1629 – 1684
Early Life
Born: Rotterdam, Netherlands in
1629
Father:
Hendrick Hendricksz de Hooch, a
butcher
Mother:
Annetge Pieters, a
midwife
He was the oldest of five
children
He lived a rather
untroubled life, which is not the norm for artists.
Beginning in 1650 (he is
about 21 yrs old), he worked as a painter and servant for a linen-merchant and
art collector named Justus de la Grange. His service for the merchant required
him to accompany him on his travels to The Hague, Leiden, and the Delft. Pieter
de Hooch handed over at least 11 of his paintings from this time to la Grange
during in exchange for his room and board and other benefits including travels.
On
one of the many trips with his master Justus de la Grange to Delft, Pieter met
Jannetje van der Burch, who was the sister of a painter from Delft, named
Hendrick van der Burch, that Pieter became acquainted with. On May 3, 1654
Pieter (24 yrs old) and Jannetje were married and together they had seven
children.
While in Delft, de Hooch
is also believed to have learned from the painters Carel Fabritius (Rembrandt’s Student) and Nicolaes Maes,
who were both early members of the Delft School. He became a member of the
painters' guild of Saint Luke on September 20, 1655.
The early works of ‘de
Hooch, like most young painters of his time, was mostly composed of scenes of
soldiers in stables and taverns, though he used these to develop great skill in
light, color, and perspective rather than to explore an interest in the subject
matter.
Family
life had a profound effect on Pieter as soon after he is married transitions
into paintings that express the Dutch ideals of caring for children and the home. His paintings
depict for us incidents in the daily lives of women at home with their
children: the mother watching over the cradle, serving her family at table,
reading a letter or working in her kitchen. Some of his paintings show guests
arriving in a spotlessly clean room or courtyard, taking a glass of wine,
listening to music or conversing together. The keynote of every single picture
is an intimate simplicity; the painter conducts us into a calm and quiet world,
both clean and orderly. He displayed an outstanding mastery of the interior by
portraying dimension through the use of filtered light from doorways and
windows. His interior scenes displayed the relation of light to different
surfaces such as the glow of filtered sunshine cascading through a window or
slightly open door. These scenes captured the simple, expressive gestures of
his subjects occupied with everyday life. These are based on actual rooms in the houses of
prosperous Delft citizens. They help us understand why his reputation is
unshakable. Children play an important role in his pictures; The
comfortable rooms are those in his own home and the figures are those of his
wife and children.
His great master teacher
Vermeer, was the father of 15 children, and he never painted a child.
‘Woman and Maid’ (1657) is one of
the best paintings by Hooch. It is assumed that the model of the maid was
Hooch's wife.
De
Hooch’s paintings are usually organized around a door that opens to reveal
another room, which opens onto yet another, or onto a courtyard, or garden
carrying the eye through the house vertically. This technique is called 'doorkijkje',
the device is not just a mere play with perspective; in his paintings, it adds
a pictorial and psychological note of some significance. De Hooch sensed that
in daily life one often experiences a pleasant relief when a relationship
between indoor and outdoor space is established by the widened outlook and by
the enrichment of light and atmosphere which it brings.
He rarely shows his figures at work; they are
generally amusing themselves at a game, drinking, resting comfortably or
sitting together chatting. There is a concentration on detail, and the
paintings are dominated by the room itself, by its perspectives and views
through doors and windows. De Hooch to exploits his skill in the handling of
light as it falls over the different surfaces. This is particularly apparent in
the rendering of the translucent curtains and the panes of glass, as well as
the way in which light helps to define the forms of the figures.
Pieter
de Hooch had moved from Delft to Amsterdam by 15 April 1661, when one of his
daughters was baptized in the Westerkerk and where there was a larger market for his paintings.
Pieter de Hooch faced a dark time when his wife died in 1667 (he was 37 yrs old
& had only been married 13 years) leaving him as the sole caretaker of his
seven children.
Though he began to paint
for wealthier patrons in Amsterdam, he lived in the poorest areas of the city.
Around this time, de Hooch's painting style became coarser and darker in color,
and his simple domestic scenes of home life were replaced for the wealthier clientele in more
luxurious interiors and regal subjects that were portrayed in his paintings
during this time. Over time, his style began to lose its warmth evolving into a
darker and more complex style of art. The deterioration of his paintings seemed
to stem from ill health.
By
1674 he had probably sunk heavy into poverty, for he did not make it on the Tax
Register. ‘de Hooch died in March 1684
in an Amsterdam insane asylum, (he was 55 years old) though how he came to be
there is unrecorded.
There
are about 170 known works of Pieter de Hooch and most are in private English
Collections, although some can be seen in museums around the world.
The Painting
Interior of a Dutch House (1658), Oil
Size:
29” x 25”
Current
Location: The National Gallery, London
This
is a richly decorated room, a sculptured fireplace, a group engaged in cards.
The room flooded with mellow light. De Hooch would paint the figures in his
paintings only after he had completed the architecture (you can see the tiled
floor shows through the ladies’ skirt) The woman stands, back turned, holding a
glass of white wine to the light to show its clarity and color to the two
gentlemen. One man stretches out his hand as if to seize the glass. Sunlight
streams through the windows and affects everything we see, in the wine glass,
fabrics become translucent, the shadows, and across the wood rafters. This
painting is warm, friendly and shows a restful moment in daily life.
