Hooch, Pieter de

Hooch or Hoogh, Pieter de (both: pē`tər də hōkh), b. c.1629, d. after 1677, Dutch genre painter. He worked in Delft, Leiden, and Amsterdam, painting intimate interiors that may have been influenced by those of Vermeer. Usually he preferred to paint rooms opening into other rooms or to the outdoors, intriguing the imagination with half-seen vistas, and displaying his ability to handle complicated lighting effects. His warm tone and subtle colors show Rembrandt's influence. De Hooch repeated his basic compositions many times, so that his later works are static and less interesting. One of his finest paintings is Courtyard of a Dutch House (National Gall., London). His works are housed in many European museums, and the Metropolitan Museum has seven.

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Hooch, Pieter de

 or Pieter de Hoogh

(baptized Dec. 20, 1629, Rotterdam, Neth.—died c. 1684, Amsterdam?) Dutch genre painter. He trained in Haarlem and was a member of the painters' guild of Delft (1655–57). In style and subject matter, his work is similar to that of Johannes Vermeer; he was noted for his small interiors and sunny outdoor scenes, with figures engaged in humble, domestic activities in settings of serene simplicity. In his best works, he was concerned with the effect of enclosures on light intensity, tonal variations, and linear perspective. After he moved to Amsterdam (c. 1661), his paintings increased in quantity but declined in quality. He died in a mental institution.

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Hooch, Pieter de 

Baptized Dec. 20, 1629, in Rotterdam; died circa 1685 in Amsterdam. Dutch painter.

Hooch studied with C. Berchem in Haarlem from roughly 1646 to 1649. From 1654 he worked in Delft, where he became a member of the painters’ guild in 1655. He worked in Amsterdam in the 1660’s. Hooch was influenced by the Haarlem genre painters of F. Hals’ circle and, later, by J. Vermeer and C. Fabritius. He painted scenes from burgher life, primarily the hustle and bustle of the housewife. Hooch strove for poetic spirituality in his depictions of domestic surroundings and sunlit interiors and courtyards. Examples of his work are A Maid With a Child in a Court (1658, National Gallery, London), The Spinner (c. 1658, Buckingham Palace, London), A Woman and Her Maid (c. 1660, Hermitage, Leningrad), and A Mother Beside a Cradle (c. 1660, Picture Gallery, Berlin-Dahlem). Warm golden tones enriched with spots of pure color dominated Hooch’s mature palette. Increased superficiality of images characterized the artist’s late period.

REFERENCES

Tsyrlin, I. Piter de Khookh. Moscow, 1955.
Thienen, F. van. Pieter de Hoogh. Amsterdam [1945].