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Home , Anton Mauve, Frans Hals, Groninger Museum, Lucebert

Course title Art 160: Dutch Art and Architecture (3 credits)

Course description Introduction to the history of Dutch Art and Architecture, from the Middle Ages to the Present day. The program contains a lot of excursions to view the various artworks ’live’. The program will bring insight in how to look at art and how the Dutch identity is reflected in artworks and the importance of the works in culture and history. This will be achieved by presentations of classmates, lectures, reading and fieldtrips.

Instructor: Ludie Gootjes-Klamer Artist and Master Education in Arts.

Textbooks Reader: Introduction to Dutch Art and Architecture by Ludie Gootjes- Klamer

Students learning Goals and Objectives Goals 1. Insight in Dutch Art and Architecture 2. Learning in small groups 3. Use the ‘Looking at art’ method. 4. Practise in giving an interesting, informing and appealing presentation to classmates. 5. Essay writing. 6. Reflect on artworks and fieldtrips

Objectives - Dutch Old masters (such as , Frans Hals, and Vermeer.) - Building styles (Roman, Gothic, Nieuwe Bouwen, Berlage.) - Cobra movement (Appel, Corneille, Lucebert) - De Stijl ( Rietveld, Mondriaan) - Temporary Artists

Methods 1. Lectures 2. Excursions 3. Reading 4. Presentations by the students for their classmates. 5. Essay writing

Class Attendance an Participation Minimal 90% Attendance. Participation in excursions and presentation in small groups are mandatory. Written reflections on excursion and presentations are mandatory.

Examination First and Final impression(A) 0,5 Essay (B) 0,5 Presentation (C) 0,5 Reflection on Fieldtrips (D) 0,5 Final Exam (E) 1 ------3 ECTS

Tentative Course Outline

Week 4 20 jan. Lecture and excursion Week 5 30 jan. Excursion () Week 6 3 febr. Lecture Week 7 10 febr. Excursion Week 8 17 febr. Lecture Week 9 Break Week 10 Week 11 10 maart Lecture Week 11 12 maart Excursion Utrecht Week 12 17 maart Excursion Week 13 24 maart Lecture Week 14 31 maart Lecture Week 15 9 april Excursion den Haag Week 16 Week 17 21 april Excursion Kroller-Muller Week 18 29 april Test

Enjoyment

This program will give you knowledge and insight to Dutch Art and Architecture. You will learn about the importance of Art in Culture and History. The different fieldtrips will show a lot of the rich Dutch culture in heritage in different places. It will take you from very Old works to present day works. You visit a lot of places and those will show the variation of ages, backgrounds and styles in the . You might not have a lot of knowledge about Arts in general but by presenting art and artists to your classmates and enjoy their presentations you might enrich your life by exploring this new world.

 Assignments:

A .Art port folio: 1.Write one page about you coming to the Netherlands. What are your expectations, especially concerning the arts in the Netherlands? What do you know about our country and the Dutch identity? What means Art to you?

2. You are now at the end of the SPICE program. Write one page about your opinion concerning the Dutch identity. Look again at the choices you made during the field trips, at you stay in the Netherlands, at your expectations and what came true and what not, etc.

B Choose a work of an artist who is from your native country; also choose a work of a Dutch Artist. Write about both works and explain why, if and how they reflect the culture of their heritage.

C You will be given an artist whose work we are going to see on one of the field trips. Give a presentation about this artist and one of his/her works to your class before the field trip. Do this in pairs. Prepare a handout for your classmates about your presentation with 3 reflective questions about the work and/or artist. Include this handout and the ones your receive from your classmates and your response to the questions in your A & A portfolio.

D Choose two works each field trip; your most favourite and one that you think represents the Dutch identity. Find a picture of them and explain your choices. Use the ‘ looking at art scheme’ questions and the reflective elements to help you describe the artworks. Each art-reflection will be about 3 pages.

E Make a nice portfolio in which you present your reflection on the chosen artworks (D), the presentations (C) and your essays (assignment A1 and A2) Show your engagement, your thoughts about art etc..

Understanding that essay writing and portfolio learning is new to you, you may hand in your Portfolio on……. to check if you meet the requirements for a good grade.

F Final Tests. Test will be about reader and lectures. Essay questions. Each Lecture will start with a recap and questions about the previous lecture. These can help you prepare for the Final Test. Date: April 29 - 2015

Art port folio:

1. Write one page about your coming to the Netherlands. What are your expectations, especially concerning the arts in the Netherlands? What do you know about our country and the Dutch identity? What means Art to you?

Excursion Amsterdam

Explore the collection off the Rijksmuseum.

Discover the possibilities of 200.000 masterpieces in the rijksstudio . www.rijksmuseum.nl

Art port folio:

2. Make your own museum, gather 10 off your own masterpieces and put these 10 masterpieces in your personal Art port folio.

