[1] From the age of 15 or 16, he spent three years in Paris (1581–1583), studying for six weeks under a Jehan Bassot (possibly Jean Cousin the Younger) and then under a Maistre Herry.

[1] He returned to Utrecht in 1583, just before the French Wars of Religion began, which destroyed much of the work at the Chateau of Fontainebleau.

[4] In the first decade of the 17th-century, Bloemaert began formulating his landscape paintings to include picturesque ruined cottages and other pastoral elements.

He drew motifs such as peasant cottages, dovecotes and trees from life and then on his return to the studio worked them up into complex imaginary scenes.

[5] Among his many pupils were his four sons, Hendrick, Frederick, Cornelis, and Adriaan (all of whom achieved considerable reputations as painters or engravers).