DOI Heft:
No. 51 (June 1897)
DOI Artikel:Horton, George: South Holland as a sketching ground
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18389#0039
South Holland as a Sketching Ground
SOUTH HOLLAND AS A
SKETCHING GROUND. BY
GEORGE HORTON.
With the advent of each succeeding
summer and autumn, the same problem presents
itself to the diligent artist, namely, what direction
to take in search of fresh fields to conquer, or to be
conquered by.
In this age of amateur missionary enterprise,
when almost every one desires to persuade almost
every one else to his own special and particular
views, the aforesaid diligent artist is apt to become
somewhat bewildered by manifold and conflicting
counsels, and in despair he will probably pack up
his traps and make a start for some region of which
he knows little or nothing, only to find on arrival
that the spot selected at random is anything but a
bower of bliss, that his temporary lodging offers
the minimum of comfort with the maximum of
cost, that the commissariat department is bad
beyond the dreams of badness, and that the object
of his journey is in no way attainable.
With a view to assisting a visitor on sketching
26
intent, the following cursory notes of a most enjoy-
able trip to the province of South Holland have
been jotted down, in the hope that the informa-
tion contained in them, scant though it be, may
serve as a means of pointing out the towns and
rural districts most prolific in paintable pieces, as
well as to give some information concerning the
nature of the subjects to be met with in the places
mentioned.
In Rotterdam, the alert and observant seeker
after the picturesque will find numberless subjects
for the pencil ready to hand. Should he desire to
devote his energies to figure studies, he will find no
lack of interesting models, from the child with the
" aspirant-au-ciel " profile, to the buxom, homely
matron with features expressive of "a kind overflow
of kindness," and her lord and master, the sturdy,
square-built burgher, whose broad and open counte-
nance conveys the conviction that he can hear the
Decalogue and feel no self-reproach, and whose
ample frame presents to view a quite amazing
expanse of "undistributed middle." If, like Mr.
Davidson's denizens of "A Northern Suburb," these
good Netherlanders toil " through dread of coming
SOUTH HOLLAND AS A
SKETCHING GROUND. BY
GEORGE HORTON.
With the advent of each succeeding
summer and autumn, the same problem presents
itself to the diligent artist, namely, what direction
to take in search of fresh fields to conquer, or to be
conquered by.
In this age of amateur missionary enterprise,
when almost every one desires to persuade almost
every one else to his own special and particular
views, the aforesaid diligent artist is apt to become
somewhat bewildered by manifold and conflicting
counsels, and in despair he will probably pack up
his traps and make a start for some region of which
he knows little or nothing, only to find on arrival
that the spot selected at random is anything but a
bower of bliss, that his temporary lodging offers
the minimum of comfort with the maximum of
cost, that the commissariat department is bad
beyond the dreams of badness, and that the object
of his journey is in no way attainable.
With a view to assisting a visitor on sketching
26
intent, the following cursory notes of a most enjoy-
able trip to the province of South Holland have
been jotted down, in the hope that the informa-
tion contained in them, scant though it be, may
serve as a means of pointing out the towns and
rural districts most prolific in paintable pieces, as
well as to give some information concerning the
nature of the subjects to be met with in the places
mentioned.
In Rotterdam, the alert and observant seeker
after the picturesque will find numberless subjects
for the pencil ready to hand. Should he desire to
devote his energies to figure studies, he will find no
lack of interesting models, from the child with the
" aspirant-au-ciel " profile, to the buxom, homely
matron with features expressive of "a kind overflow
of kindness," and her lord and master, the sturdy,
square-built burgher, whose broad and open counte-
nance conveys the conviction that he can hear the
Decalogue and feel no self-reproach, and whose
ample frame presents to view a quite amazing
expanse of "undistributed middle." If, like Mr.
Davidson's denizens of "A Northern Suburb," these
good Netherlanders toil " through dread of coming