DOI Heft:
No. 135 (May, 1908)
DOI Artikel:Rutter, Frank: A pioneer painter of Holland: Willem Roelofs
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28254#0200
IVillem Roelofs
we are apt to forget the very different aims and
methods of individual members of that group.
And particularly now that Corot, perhaps justly,
overshadows his comrades, it is difficult to realise
that there was a time—say fifty or sixty years ago
—when Troyon, Diaz, or Rousseau was a mightier
name to conjure with. Even among art-students,
apart from the general public, one master gains
more immediate recognition than another. Now
although Roelofs was possessed of far too sturdy a
personality to become the echo of another man, it
is not unjust and it is certainly helpful to the
understanding of his art to realise that Rousseau,
rather than Corot or Millet, was his spiritual chief.
And since Rousseau was the most severe naturalist
of the band, what Roelofs chiefly learnt from
Rousseau was to study Nature for himself, to
study her with patience, with passion, and with
science. Relatives of mine who were privileged
to be intimate with Roelofs during his residence
at Brussels tell me of his deep admiration for
Diaz and Troyon, and this well accords with my
own deductions, for both Diaz and Troyon belong
to what may be called the Rousseau section of the
Barbizon brotherhood. But this admiration never
led Roelofs astray into seeking to imitate the works
of others. The reproductions of some of his cattle-
pieces given in these pages are convincing evidence
of the integrity of his vision and the independence
of his technique. His pictures have the great
merit of taking us straight back to nature. They
remind us only of what we have seen without.
They are really truer than Troyon’s renderings
of similar subjects. Perhaps had they been
inferior in merit, had they been reminiscent of
some aspect of nature with which an earlier
painter had already familiarised the public, they
would have met with wider and more immediate
recognition. The truth is nearly always new, and
the new in art is always regarded with suspicion.
That was the primary aim of Roelofs, to be true to
his own vision of nature. That was the great
doctrine he learnt at Barbizon, that was the doc-
trine he returned to propagate through the Low
Countries. And as the propagandist of this creed
he was a pioneer in Holland, “the first to open
the way.”
“ The word which through all the ages has been
the reveil for the sleeping multitude, that word,”
says Mr. Smissaert, “ was thundered by him
(Roelofs) into the ears of contemporaries and
posterity, the proud call of Retournons ci la nature,
“cattle watering”
178
BY WILLEM ROELOFS
we are apt to forget the very different aims and
methods of individual members of that group.
And particularly now that Corot, perhaps justly,
overshadows his comrades, it is difficult to realise
that there was a time—say fifty or sixty years ago
—when Troyon, Diaz, or Rousseau was a mightier
name to conjure with. Even among art-students,
apart from the general public, one master gains
more immediate recognition than another. Now
although Roelofs was possessed of far too sturdy a
personality to become the echo of another man, it
is not unjust and it is certainly helpful to the
understanding of his art to realise that Rousseau,
rather than Corot or Millet, was his spiritual chief.
And since Rousseau was the most severe naturalist
of the band, what Roelofs chiefly learnt from
Rousseau was to study Nature for himself, to
study her with patience, with passion, and with
science. Relatives of mine who were privileged
to be intimate with Roelofs during his residence
at Brussels tell me of his deep admiration for
Diaz and Troyon, and this well accords with my
own deductions, for both Diaz and Troyon belong
to what may be called the Rousseau section of the
Barbizon brotherhood. But this admiration never
led Roelofs astray into seeking to imitate the works
of others. The reproductions of some of his cattle-
pieces given in these pages are convincing evidence
of the integrity of his vision and the independence
of his technique. His pictures have the great
merit of taking us straight back to nature. They
remind us only of what we have seen without.
They are really truer than Troyon’s renderings
of similar subjects. Perhaps had they been
inferior in merit, had they been reminiscent of
some aspect of nature with which an earlier
painter had already familiarised the public, they
would have met with wider and more immediate
recognition. The truth is nearly always new, and
the new in art is always regarded with suspicion.
That was the primary aim of Roelofs, to be true to
his own vision of nature. That was the great
doctrine he learnt at Barbizon, that was the doc-
trine he returned to propagate through the Low
Countries. And as the propagandist of this creed
he was a pioneer in Holland, “the first to open
the way.”
“ The word which through all the ages has been
the reveil for the sleeping multitude, that word,”
says Mr. Smissaert, “ was thundered by him
(Roelofs) into the ears of contemporaries and
posterity, the proud call of Retournons ci la nature,
“cattle watering”
178
BY WILLEM ROELOFS