d, which occupies the centre of the picture, and
extend all the way to a village which closes the horizon with several
masts and hulls of ships in profile against a sky where the sun is
veiled; to the right, a nursery-garden of shrubs and rose-trees
separated from the road by a wide ditch full of water; then, in the
middle distance, the buildings of a farm; to the left, a clump of trees
and another ditch, and further back the spire of a church; a huntsman,
with a gun on his shoulder and preceded by his dog, is walking on the
road, and two peasants--a man and a woman--have stopped to chat on the
path that leads across to the farm; a horticulturist is grafting the
shrubs in the nursery-garden; and this corner of a landscape has
sufficed for Hobbema to produce a masterpiece which the National Gallery
of London is justly proud to possess. This youngest of the great
European Museums is not the poorest and owns very considerable works of
every school.

[Illustration: THE AVENUE OF MIDDELHARNAIS.
_Hobbema._]

What is most admired in this picture of the Dutch Master? The firmness
of touch, the brilliancy of the key, the ease and breadth of execution
without the slightest sign of hesitation or alteration, or the
extraordinary perfection with which the perspective is rendered? We do
not know. Despite the complexity of the subject, the one defect of which
may be a slight lack of unity in the composition, the general effect of
the picture is simple and powerful, and the gradation of colour
harmonious and correct. It would be impossible to go any farther than
this artist has done in the interpretation of this tranquil Dutch
landscape. The deep values of the trees, the yellowish greys of the
road, and the sluggish water of the ditches, together with the blue sky
flecked with little grey and white clouds produce an ensemble of
absolute calm. The little figures which give life to this canvas are so
fine and delicate in execution that they leave nothing to be desired.
Here, as very rarely happens, the multiplication of details does not
spoil the effect of the whole.

This is a picture absolutely without a peer, and a page by itself in
Hobbema's work. This is true in every sense, even in the choice of
subject; for most frequently the painter borrows the motives for his
pictures from a different phase of nature. Ordinarily he interprets
forest-clearings; the skirts of a wood with poor huts hidden by great
trees; calm and fresh