Studio: international art (45.1909)

Johann Barthold Jongkind

preface written by him on the occasion of the sale
of Jongkind’s pictures (December 6, 1891)—a
very scarce work—is the best source of information
respecting the life and labours of this great Dutch
painter.

J. B. Jongkind was born in 1819 in the village
of Latrop, near Rotterdam. Of his family nothing
is known ; of his early training nought save that he
studied under one, Scheffhout, a painter of little
merit. About 1849 he used to attend the atelier
of Eugène Isabey, and it may be he, like Boning-
ton, made a certain impression on Jongkind, and
at least influenced him in the choice of his subjects.
Jongkind lived now in Holland, now in France,
painting in oils and in water-colours and engraving,
without troubling aught about the public. Never-
theless he exhibited at the Salons, where his
pictures were very badly hung (original talent has
for all time been a poor recommendation at the
Salon !), and indeed once (in 1852) secured a
“ deuxième médaille.” M. Durand-Ruel, who has
done much to establish the fame of Jongkind, and
has, or had, in his possession the master’s chief
works, has been good enough to give me, together
with much other interesting information, the dates

of the Salons at which Jongkind exhibited. They
are the years : 1848, 1850, 1852, 1853, 1855, 1864,
1865, 1866, 1867, 1868, 1869, 1870, and 1872.

During all this time the painter found the
material side of life beset with difficulties. In
i860 a few of his artist friends joined forces and
organised, on the 7 th of April of that year, a sale of
their works for the benefit of one of their confreres
(none other than Jongkind) who had fallen ill. It
seems it was about this time that the great artist,
physically weakened by privation of all kinds, and
soured by his lack of success, felt the first
symptoms of the mental malady which was hence-
forth never to leave him. For Jongkind was
mad; Jongkind, in his art so deliberate, so pre-
cise, lost his reason the moment he quitted his
easel. “ But,” says M. de Fourcaud, who visited
him frequently about this period, or a few
years later, in his humble dwelling in the Rue
de Chevreuse, where he lived surrounded by
birds, “directly he began to speak about his
art his lucidity returned intact. His remarks
on the state of the atmosphere and the luminous
life of things often struck me by their inattendu, by
their truth, and sometimes by the curious way they

“MOULIN AU BORD D’UN RIVIÈRE : CLAIR DE LUNE ” (OIL PAINTING) BY J. B. JONGKIND

(Durand-Ruel Collection)

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