Militia Company of District II… of in Dutch De Nachtwacht (the night watch ) van Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn 1642

“ You’re in a crowd of hundreds, and yoy’re looking at a picture of a crowd of people. But ther’s adifference. Your crowd is anonymous and the enemy of good things happening.Ideally, you’dlike tob e alone, while, in the picture, their comradeship is bringing a glow to a dark, rainy day. Imagine you are with them, part of the night watch. You’re going out in dreary weather to deal with the drunks, move on the troublemakers and keep an eye uot for thieves and burglars. It’s going tob e great. It beats being at home, because you’re doing it with your friends. It’s a picture about how nice it is tob e doing something with people yoy like. The Night Watch – which is perhaps the most revered picture in the country – speaks of the appeal of joining in; They are going to do something that is hardly appealling in itself – patrolling the streets on a foul day – but how readily we would join them if we could. Companionship is so much more important than ease and comfort. It is a terribly poignant message: for here we are in this room, in a crowd, yet whithout a collective purpose. They – in the picture – are what we should be, and what, in times of honesty, we wish we could be: a band of brothers, a true team, people who will bring out the best in one another. Strange though it might sound, this picture is about loneliness, for it tellsus what we are missing when we feel lonely. And getting to know what our loneliness is about is the first step to lessening its pangs.

( Art is Therapy. Alain De Botton. Rijksmuseum 2014 )

Sickness Life is elsewhere. I have a misplaced longing for glamour. In the galery of honour you can have a look at “the little street” van 1658

In one of the side galleries of the Rijksmuseum’s Gallery of Honour, probably gehind three rows of people, hangs one of the most famous works of art in the world. Thisis bad news. The extreme fame of a work of art is almost always unhelpful because, to touch us, art has to elicit a personal response – and that is hard when a is said to be so distinguished. This painting is quite out of synch wit hits status in any case because, above all else, it wants to show us that the ordinary can be very special. The picture says that looking after a simple but beautiful home, cleaning the yard, watching over the children,darning clothes – and doing these things faithfully and without dispair – is life’s real duty. This is an anti heroic picture, a weapon against falseimages of glamour. It refuses to accept that true glamour depends on amazing feats of courage or on the attainment of status. It argues that doing the modest things that are expected of all of us is enough. The picture asks you to be a little like it is:to take the attitudes it loves and to apply the mto your life. If th Netherlands had a Founding Document, a concentrated repository of its values, it would bet his small picture. It is the Dutch contribution to the world’s understanding of happiness – and its message doesn’t just belong in the gallery. ( Art is Therapy. Alain De Botton. Rijksmuseum 2014 )

Reader 17 th Centrury Art in the Netherlands

While monarchs ruled surrounding countries, in the wealthy little republic of the Netherlands it was the citizens who had the power. The curators of the exhibition Rijksmuseum, the Masterpieces let visitors come face to face with this self-assured bourgeoisie as soon as they enter. 'It wasn't a king, it wasn't a pope, it was the people who made the painting of the Golden Age possible, says Taco Dibbits, curator of 17th-century art. The wealth of the Netherlands was to a great extent acquired in the colonies. Gold was initially the most important commodity, but during the 17th century trade in slaves, spices and porcelain grew. Proudly, traders and merchants had their portraits painted with the attributes of their exotic dealings, such as Negro slaves and palm trees. Few of the portraits that were painted in the colonies have survived because, according to Dibbits, the quality was often poor. Successful Dutch painters were not inclined to travel overseas.

The new rich bourgeoisie, like the aristocracy elsewhere, could afford to have themselves immortalized in oils. Two 17th-century artists stand out: Frans Hals and Rembrandt van Rijn. Taco Dibbits explains: 'Whereas most artists were concerned with rendering every detail as accurately as possible, Hals painted his portraits with great verve and large, broad brushstrokes. Early in his career Rembrandt painted in the minutest detail, but in his late work he showed himself to be the master of omission, focusing attention on the essential characteristics of his sitters. He expressed the emotions of his subjects at a stroke.'

The flourishing of painting in the 17th century and the way it developed was governed in many ways by the rise of the culture of the bourgeoisie. The new rich not only had their own portraits painted, they also included the possessions with which they surrounded themselves. A well-filled linen cupboard was the housewife's pride and joy, a four-poster bed the most expensive item of furniture. These items often figure in . 'The interior' became a typical Dutch genre during this century.

The Catholic Church, for centuries the most important patron for artists, was largely replaced by Protestantism in the Netherlands. The rise of the wealthy middle class amply compensated for the loss of the church as an employer. 'An enormous amount of work was done for the open market,' says Taco Dibbits. 'Because there was a demand for new subjects and in order to stand out in the market, artists began to specialize.' Thus new genres came about: landscapes, , , interiors, companies and .

Still life painting as a new genre started in . Accuracy was especially important; the idea was to depict the different items as truthfully as possible. Around 1615 Floris van Dijck painted bread, cheese, apples and grapes. In the 1630s the still life increasingly became a means of showing off, with expensive dishes and exceptional goblets and chalices. Composition was refined: painters like Pieter Claesz and Willem Heda arranged the objects so they could demonstrate their skills to the utmost.

