Theory and Practice: Being in Two Minds? Richard Roland Holst As a Community Artist and the Relation Between His Theories and His Practice of Stained Glass Making
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Theory and practice: being in two minds? Richard Roland Holst as a community artist and the relation between his theories and his practice of stained glass making. Research master thesis ‘Art History of the Low Countries in its European Context’ Inge Janna Maria (Janine) Kraaijeveld 3342956 Supervisor: dr. A.C. Kisters Second reader: dr. A.M.E.L. Hoogenboom Utrecht University, the Netherlands July 2013 1 Table of contents Preface .................................................................................................................................................... 4 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 5 Research questions and method .............................................................................................................. 6 Relevance of the topic ............................................................................................................................. 8 Structure .................................................................................................................................................. 9 Chapter 1. ............................................................................................................................................. 12 The artistic climate in Amsterdam, 1880-1900 ..................................................................................... 12 The Eighties Movement ........................................................................................................................ 12 The artists of the Eighties Movement .................................................................................................... 15 „Gemeenschapskunst‟ ............................................................................................................................ 18 Community art: theory and practice ...................................................................................................... 20 Catholic and socialistic aspects of community art ................................................................................ 22 The Rijksmuseum .................................................................................................................................. 24 Chapter 2. ............................................................................................................................................. 26 Roland Holst‟s artistic training .............................................................................................................. 26 Art criticism: Roland Holst on Derkinderen‟s murals in Den Bosch .................................................... 28 Symbolism ............................................................................................................................................. 30 Influences from England ....................................................................................................................... 32 The Arts and Crafts Movement ............................................................................................................. 34 Socialism ............................................................................................................................................... 36 Chapter 3. ............................................................................................................................................. 42 Two community art buildings ............................................................................................................... 42 Berlage .............................................................................................................................................. 42 The ANDB building ........................................................................................................................... 43 The Stock Exchange building ............................................................................................................ 46 Roland Holst‟s writings on monumental art .......................................................................................... 48 2 The starting point .............................................................................................................................. 48 The art of the Image and the art of the Sign ...................................................................................... 49 Geometrics ........................................................................................................................................ 51 Roland Holst position in the debate on community art ..................................................................... 54 The reassessment of the debate in Wendingen .................................................................................. 55 Roland Holst’s ideas of monumental art: a summary by the artist himself...................................... 57 Chapter 4. ............................................................................................................................................. 60 Stained glass in Europe ......................................................................................................................... 60 Stained glass in the Netherlands ............................................................................................................ 64 An artistic change: Derkinderen‟s stained glass windows .................................................................... 65 Monumental art at the Rijksacademie ................................................................................................... 67 Roland Holst‟s stained glass .................................................................................................................. 70 The first Amsterdam Lyceum cycle .................................................................................................... 71 The windows in the Domkerk ............................................................................................................ 72 The second Amsterdam cycle............................................................................................................. 74 The second Utrecht window .............................................................................................................. 75 Roland Holst and Bogtman ............................................................................................................... 75 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 78 Figures .................................................................................................................................................. 82 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 98 3 Preface I would like to thank the persons who supported and assisted me during the research that resulted in the present thesis. This includes the staff members of the different libraries and archives who were a great help in guiding me through the large amount of material and providing me with the items I was looking for, and Lieske Tibbe who gave me valuable information on publications I otherwise not would have consulted. I am grateful to my family and friends for their support, especially to those who, as non-art historians, dared to start a conversation about my research. These conversations encouraged me to think about my work from a different perspective and gave me new insights. Furthermore, I would like to thank Sandra Kisters for her accurate and helpful supervision and Annemieke Hoogenboom for being second reader. 4 Introduction The present research master thesis centres on the writings and works of the Dutch artist Richard Nicolaüs Roland Holst (1868-1938). The choice of this topic follows from an earlier encounter with the name of Roland Holst in Dublin, where I have been working on the Irish stained glass workshop An Túr Gloine during an internship at the National Gallery of Ireland. While writing a biography of Evie Hone (1894-1955), one of the artists involved in the workshop, I came across a document that mentioned Roland Holst as one of her teachers. This attracted my attention because I was interested in artistic relations between the Netherlands and Ireland. The search for more information on the interaction between Hone and Roland Holst nevertheless reached a dead end quite soon. I found a number of small articles where Roland Holst was described as Hone‟s teacher, an admirer of her work or the person who encouraged her to start working in stained glass, but none of the writers gave detailed information on the relationship between the Dutch and the Irish artist. The only document that proves that there was an association between Hone and Dutch stained glass was an article on Dutch and French stained glass, written by Hone.1 The link between Roland Holst and Ireland only was a literary one. His nephew, the poet Adriaan Roland Holst (1888-1976), was an admirer of the poetry of the Irish poet W.B. Yeats (1865-1939). He introduced his uncle to Yeats‟s work. Roland Holst and his wife Henriette Roland Holst-van der Schalk (1869-1952) shared Adriaan‟s admiration.2 The research concerning the relations between Roland Holst and Hone might have led to nowhere, the stained