Hague School

Under the Hague School refers to a Dutch art movement which in The Hague had about 1870-1920 its center.

Formation

The Hague School was created under the influence of the conception of nature in the Romantic and the idealization of the rural population, a few decades later developed in France in the late 18th century and in the Netherlands. Jozef Israels, initially a promising history painter, developed this new realism mid-19th century, by making the contemporaries of the decisive motive. Israels art showing the lives of the fishermen and farmers who have the connection with the earth not yet lost, and yet live in a unit with their natural environment.

The term " Hague School " was coined in 1875 by journalist J. van Santen Kolff. In the magazine De Banier he described it as a "new, ultra- radical movement ". The special quality of the Hague painter was for van Santen Kolff in the specific " Dutch " way of landscape painting:

Style

The prevailing style of painting of the Hague School was the Impressionism. The painters of the Hague School sought primarily playing a certain atmosphere.

Despite different subjects was the coloristic treatment, disguise their gray and brown values ​​and contours give the image autumnal melancholy, related. Therefore conservative critics questioned the aesthetic content of that realism in question and rejected the Hague School because of their ' grisaille ' from. One of them wrote in 1888 in an exhibition review: " From Mesdag there hangs a storm, in which the lake looks terribly dirty and the clouds like giant flour dumpling fly through the air."

The painting of the Hague School came in the late 19th century to results that the foundations of modernity in the Netherlands put on which constructions van Gogh and Mondrian. Thus, they are one of the direct precursors of Impressionism.

Trailer

Some artists such as Paul Gabriël, Willem Roelofs, Johan Hendrik Weiss break and the brothers Jacob, Matthijs and Willem Maris worked outdoors in the marshes near the places Nieuwkoop, Noorden and Kortenhoef and painted the Dutch cultural landscape with pastures and grazing cows, marshes with canals and windmills. But other artists preferred the coast and painted on the beach. Especially the fishing village of Scheveningen was a major source of inspiration for artists such as Hendrik Willem Mesdag, Bernard Blommers, Anton Mauve and Philip Sadée.

However, the works of the Hague painters were not limited to the landscape painting. Mesdag was particularly known for his portrayal of arriving and departing fishing boats (called " bomschuiten " ), a theme that also Bernard Blommers, Anton Mauve and Jacob Maris like treated. Especially Mesdag had with its sea views great international success and thus became the best-selling artists of the group.

The Fischer- genre was also the first of Jozef Israels, the Nestor of the Hague School, preferred topic. Later Israels came to a dreamy and emotional " interior realism" with the representation of small everyday joys and suffering in the lives of fishermen and farmers. However, unlike the others, he was a typical studio painter who only completed sketches outdoors.

A slightly falling out of line member of the group was born in The Hague Bosboom John, who wrote mainly architectural images, such as the representation of Kircheninterieus.

The following shall apply in their early days as a supporter of the Hague School, but later pursued his own way: George Hendrik Breitner, Isaac Israels and Jan Toorop. (Compare: Amsterdam Impressionists. )

Many Dutch painters of the late 19th or early 20th century were inspired by the Hague School and painted in the same style. Some of them used later by the Hague style off and went their own ways. This group of painters is often referred to as Late Hague School or second generation of the Hague School. Some representatives were Dirk van Haaren, Daniël Mühlhaus and Willem stress whitening. and Jan Willem van Borselen.

Influenced by the Hague School was among other things, Vincent van Gogh, which the artists of the Hague School met in The Hague and was introduced by his cousin Anton Mauve into the basics of watercolor and oil painting. According to his early works were by the same earthy colors dominating as that of his idols Anton Mauve and Jozef Israels.

One of the last representatives of the Hague School was Adrianus Zwart in his early work.

The collection of the Museum Mesdag in The Hague houses the most important collection of paintings of the Hague School. Mesdag himself had founded the museum by a private foundation.