Italy was a popular destination for painters from every country in Europe. A great many artists went to Italy, but even those who hadn't been there saw the southern light in prints and paintings and were thus exposed to the Italian influence. The Italian landscape, which until then had been used as a background for religious works, was transformed into a genre in its own right.Rembrandt learned a lot about composition from Italian prints. He told , secretary to stadholder Frederick Henry, 'I have no need to go to Italy because everything is here'.

In 1628 Pieter Saenredam decided that painting buildings was to be his speciality. He concentrated primarily on painting church buildings and enjoyed great success with his work from the outset. 'It is sometimes thought that Saenredam's sober church interiors fulfilled the hope of a new religious art for some buyers,' says Taco Dibbits. The curator himself thinks that it was not so much a 'new piety' that motivated the admirers of these architectural paintings, but rather an appreciation of his skill and precision. Many other painters adopted Saenredam's subject and took it further.

It was not only landscapes that were in demand in the Golden Age, but seascapes as well. After all, the prosperity of the Netherlands owed a great deal to shipping. Van de Velde and his son were eminent marine painters who worked closely together. All the landscape painters developed their own specialism within the genre. 'It's remarkable that they didn't overlap one another' says Taco Dibbits. ' Anyone who painted landscapes in the Italian style stuck to that. Conversely, painters of typical Dutch landscapes did not encroach on the territory of the Italianates.'

Paintings with a double meaning, a message that was not obvious at first sight, were popular in the 17th century. References to virtues and vices are numerous, but Taco Dibbits thinks that care should be taken with their interpretation. If a painter incorporates a written message, such as the note with an admonitory saying pinned to the mantelpiece in Jan Steen's 'The merry family', there is no possible doubt. 'But', says Dibbits, 'can we still consider this to be a 'hidden' message?'

Arguably the best-known Dutch painting is this portrait of a militia company.Rightly so, thinks Taco Dibbits. The Night Watch typifies the special position of the Netherlands - a republic, where the citizens called the shots and were responsible for public order. A group of citizens commissioned this famous painting. Each member of the militia portrayed in the painting paid Rembrandt van Rijn for the privilege of appearing in it. The painter took the liberty of putting his patrons not in the customary neat and tidy portrait, but in a composition full of action.

Overseas

It is perhaps difficult to imagine that in the seventeenth century the Netherlands was the hub of global commerce. Amsterdam was then the principal harbour, from where Dutchmen sailed the seven seas and traded all kinds of products: spices, scarce raw materials, porcelain and textiles. The nascent of the United Provinces was one of Europe’s most prosperous nations.

Of all the towns in the Republic, Amsterdam profited the most from trade. Indeed, it was known as the centre of global trade. Huge quantities of produce were stored, processed and transhipped. Demand increased in Europe and Amsterdam’s burghers grew wealthy. In the seventeenth century the city expanded rapidly and the burgomasters had a majestic new town hall built.

Even before the glory days of the Golden Age the Republic already had a powerful trading base. In the sixteenth century a large and advanced merchant fleet had been built up plying mainly to and from the Baltic. The Republic also managed to form an army and navy capable of taking on its enemies, such as Spain. As the Republic gained strength, it was able to focus increasingly on trade, in Europe and overseas.

In 1602 the Dutch East India Company(Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC) was founded. It brought together various commercial ventures. VOC ships sailed in convoys to trading bases in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, China and Japan. They returned brimming with all kinds of products. The Dutch West Indies Company (West-Indische Compagnie or WIC) focused from 1621 on West Africa and Central America trading mainly in sugar, precious metals and slaves. The WIC was not as successful as the VOC, although the famous capture of the Spanish treasure fleet by Piet Heijn in 1628 produced a considerable bonanza.

For the Dutch, much of the world was still largely unknown in the sixteenth century. In the following century that changed. New discoveries were made. Some overseas territories were treated as if they were the Republic’s own backyard. The Dutch elite of wealthy merchants held onto their European culture. Foreign languages and customs were used to trade with the local population. Nevertheless some customs, such as the use of slaves in the household, were gratefully adopted.

Dutch mastery of the seas did not remain unchallenged. Between 1650 and 1675 Britain and the Republic fought three wars. Each time the Dutch managed to hold their own against the British. With a series of naval victories Dutch admirals, such as De Ruyter and Tromp became national heroes.

One of Michiel de Ruyter’s greatest naval exploits was his raid on the English naval base at Chatham in 1667. Unnoticed, the Dutch ships sailed up the Thames estuary and on to where part of the British fleet lay at anchor. Many vessels were burned and the British flagship, the Royal Charles, was captured and taken back to Holland as a prize.

After years of enmity, relations between Britain and the Dutch Republic suddenly took a turn for the better. In 1689 the Dutch stadholder William III was offered the crown of England, Scotland and Ireland. Under his rule, Britain and the Republic combined forces. But after William’s death in 1702 the old rivalry reemerged. In the course of the eighteenth century the Dutch were forced to concede Britain’s superiority at sea and the end of the .

