Type
- Painting
- Department
- Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
