DOI Heft:
No. 224 (November 1911)
DOI Artikel:Halton, Ernest G.: Josef Israëls: the leader of the modern dutch school
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21155#0111
Josef Israels
JOSEF ISRAELS : THE LEADER OF their immediate surroundings accounts in a large
THE MODERN DUTCH SCHOOL, measure for their limited range of subjects.
The true nature of this awakening is well
The death of Josef Israels at the great age of exemplified in the change which it wrought in the
eighty-seven, which took place on August 12th work of Israels. His early studies had been
last at The Hague, removed the last and perhaps the carried on under the direction of Jan Kruseman in
most prominent of the great painters whose names Amsterdam, a fashionable artist possessing very
will always be associated with the Modern Dutch little real ability. Then for two years he was in
School. It is true that wonderful magician of the Paris, where he entered the atelier of Picot, the
brush, Matthew Maris, is still with us, but, except by historical painter, a pupil of David. From there
accident of birth, he can hardly be said to belong he went to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he
to the small group of which his brother James, came under the influence of Delaroche, and finally
Mauve, Bosboom, and Israels were the most dis- he returned to Holland. The result of this training
tinguished members; nor can his influence be may be seen in his early works, mostly of an
readily traced in the work of his contemporaries in historical or dramatic character, which reveal very
Holland. Undoubtedly it is mainly to the four little artistic merit, and display most of the failings
artists just mentioned that we owe the re- which characterised the work then being produced
markable revival which has taken place in Dutch in his country. It is indeed difficult to trace in
painting and has restored Holland once more to these early pictures any signs of those splendid quali-
her former eminent position in the world of art. ties which we find in the best works of his maturity.
The part which Israels played
in this revival was an important
one, and in order better to under-
stand his art it is desirable to
recall the circumstances which
surrounded this regeneration.
Although to a large extent the
outcome of it, the revival of the
Dutch School of Painting was
brought about without any of the
stirring elements which accom-
panied the Romantic Movement
in France. During the eighteenth
and the first half of the nine-
teenth centuries painting in Hol-
land had been on the decline.
Like that of France just previous
to 1850, it was cold and unin-
spired, and void of all the rich
vitality which characterised the
work of the great seventeenth-
century Dutchmen. Stirred by
the example of their brother
artists in France the younger
painters of Holland strove to
raise their art to a higher level.
They awoke, as it were, to the
sense of beauty in nature, and
with this awakening came a
desire to render with truth and
simplicity the peculiar charac-
teristics of the scenes and life of
their country. And the fact that
.... "the young wife from the oil painting by josef isi
they thus sought inspiration m (By permission of Messrs. Wallis andSon)
LIV. No. 224—November 1911. 89
JOSEF ISRAELS : THE LEADER OF their immediate surroundings accounts in a large
THE MODERN DUTCH SCHOOL, measure for their limited range of subjects.
The true nature of this awakening is well
The death of Josef Israels at the great age of exemplified in the change which it wrought in the
eighty-seven, which took place on August 12th work of Israels. His early studies had been
last at The Hague, removed the last and perhaps the carried on under the direction of Jan Kruseman in
most prominent of the great painters whose names Amsterdam, a fashionable artist possessing very
will always be associated with the Modern Dutch little real ability. Then for two years he was in
School. It is true that wonderful magician of the Paris, where he entered the atelier of Picot, the
brush, Matthew Maris, is still with us, but, except by historical painter, a pupil of David. From there
accident of birth, he can hardly be said to belong he went to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he
to the small group of which his brother James, came under the influence of Delaroche, and finally
Mauve, Bosboom, and Israels were the most dis- he returned to Holland. The result of this training
tinguished members; nor can his influence be may be seen in his early works, mostly of an
readily traced in the work of his contemporaries in historical or dramatic character, which reveal very
Holland. Undoubtedly it is mainly to the four little artistic merit, and display most of the failings
artists just mentioned that we owe the re- which characterised the work then being produced
markable revival which has taken place in Dutch in his country. It is indeed difficult to trace in
painting and has restored Holland once more to these early pictures any signs of those splendid quali-
her former eminent position in the world of art. ties which we find in the best works of his maturity.
The part which Israels played
in this revival was an important
one, and in order better to under-
stand his art it is desirable to
recall the circumstances which
surrounded this regeneration.
Although to a large extent the
outcome of it, the revival of the
Dutch School of Painting was
brought about without any of the
stirring elements which accom-
panied the Romantic Movement
in France. During the eighteenth
and the first half of the nine-
teenth centuries painting in Hol-
land had been on the decline.
Like that of France just previous
to 1850, it was cold and unin-
spired, and void of all the rich
vitality which characterised the
work of the great seventeenth-
century Dutchmen. Stirred by
the example of their brother
artists in France the younger
painters of Holland strove to
raise their art to a higher level.
They awoke, as it were, to the
sense of beauty in nature, and
with this awakening came a
desire to render with truth and
simplicity the peculiar charac-
teristics of the scenes and life of
their country. And the fact that
.... "the young wife from the oil painting by josef isi
they thus sought inspiration m (By permission of Messrs. Wallis andSon)
LIV. No. 224—November 1911. 89