Landscape with windmill

Marinus Gidding (1863 – 1925) was born in Rotterdam where he followed his education and spent most of his working years as an artist. Later he also worked in Loosduinen.

Gidding was a pupil of the Academy of Rotterdam and, together with his brother Jaap Gidding, he also received lessons and advice from his father Jan Gidding, a well-known painter and furniture designer in Rotterdam.

Marinus Gidding is known for his atmospheric watercolours of life in the countryside, of which this picture is a great example. He depicts a a typical Dutch landscape with windmill along a rustic river. Horses passing by and life seems to have been so much easier and more quiet. You can almost smell the fresh breeze of the wind and hear the silent murmuring of the water.

Gidding is considered to be a post Hague School artist. He worked in en plein air, such as the Hague School artists did, but he was working less impressionistic then they did – his brushwork is slightly less loose and the atmosphere more silent and rustic, like realisme.