HOOCH, PIETER DE

Hooch also spelled Hoogh, or Hooghe (baptized Dec. 20, 1629, Rotterdam, Neth.d. c. 1684, Amsterdam?), Dutch genre painter of the Delft school, noted for his interior scenes and use of light. Hooch was a pupil of Claes Berchem at Haarlem. From 1653 he was in the service of Justus de Grange and lived in Delft, The Hague, and Leiden. From 1654 to 1657 he was a member of the painters' guild of Delft, but after that date there are no traces of his career until about 1667, when his presence was recorded in Amsterdam. His work, both in style and subject matter, shows affinity with the painting of Vermeer, who was living in Delft at the same time. His paintings, like Vermeer's, are small works that display perfect finish and a great power of compositional discrimination. Though he sometimes painted open-air scenese.g., A Woman and Her Maid in a Court (1658; National Gallery, London)and tavern genrese.g., Backgammon Players (c. 1653; National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin)he preferred painting two or three figures occupied with humble daily duties in a sober interior, the still atmosphere of which is broken only by the radiant entry of outdoor light illuminating the scenee.g., The Pantry (c. 1658; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), A Mother Beside a Cradle (c. 165960; Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin), and At the Linen Closet (1663; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). These depictions of the serene simplicity of Dutch domestic life are free of sentimentality. Largely done between about 1655 and 1663 while de Hooch was living in Delft, they are considered his best works. In them he was preoccupied with the relation of light to different surfaces, the effect of enclosures and apertures on light intensity, the variation of tone, the complex arrangement of spatial units, and linear perspective.