Burgers and Princeses

These Amsterdam notables might well congratulate each other. In the spring of 1648, after eighty years of fighting and negotiating, the Dutch Republic had finally been recognised as a sovereign state. The Spanish king had abandoned his claim to the Dutch provinces. The other European monarchs had agreed to accept the existence of a republic in their midst. Forged by its intransigent citizens, this small new state had become an economic and military power. The burghers of the Low Countries were living in a Golden Age.

In the mid-seventeenth century the Dutch were at the peak of their power and wealth. This success was fuelled by the money earned in the Low Countries, not least through trade. Trade and industry were concentrated in the towns. That was where the profits were made and where power was held in the hands of the burghers. The extent of their wealth can still be seen. On Holland's streets and in its museums.

While the Republic naturally had no king, the prominent position of its princes of Orange often gave it the aspect of a monarchy. Their leading role in the struggle against the Spanish crown had given them enormous prestige. After the assassination of William of Orange, 'Father of the Fatherland', in 1584, his son Maurice was appointed to the principal administrative and military positions. Brothers, sons and cousins succeeded one another, adopting the trappings of royalty. Until the revolt against the Spanish crown, the Catholic Church was the only lawful religious body. The rebellion changed that. Now the Protestants were in the ascendant. The Reformed Church was the principal religious authority. Anyone who hoped for a prominent place in public administration had to be a member of the Reformed Church. Yet membership was not compulsory: other religions were permitted. The Dutch Republic acquired a reputation as a tolerant country, even though Protestants were not particularly tolerant of each other.

Political relations in the Republic were rarely stable. Conflicts regularly erupted between political opponents. Delicate issues included foreign policy, relations between church and state, the autonomy of the seven individual provinces and the role of the principal functionaries, the stadholders and grand pensionaries. Low points were the confrontations between Prince Maurice and Prince William III with grand pensionaries Van Oldenbarnevelt and De Witt. Both pensionaries paid the ultimate price. The former was beheaded, the latter was lynched.

The Dutch Republic of the United Provinces was in fact a federation of seven independent mini-states: Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland, Overijssel, Friesland and Groningen. Its administrative centre lay at the Binnenhof in . This complex had

Jan Steen.

Jan Havicksz Steen is one of the most famous artists of Holland's Golden Age. He stands out among his contemporaries as a master of many different styles. The paintings currently on display in the Rijksmuseum's Masterpieces reveal Steen's enormous variety.

Jan Steen was born in Leiden and lived successively in The Hague, Delft, Warmond, Haarlem and finally moved back to Leiden. Each place he lived in, he drew inspiration from the local style of painting and subject matter, adapting these in his own inimitable way. This can clearly be seen in a comparison of Steen's 'Burgomaster of Delft' with this painting by Pieter de Hooch of Delft.

Despite his tremendous productivity and the hundreds of paintings he made, he barely earned enough to make ends meet. So in addition to painting Steen also took on other jobs, including brewing and innkeeping. Jan Steen was a hard-working man, therefore, and worked as efficiently as possible. That is why he often painted the same subjects and re-used certain motifs.

Jan Steen was first and foremost a narrative painter, he tried to tell a story with each painting. Which is why he chose subjects with an anecdotal quality, borrowing from mythology, the Bible or everyday life. Even his portraits tell a story by portraying the subject in some form of activity. This is typical of Steen; other artists augmented their portraits with symbolism or opulent clothing.

Steen's paintings reveal him to have been at home in almost any specialization, although he clearly preferred portraying people engaged in ordinary activities. He liked to cross boundaries with his subjects and genres, mixing portraits and history pieces with everyday scenes and still lifes. All of Steen's characters seem to act in more-or-less the same way, whether they are involved in a biblical drama or a tavern scene. Steen invariable chose eloquent gestures and facial expressions, and often dressed his subjects in fashionable clothes.

Today Steen is best known for his paintings of families in disorderly interiors with all kinds of activities taking place. This is what gave rise to the Dutch phrase 'a Jan Steen household'. But the compositions are not as chaotic as they seem. By making his subjects exchange expressions and gestures Steen animated and clarified his scene n the 17th century dirty jokes and double entendres were as popular as ever. Jan Steen often applied the idea in his paintings to give them a humorous touch. Sometimes the joke would be immediately obvious, but often the real meaning would have to be guessed at from the hints he gave. Steen would also raise a laugh by incorporating characters from popular farces.

Steen did not only paint for laughs. Many of his paintings reflect a proverb or a wise lesson in life. Sometimes the meaning is obvious, when the moral or the proverb is written out on a letter incorporated into the painting.

Excursion Groningen

The Groninger Museum is well-known for its exceptional and colourful building and also because of its fascinating exhibitions and intriguing collection.The Groninger Museum has proven over the years that a museum can be a place for both study and relaxation. It is bursting with artistic energy, which is obvious as you pass by.

The Groninger Museum reopend in 1994. Right from the outset, it was certain that the new Groninger Museum would be designed by several architects. Alessandro Mendini chose designers and architects for this purpose: Philipe Starck, Michele de Lucchi and Coop Himmelb(l)au.

