Studio: international art (45.1909)

THE STUDIO

J

OHANN BARTHOLD JONG-
KIND. BY HENRI FRANTZ.

Cases such as that of Johann Barthold
Jongkind, who lived and produced and died almost
unknown and unappreciated, are not unique in the
history of painting in the nineteenth century, but
it would be hard to find a master so great and
nowadays so generally esteemed whose existence
was spent in deeper obscurity. Other painters
certainly, like Monticelli (worthily honoured in
this year’s Salon d’Automne), Hervier, Lépine, and
Sisley, were not properly understood and esteemed
till after their death ; and this is not wholly un-
intelligible in the case of these men, who, breaking
away from the formulas and the techniques of the
past, astounded public and amateur alike by their
new-fangled methods. But that Jongkind, with

his simple, classical talent, the direct descendant of
Van der Velde and Van der Neer, should through-
out his life have been rejected at the Salon, or
hidden away in the worst places, alone but for
some chance artist or private friend, who should
save him from starvation—this is a thing which
reflects no honour either on the great public, on
the collectors, or on the critics.

Information about this artist is scarce and hard
to find. A few enthusiastic words dropped in the
salons of Baudelaire and Théophile Gautier furnish
one with the fact that Jongkind exhibited in such
and such a year, which is something, but that is all
we can learn. One writer alone would seem to
have known Jongkind personally and intimately;
that is M. de Fourcaud, the highly-distinguished
art critic who fills so brilliantly the “chaire de
Taine ” at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts ; and the

BY J. B. JONGKIND

“vue de hollande” (oil painting) (Durand-Ruel Collection)
XLV. No. 187.—October, 1908.

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