International studio (33.1907/1908(1908))

Anton Mauve


“winter” (water-colour) by
(By pet mission of Messrs. Boussod, Valadon & Co.,
work before the paint was dry. He became
perhaps too prolific, and the strain of his extra-
ordinary production was too great for a frame that
had never been robust. The end came suddenly,
from heart failure, while on a visit to his brother
at Arnheim in 1888, the year of his medal at Paris
—he had previously been medalled at Vienna,
Philadelph;a, and Antwerp. He was only fifty,
but his reputation was then world-wide, for his
paintings had travelled in many lands, though the
painter stayed in his own country. After leaving

The Hague, his home had been
at Laren, a picturesque old
country town fifteen miles south-
east of Amsterdam, where at the
moment of writing, a Mauve
Memorial is about to be unveiled
and an important retrospective
collection of his works is in course
of exhibition, and whither
Americans still come to paint
“ Mauves,” though they can no
longer scrape up an acquain-
tance with the painter.
Before attempting any analysis
of the various excellences which
anton mauve render his paintings and draw-
Baris) ings s0 admirable, I should
like to clear up one or two
misconceptions, as I consider them, very prevalent
about the art of Anton Mauve. Following Muther
—who, excellent critic as he is on the whole, is
nevertheless apt at times to let his romantic imagi-
nation run away with him —it has become a com-
monplace of criticism to speak of the “ melancholy
poetry,” the “undertone of sadness,” the “sense
of suffering” in Mauve’s paintings. To label
Mauve’s work at large with the epithets “ sad ”
and “ melancholy,” seems to me an overstatement.
Our emotions are treacherous things, and it is easy


“MILKING TIME” (OIL PAINTING)

BY ANTON MAUVE