Well over a century old, the Groninger Museum has managed to build an extensive and extremely varied collection. The following gives a brief description of a few of its focuses.

A major part of the collection has to do with the history and culture of the city and province of Groningen. This includes many archaeological finds, portraits of prominent Groningers from past centuries and beautiful examples of regional arts & crafts and applied arts, such as Groningen silver. A great deal of Oriental ceramics, imported from the seventeenth century onwards, survived in the northern Netherlands. The Groninger Museum’s collection is one of the most important to be found in the Netherlands.

The Groninger Museum Collection includes a wonderful portfolio of seventeenth-century drawings presented to the Museum by the art historian Cornelis Hofstede de Groot. Two prominent families of painters strongly associated with the , Israëls and Mesdag, had roots in Groningen and the Groninger Museum has a wide selection of their work.

Modern art in Groningen began with the expressionist work of the artists’ association De Ploeg from the 1920-1930 era. The Museum has a substantial De Ploeg collection which is still growing. Another focus is neo-expressionist painting from the 1980s and ‘post-modern’ – mainly Italian – design from the same period. Present acquisitions tend towards work transcending the borders between art, fashion and design.

The Groninger Museum Collection Exhibition Policy The Groninger Museum pays a great deal of attention to its exhibitions. Objects that shed light on a certain subject or story are constantly being brought together. Because the exhibitions change regularly, hardly anything from the Collection is permanently on display. So please take note that work featured on the website may not be on display at the time of your visit.

If you would like to know for certain whether an item is on display, please send an e-mail to [email protected]. Your e-mail will be answered during office hours.

Nacho Carbonell & Maartje Korstanje

22 November 2014 to 22 March 2015

Exhibition with much new work by artist Maartje Korstanje (Goes, 1982) and designer Nacho Carbonell (Valencia, 1980). Specific choices of material and their extraordinary application are important aspects of their work. The cycle of life and death is also a major source of inspiration to Maartje Korstanje, and her large irregularly formed cardboard sculptures occasionally seem to come to life. To Nacho Carbonell, animation – coming to life – is an important theme. In his work he investigates the relation that humans have with objects and things. Retreat, seclusion or hiding in hollow forms is a characteristic feature of his work.

Nacho Carbonell Nacho Carbonell graduated from CEU Cardenal Herrera University in Valencia in 2003, and later moved to Eindhoven where he graduated cum laude from the Design Academy with his final exam works entitled Dream of Sand and Pump It Up. He then went on to exhibit frequently both at home and abroad. His work can be found in many public and private collections. Carbonell lives and works in Eindhoven.

Hybrid objects that lie somewhere between art and design are characteristic of Carbonell’s conceptual oeuvre. His work and working method can be regarded as a kind of playful yet critical investigation into the reciprocal relationship that people have with objects and the (symbolic) significance they attach to them. Carbonell’s very outspoken and recognizable form language is typified by striking material choices and ongoing experiment. Themes such as ‘inspiration’, ‘evolution’ and ‘transience’ are central to his work, as is its interactive, governing and determinist nature.

The designer presents the objects as organisms that are animated by interaction with the user. In addition to a sizeable new series, the exhibition will also display the installations Pump It Up, Evolution and Treechair : works that evoke associations with cocoons or nests, and which appear to be depictions of escapist fantasies. The Secret of Dresden – From Rembrandt to Canaletto

13 December 2014 to 25 May 2015

The collections in Dresden form one of the best-kept secrets of European art. At the time, the art compilations amassed by Prince-Electors of Saxony in the eighteenth century belonged to the most beautiful and renowned collections in Europe. Het geheim van Dresden - van Rembrandt tot Canaletto (The Secret of Dresden – From Rembrandt to Canaletto) displays a selection from the impressive collection of paintings that nowadays constitute the core of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden. There are masterpieces such as the Rembrandt’s Abduction of Ganymede (1635), as well as works by painters who were once considered to be masters but have now been (almost) forgotten. Together they tell the story of the florescence of the court of Saxony in the eighteenth century.

An exhibition organized by the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden in conjunction with the Groninger Museum.

Saxony was already one of the most prosperous German states when Prince-Elector August the Strong managed to acquire the kingship of Poland in 1697. He underlined his new status among the royal courts of Europe by starting up ambitious building projects and initiating an impressive art collection that could rival those of the major royal collections of that period. After his death, his collecting activities were continued by his son August III until deep into the eighteenth century. The cultural wealth of Dresden was so notable that the city was referred to as ‘Florence on the Elbe’. The general public was increasingly granted access to the collection of paintings, so that one of the first public museums in the world eventually arose. Goethe, who often visited the Gemäldegalerie, regarded it as a true sanctuary of art.

As a consequence of renovation, a part of the collection of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister has now become temporarily available for display elsewhere. In a number of thematic chapters, ‘The Secret of Dresden’ tells of the important role of art in eighteenth-century Saxony. On show are mythological paintings by Rembrandt and Canaletto, portraits by Titian and Velazquez, views of Venice by Canaletto, and landscapes by and Claude Lorrain.

