Studio: international art (55.1912)

The van Randwijk Collection

“winter in Amsterdam” by g. h. breitner

the town slopes downwards, the brown roofs of the
houses gradually melting away in the distance
making the tower appear all the more substantial.
The atmospheric effects are as happy as is the
composition ; the harbour in the foreground with
the illusion of motion in the water, the light grey,
vaporous clouds above contrasting with the rich
colours of the middle distance, all combine to pro-
duce a most harmonious and pleasing result.

Matthys, or Matthew, Maris (bom 1839) is repre-
sented by three excellent works, painted after he had
shaken off the influence of the German and English
schools so apparent in his earlier pictures. Poetic
in sentiment and of most excellent draughtsman-
ship, his Souvenir dlAmsterdam * was produced just
after he came to the full maturity of his powers,
and won him considerable renown. It is no mere
literal transcript of an actual town, but a dream-like
city, an Amsterdam that never was and never will
be, but for all that a realisation of the very spirit
of the ancient capital, the enduring charm that
goes straight to the heart of the spectator. It is,
indeed, the very inner ego of Amsterdam, the
irregular, picturesque houses of which, with their
high-pitched roofs silhouetted against the sky, are
grouped beneath the grand and lofty drawbridge
that resembles avisionfrom the “Thousand and One
Nights ” rather than the sober creation of a skilful

* A reproduction of this picture will be found in the
Special Number of The Studio on “The Brothers
Maris.”

architect. Deep and glowing colour, seen through
a gleaming mist of pearly grey, gives a touch of sub-
dued melancholy to the scene, which is suggestive
of repose and inaction rather than of the teeming
life of a centre of population, but to Matthys life
appears like a beautiful fairy-tale rather than what
it really is, a continuous struggle. Begun as it was
about i860 and not completed until 1S71, the long
interval of years between those two dates has resulted
in giving to the picture a value all its own, of which
a certain remoteness is a distinctive factor. During
what is known as the artist’s English period his
work was more realistic, more introspective, so to
speak, and, though already full of poetic feeling, it
was far more ascetic and subdued in colouring.

The Little Daughter of the Artist Swan, with its
ethereal colour, is another very characteristic paint-
ing, the portrait being seen through a delicate greyish
veil giving to it a kind of illusive, fairy-like appear-
ance. With it may be named A Fairy 1'ale,
representing a pond enclosed within a circlet of
shadowy grey-green bushes, with a suggestion in
the background of a building of many towers and
buttresses and in the foreground a little elf-maiden
of mysterious charm about to seize two wild ducks
that were preparing to take flight and are as
visionary and unsubstantial as herself.

William Maris (1844-1910), the youngest of the
three brothers, simply revels in light. His Sultry
Day, with its broad and massive execution, is a very

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