Studio: international art (26.1902)

Josef Israels

most ductile language of the brush that is known deed, it is in this concentrated power, in this self-
to me. contained harmony, the outcome of one glance,

And yet, notwithstanding, all this exists, as far as as it were, and of one impetus, that we may
possible, in the clear, simple execution of the old discern one of the principal features of Israels' art-
Dutch painters, and there is one great family resem- There is nothing in his work that asserts itself
blance between the nineteenth-century master and alone, nothing detached, nothing that plays any
those who are the classics amongst the petits- part but that of strengthening the whole. Each
maiires. portion of the picture is born of the rest, and from

The resemblance — the revived tradition — is the first does nothing in it but contribute to the
to be seen in the fact that Israels, like the old Dutch whole, and give deeper vitality to the effect aimed
painters—nay, even more than they—always aims at. Even when he makes his figures strongest in
at the sober, general harmony of the whole work. expression, grandest in attitude, and fills them with
It is wonderful how discreet the effect is of a most eager life, never are they out of their place in
picture, for instance, by Pieter de Hoogh, with all the picture; the whole is in keeping, a firm and
its elaborate execution ; how splendidly it holds simple structure of line and tone. And in Israels
together, how strong and yet delicate the construe- this is of the first importance ; because, as has
tion is. It is this great quality of presenting an been said, he profits, so to speak, more by
absolutely organic whole at one impulse, which intuition than by conscious knowledge. There is
seems to have passed into Israels from his precursors, little that is learned in his scope, little that is fixed
who otherwise painted so utterly differently. In- in his style ; his ways of working lead over hill and

dale, his methods of execution are ever uncertain.
For the great traditions of decorative composition
in painting (as we have already said in other words)
find no acceptance with him. Small is the tradition
which supports' this childlike artist. His figures
must live and breathe. That is the only aim he
keeps in view : how he attains it he himself could
certainly not explain. And this is what exasperates
those who do not like his work. There is nothing
in the man to lay hold of. There is something
very like charlatanism in the way he works. There
is no greater blunderer. He is capable of smearing
over in a moment a painting he has been toiling at
for months. What need for any technical skill on
that bit of canvas? The grand expressive idea
must be worked out in his head alone. And what
of this painting which he treats as nought ? Well,
if it sighs or wails, pines and scourges, pants and
sings, that is exactly what often gives it such
amazing power.

Israels laughs a little at la bellepeinture; and, to
mention him once more in connection with an old
master, I once had proof that he was almost a
stranger to the art of one of the most perfect of
them all, the purest in colour, the clearest of vision,
the nearest to us, perhaps, of all the seventeenth-
century painters. Israels has resided at the Hague
for more than thirty years, and it cannot be said
that the Mauritshuis is out of his way; but when
I once stood with him in front of the magnificent
view of Delft, which is one of the glories of the
Hague Gallery and one of the immortal works of
the att of the Low Countries, he involuntarily
\ study by josef Israels betrayed that the splendid power of vision and

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