In addition to Groningen, this exhibition will also be on display in Munich and Vienna. An extensive German catalogue will accompany the exhibition, supplemented by a more concise Dutch-language version. Neo-Expressionism in the 1980s

19 December 2014 to 22 March 2015

A fresh breeze swept through the art world in the early eighties. Whereas figurative art had received little appreciation for a good number of years, young artists in Europe and America suddenly began to draw and paint in a personal way. They seemed to have little affinity with the modernist ideals that had driven art toward abstraction. Instead, they took their own feelings and fantasies as the starting point of their work.

This generally colourful work is called ‘neo-expressionism’. It is a light-footed variant of expressionism: if deeper feelings are articulated at all, this mainly happens with some kind of irony. The Groninger Museum showed interest in this movement right from the outset. Almost all the drawings here in the Print Gallery were acquired in the first half of the 1980s.

Milan Kunc and Peter Angermann combined to form the Gruppe Normal and wished to create accessible art for ‘ordinary’ people. René Daniëls and Henk Visch made use of a more associative, poetic style. The same can be said of Francesco Clemente, who found inspiration in India. Chuck Nanney displays influences from surrealism, and Martin Disler, with his intense draughtsmanship, is the closest of all to original expressionism. Hervé Di Rosa was influenced by comic strips and, with his Nose Bleeding Self-portrait, Jiří Georg Dokoupil delivers ironic commentary on the growing commercialization of art in the eighties: the artist as a ‘brand’.

The vast majority of works are Untitled, which allows spectators to give their own interpretation of the work.

Excursion Utrecht

Rietveld Schreuder huis

It should come as no surprise that the Rietveld Schröder House has a place on the UNESCO World Heritage List, along with the Waddenzee and the canals of Amsterdam. This architectural masterpiece, based on the ideals of De Stijl, is unrivalled both within and outside the oeuvre of the Utrecht architect and designer Gerrit Rietveld (1888-1964).

Rietveld designed the house in 1924, commissioned by the eccentric Truus Schröder. It was his first design for an entire home, but also an extravagant experiment. Building on his own designs and De Stijl principles, he created a house on the edge of the city as a three- dimensional, asymmetrical composition. It is characterized by seamless transitions from inside to out, its primary colours (besides white, grey and black) and the playful, clever division of surfaces. Exterior, interior and furniture all bear that same Rietveld signature.

Recently widowed and mother of three, Truus Schröder was deeply involved in the design and creation of the house. She had a clear view on the way she wanted to live. Soberness, for example, was fundamental, as she wanted to live in the active sense and not be lived. Another wish was to concentrate the main living areas on the first floor. Besides having - at that time - the best views of the surrounding polders, Truus Schröder also noticed that she felt better when ‘free’ off the ground. Intrigued about how this active living is put into practice? A visit to the Rietveld Schröder House is quite insightful: particularly the adaptability and multi-functionality of the central ‘living room’ on the first floor. This large and bright living area can be partitioned into different spaces using flexible walls. In the mornings the bedroom is transformed for the day, a bed serving as a couch.

Between 1925 and 1933, Gerrit Rietveld had a studio on the ground floor. After his wife died, he moved in with Truus Schröder. He drew his final breath in the Rietveld Schröder House one day after his 76th birthday. Truus donated the house to the Rietveld Schröder Ho use Foundation, and the house was fully restored after her passing in 1985.

Rietveld Architecture app

The complete pocket guide to all buildings of the famous Dutch architect, with 200 pictures, the story behind every project, GPS-maps and routes. For iPhone only. Download the Rietveld Architecture app here (it’s free!)

Excursion Rotterdam

Ossip Zadkine Piet Blom

markthal

Excursion Den Haag

Excursion Kroller Muller

The Kröller-Müller Museum: unique in every season

The Kröller-Müller Museum has a world-renowned collection of mainly 19th and 20th century visual art. Our centrepieces include the large collection of work by and the sculpture garden.

Vincent van Gogh

Zelfportret (1886-1887)

Vincent van Gogh, 1866 born March 30, 1853, Zundert, Netherlands died July 29, 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise, near , France Dutch painter, generally considered the greatest after Rembrandt, and one of the greatest of the Post-Impressionists. The striking colour, emphatic brushwork, and contoured forms of his work powerfully influenced the current of Expressionism in . Van Gogh’s art became astoundingly popular after his death, especially in the late 20th century, when his work sold for record-breaking sums at auctions around the world and was featured in blockbuster touring exhibitions. In part because of his extensive, published letters, van Gogh has also been mythologized in the popular imagination as the quintessential tortured artist.

Early life

Van Gogh, the eldest of six children of a Protestant pastor, was born and reared in a small village in the Brabant region of the southern Netherlands. He was a quiet, self-contained youth, spending his free time wandering the countryside to observe nature. At 16 he was apprenticed to The Hague branch of the art dealers Goupil and Co., of which his uncle was a partner.

