1. Anton Mauve, Morning Ride along the Beach, 1876, Oil on canvas, 43,7 x 68,6 cm, Rijkmuseum, Amsterdam, Mr and Mrs Drucker-Fraser Bequest, Montreux
Beyond the presentation of
impressionism by French Painters
Until the end of October, the Museum Barberini in Potsdam present an exhibition dedicated to the impressionist painter in Holland, and how French impressionism and the artists of this movement influence them to create their own depiction of nature, portrait and still-life.
2. Piet Mondrian, House in Sunlight, 1909, Oil on canvas,
52,5 x 68 cm, Kunstmuseum Den Haag
In and out of "norms"
In the art world and even in museums, impressionism is a well-known art movement, and well included in museum's collections with artists such as Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro or even Berthe Morisot, but somehow, it's quite rare to think about the influence French painters and French impressionism had on other countries such as Italy, Spain and in this case, Holland.
But when you think about it, the depiction of landscape started out in the Netherlands, with numerous realist depiction of the streets, the cities and nature by a group of seventeenth centuries painters such as Jacob Van, who decided to depict landscape due to the rising Protestant middle class who sought about secular art for their homes, thus creating the need for new subjects to meet their tastes such as landscape.
The term itself came from the Dutch word "landschap", which originally meant "region, tract of land" but acquired the artistic connotation, "a picture depicting scenery on land" in the early 1500s.
Until the 17th century, this gender of pictures was quite unfamiliar for the public, but as Caspar David Friedrich, William Turner, and Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes depict the landscape in a new way and a new style, the public became interested and it led to the renewed of the genre and the start of impressionism.
The exhibition then focus on works made between the 1840s to the 1910s, from the time when Gustave Courbet started creating realist paintings to the end of impressionism and the start of modern art and numerous art movement such as Dada, Neo-impressionism, De Stijl, etc.
One key element to this production of landscape in Holland during these 70-years periods was the encounter to the works of the Barbizon painters during visits to France and from the 1880s on in the collection of the painter Hendrik Willem Mesdag in The Hague.
Starting in the 1850s, they created works inspired by the woods of Oosterbeek, and later to the motif of the sky, and its colours, which can be seen in the pictures of Willem Roelofs, Anton Mauve, and Jacob Maris. 30 years later, the school became successful in terms of sale and reputation, but it became overpassed by the Amsterdam Impressionists, who decided to focus on a different sort of subject: the architecture of the house, the electric lights, the coffeehouses and the events in the city. But somehow, they also escaped the city a few days during the summer, and thus painted for leisure rather than for business purposes.
The last generation of painter we're inspired by the use of pointillism, especially the one from French and Belgian painters, as well as French Fauvism, thus a new path and use of colours and techniques is on it's way, the way to modern art, colour field and abstraction.
The different sections of the exhibition
3. Ferdinand Hart Nibbrig, At the Dunes, Zandvoort, 1891 - 1892, Oil on canvas 42 x 58 cm, Singer Laren, Gift of P.J. Hart Nibbrig, 1981
Section 1 - The first section of the exhibition is dedicated to the art of the Hague School, which at the time mostly focus on the depiction of forest, while exploring the fact to paint "en plein air" a French expression meaning painting outside. They mostly focus on the forest of Oosterbeek near Arnhem where an artists colony developed and thus attracted artists for generations.
All of the created studies en plein air, under the open sky, painting light and shadow, reflections of water and the effects of backlight. Most of the works of this period we're quite small, before being reworked in a larger format inside the atelier.
Section 2 - The second room is dedicated to the landmarks of the country, the depictions of the meadows, the cows, the canals, and the windmills. To depict them, they use quite long format canvases and a low horizon point to focus on the motif of the sky or the landscape. In those works you can also see the shifting worlds and evolution such as the urbanisation of the cities, the railroads and the telegraph lines.
Section 3 - the third section only focus on the coastal motifs, the sea, and the oceanside of Holland, it's also the trade rout which link the Netherlands to the world, and who are still use to this day. They focus on big and small cities such as Scheveningen (near The Hague), where the artists depicted the fishing village with a low horizon and a vast sky, as they had done in their paintings of the polder landscape.
Section 4 - The next generation of the Hague School depicts the urban life with all its facets, with people shopping or pursuing leisure activities, becomes the primary focus. They showcase the shops, electric lights and the horse-drawn.
Section 5 - This part focus on the link between the sea and the holidays, the leisure and the workplace, thus they showcase the vacations spots in Scheveningen and Zandvoort, when since the 1820s, the rich families enjoyed the beach, but remained in their formal clothing, letting themselves be seen and strolling along the promenade.
Section 6 - Since the 1880s, the garden and the depiction of the garden scenes became more and more important, especially since the creation a handcraft landscape, with plants coming from all around the world. At the time, gardens were associated with the private home, whether a bourgeois villa or a farmer cottage. They were also linked to kitchen gardens which served as an economic purpose, facilitating self-sufficiency and the sale of product.
Section 7 - At the turn of the 20th century, those groups of painters decided to experiment with the pointillist, which were invented by a group of French artists directed by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. This movement followed new scientific discoveries according to which optical perception combined dots of colours into continuous areas. For them, the motif was less important than the visualization of light and color.
Section 8 - Following the experimentation of the pointillist, they followed with the intensity of the colors with the Fauves, which were embraced by numerous Dutch artist such as Vincent van Gogh. Thus artists shops caring about the real representation of the light but more about the shapes of the lights and the link between darks and lights part of the objects.
Section 9 - The last section of the exhibition focus on the links and differences between expression and abstraction. Due to the numerous artistic avant-garde in Holland, and around Europe, there were a rapid development of new formal languages which offered an incredible freedom in the choice of expressive means. Color and form now seemed more variable than ever before.
Informations about the exhibition
Place: Museum Barberini
Date: 8.7.2023 - 22.10.2023
Curator: Michael Philipp
Ticket: Available on the website of the Museum Barberini OR at the front desk of the museum
Informations about the Museum Barberini
Museum Barberini
Alter Markt
HumboldStrasse 6-6
DE-14467 Potsdam
Germany
Phone: +49 331 23 60 14 499
Mail: service@museum-barberini.de