Van Gogh worked for Goupil in from 1873 to May 1875 and in Paris from that date until April 1876. Daily contact with works of art aroused his artistic sensibility, and he soon formed a taste for Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and other Dutch masters, although his preference was for two contemporary French painters, Jean-François Millet and Camille Corot, whose influence was to last throughout his life. Van Gogh disliked art dealing. Moreover, his approach to life darkened when his love was rejected by a London girl in 1874. His burning desire for human affection thwarted, he became increasingly solitary. He worked as a language teacher and lay preacher in England and, in 1877, worked for a bookseller in Dordrecht, The Netherlands. Impelled by a longing to serve humanity, he envisaged entering the ministry and took up theology; however, he abandoned this project in 1878 for short-term training as an evangelist in Brussels. A conflict with authority ensued when he disputed the orthodox doctrinal approach. Failing to get an appointment after three months, he left to do missionary work among the impoverished population of the Borinage, a coal-mining region in southwestern . There, in the winter of 1879–80, he experienced the first great spiritual crisis of his life. Living among the poor, he gave away all his worldly goods in an impassioned moment; he was thereupon dismissed by church authorities for a too-literal interpretation of Christian teaching.

Penniless and feeling that his faith was destroyed, he sank into despair and withdrew from everyone. “They think I’m a madman,” he told an acquaintance, “because I wanted to be a true Christian. They turned me out like a dog, saying that I was causing a scandal.” It was then that van Gogh began to draw seriously, thereby discovering in 1880 his true vocation as an artist. Van Gogh decided that his mission from then on would be to bring consolation to humanity through art. “I want to give the wretched a brotherly message,” he explained to his brother Theo. “When I sign [my paintings] ‘Vincent,’ it is as one of them.” This realization of his creative powers restored his self-confidence. The productive decade

His artistic career was extremely short, lasting only the 10 years from 1880 to 1890. During the first four years of this period, while acquiring technical proficiency, he confined himself almost entirely to drawings and watercolours. First, he went to study drawing at the Brussels Academy; in 1881 he moved to his father’s parsonage at Etten, The Netherlands, and began to work from nature.

Van Gogh worked hard and methodically but soon perceived the difficulty of self-training and the need to seek the guidance of more experienced artists. Late in 1881 he settled at The Hague to work with a Dutch landscape painter, Anton Mauve. He visited museums and met with other painters. Van Gogh thus extended his technical knowledge and experimented with oil paint in the summer of 1882. In 1883 the urge to be “alone with nature” and with peasants took him to Drenthe, an isolated part of the northern Netherlands frequented by Mauve and other Dutch artists, where he spent three months before returning home, which was then at Nuenen, another village in the Brabant. He remained at Nuenen during most of 1884 and 1885, and during these years his art grew bolder and more assured. He painted three types of subjects—still life, landscape, and figure—all interrelated by their reference to the daily life of peasants, to the hardships they endured, and to the countryside they cultivated. Émile Zola’s Germinal (1885), a novel about the coal-mining region of France, greatly impressed van Gogh, and sociological criticism is implicit in many of his pictures from this period—e.g., Weavers and . Eventually, however, he felt too isolated in Nuenen.

His understanding of the possibilities of painting was evolving rapidly; from studying Hals he learned to portray the freshness of a visual impression, while the works of Paolo Veronese and Eugène Delacroix taught him that colour can express something by itself. This led to his enthusiasm for and inspired his sudden departure for , Belgium, where the greatest number of Rubens’s works could be seen. The revelation of Rubens’s mode of direct notation and of his ability to express a mood by a combination of colours proved decisive in the development of van Gogh’s style. Simultaneously, van Gogh discovered Japanese prints and Impressionist painting. All these sources influenced him more than the academic principles taught at the Antwerp Academy, where he was enrolled. His refusal to follow the academy’s dictates led to disputes, and after three months he left precipitately in 1886 to join Theo in Paris. There, still concerned with improving his drawing, van Gogh met Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, and others who were to play historic roles in modern art. They opened his eyes to the latest developments in French painting. At the same time, Theo introduced him to Camille Pissarro, Georges Seurat, and other artists of the Impressionist group.

By this time van Gogh was ready for such lessons, and the changes that his painting underwent in Paris between the spring of 1886 and February 1888 led to the creation of his personal idiom and style of brushwork. His palette at last became colourful, his vision less traditional, and his tonalities lighter, as may be seen in his first paintings of Montmartre. By the summer of 1887 he was painting in pure colours and using broken brushwork that is at times pointillistic. Finally, by the beginning of 1888, van Gogh’s Post-Impressionist style had crystallized, resulting in such masterpieces as Portrait of Père Tanguy and Self-Portrait in Front of an Easel, as well as in some landscapes of the Parisian suburbs. After two years van Gogh was tired of city life, physically exhausted, and longing “to look at nature under a brighter sky.” His passion was now for “a full effect of colour.” He left Paris in February 1888 for , in southeastern France.

The pictures he created over the following 12 months—depicting blossoming fruit trees, views of the town and surroundings, self-portraits, portraits of Roulin the postman and other friends, interiors and exteriors of the house, sunflowers, and landscapes—marked his first great period. In these works he strove to respect the external, visual aspect of a figure or landscape but found himself unable to suppress his own feelings about the subject, which found expression in emphatic contours and heightened effects of colour. Once hesitant to diverge from the traditional techniques of painting he worked so hard to master, he now gave free rein to his individuality and began squeezing his tubes of oil paint directly on the canvas. Van Gogh’s style was spontaneous and instinctive, for he worked with great speed and intensity, determined to capture an effect or a mood while it possessed him. “When anyone says that such and such [painting] is done too quickly,” he told his brother, “you can reply that they have looked at it too fast.”

Van Gogh knew that his approach to painting was individualistic, but he also knew that some tasks are beyond the power of isolated individuals to accomplish. In Paris he had hoped to form a separate Impressionist group with Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, and others whom he believed had similar aims. He rented and decorated a house in Arles with the intention of persuading them to join him and found a working community called “The Studio of the South.” Gauguin arrived in October 1888, and for two months van Gogh and Gauguin worked together; but, while each influenced the other to some extent, their relations rapidly deteriorated because they had opposing ideas and were temperamentally incompatible.

Disaster struck on Christmas Eve, 1888. Physically and emotionally exhausted, van Gogh snapped under the strain. He argued with Gauguin and, reportedly, chased him with a razor and cut off the lower half of his own left ear. A sensational news story reported that a deranged van Gogh then visited a brothel near his home and delivered the bloody body part to a woman named Rachel, telling her, “Guard this object carefully.” The 21st-century art historians Hans Kaufmann and Rita Wildegans, however, examined contemporary police records and the artists’ correspondence and concluded, in Van Gogh’s Ohr: Paul Gaugin und der Pakt des Schweigens (2008; “Van Gogh’s Ear: Paul Gauguin and the Pact of Silence”), that it was actually Gauguin who mutilated van Gogh’s ear and that he did so with a sword. Whatever transpired, van Gogh took responsibility and was hospitalized; Gauguin left for Paris.

Van Gogh returned home a fortnight later and resumed painting, producing a mirror-image Self-Portrait with Pipe and Bandaged Ear, several still lifes, and La Berceuse (“Mme Roulin Rocking a Cradle”). Several weeks later, he again showed symptoms of mental disturbance severe enough to cause him to be sent back to the hospital. At the end of April 1889, fearful of losing his renewed capacity for work, which he regarded as a guarantee of his sanity, he asked to be temporarily shut up in the asylum at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in order to be under medical supervision.

Van Gogh stayed there for 12 months, haunted by recurrent attack by alternating between moods of calm and despair, and working intermittently: Garden of the Asylum, Cypresses, Olive Trees, Les Alpilles, portraits of doctors, and interpretations of paintings by Rembrandt, Delacroix, and Millet date from this period. The keynote of this phase (1889–90) is fear of losing touch with reality, as well as a certain sadness. Confined for long periods to his cell or the asylum garden, having no choice of subjects, and realizing that his inspiration depended on direct observation, van Gogh fought against having to work from memory. At Saint-Rémy he muted the vivid, sun-drenched colours of the previous summer and tried to make his painting more calm. As he repressed his excitement, however, he involved himself more imaginatively in the drama of the elements, developing a style based on dynamic forms and a vigorous use of line (he often equated line with colour). The best of his Saint-Rémy pictures are thus bolder and more visionary than those of Arles.

Van Gogh himself brought this period to an end. Oppressed by homesickness—he painted souvenirs of Holland—and loneliness, he longed to see Theo and the north once more and arrived in Paris in May 1890. Four days later he went to stay with a homeopathic doctor-artist, Paul-Ferdinand Gachet, a friend of Pissarro and Paul Cézanne, at Auvers-sur-Oise. Back in a village community such as he had not known since Nuenen, four years earlier, van Gogh worked at first enthusiastically; his choice of subjects such as fields of corn, the river valley, peasants’ cottages, the church, and the town hall reflects his spiritual relief. A modification of his style followed: the natural forms in his paintings became less contorted, and in the northern light he adopted cooler, fresh tonalities. His brushwork became broader and more expressive and his vision of nature more lyrical. Everything in these pictures seems to be moving, living. This phase was short, however, and ended in quarrels with Gachet and feelings of guilt at his financial dependence on Theo (now married and with a son) and his inability to succeed.

In despair of ever being able to overcome his loneliness or be cured, van Gogh shot himself. He did not die immediately. When found wounded in his bed, he allegedly said, “I shot myself.…I only hope I haven’t botched it.” That evening, when interrogated by the police, van Gogh refused to answer questions, saying, “What I have done is nobody else’s business. I am free to do what I like with my own body.”

Van Gogh died two days later. Theo, his own health broken, died six months later (January 25, 1891). In 1914 Theo’s remains were moved to his brother’s grave site, in a little cemetery in Auvers, where today the two brothers lie side by side, with identical tombstones.