Lot Essay
George Hendrik Breitner (1857-1923) started his artistic training at the Hague Academy in 1876. At this time, Dutch artists were still very much inspired by their seventeenth century predecessors and gave preference to delicate brushwork and historical subject-matter.
Under the influence of the Hague School painters and their new realistic and unromanticized approach to nature, Breitner developed a modern and impulsive style of his own and was soon considered an extraordinary talent by fellow artists. Displeased with his academic drawing skills and drawn to the dynamic and inspiring city of Amsterdam, Breitner nevertheless left the Hague and entered at the Amsterdam Academy in 1866. During the second half of the nineteenth century the capital flourished economically and the number of inhabitants increased from 300.000 to nearly half a million before the turn of the century. Various building projects had far-reaching effects on the city's infrastructure and the completion of the 'Rijksmuseum', het 'Concertgebouw', het 'Centraal Station' and de 'Stadsschouwburg' provided Amsterdam with a worldly appearance. The tumultuous developments of industrialization and upcoming socialism also provided fertile ground for new art forms.
In the same year that Breitner moved to Amsterdam, a group of young bohemian writers set up the literary magazine 'De Nieuwe Gids', in which they published their reflections on contemporary artists and passionately propagated the 'L'art pour l'art' ideal. Van Eeden, Kloos, Witsen, Gorter and Veth, also known as the 'Tachtigers', considered individual impressions far more important than the rendering of realistic details and regarded Breitner's work as the formal expression of their movement's ideology.
During his years in The Hague, Breitner had already been inspired by modern everyday life subject-matter and often set out to draw in the working-class quarter of the city, in the company of his friend Vincent van Gogh. In a letter to his patron A.P. van Stolk, dating from 1882, Breitner expressed his desire to become an engaged painter: 'Ikzelf, ik zal de mensch schilderen op de straat en in de huizen die ze gebouwd hebben, 't leven vooral. Le peintre du peuple zal ik trachten te worden of liever ben ik al omdat ik 't wil. Geschiedenis wilde ik schilderen en zal ik ook, maar de Geschiedenis in haren uitgebreidsten zin' (Hefting, G.H.Breitner in zijn Haagse Tijd, Utrecht 1970, p. 9). Roaming through Amsterdam with his sketchbook and camera, Breitner again sought inspiration in the life of the common man and recorded those daily activities that lent themselves particularly well to his bold and spontaneous brushwork: labourers at work on buildingsites, young maids crossing the streets in a hurry, horse-tram drivers on a rainy day, workmen with dray-carts, skippers on sailingbargers, and in between it all the playing children.
In the present lot Breitner depicts a group of children dressed up for 'Hartjesdag', a typical local feast celebrated anually on the third monday of August. Wearing colourful costumes made of paper, boys and girls went through the streets of Amsterdam singing:'Hartjes jagen, door de stal en door de wagen, Haringpakkerij een steek in je zij, een roos al op je hoed, morgen ben je dan weer goed'(De Tijd,10-12-1968) 'Hartjesdag' was also a day traditionally used to settle disputes and to light fire works and bonfires. The 'bezemvuur' was built up with old wood debris, cleared out from attics well in time for the festivities. During Breitner's Amsterdam period he often painted the same theme repeatedly, as is evident with 'Hartjesdag' of which there are different versions in oil and watercolour and for which Breitner made colourful preparatory sketches in pastel. The 'Hartjesdag' , in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, shows four women dressed up in the traditional paper hats and sashes gaily swinging arm in arm. When this specific painting was exhibited by the artdealer Buffa in 1922, it was Breitner's bold and daring style that struck the viewer: 'want niemand kan gelijk hij, zoo fel en forsch impressionistisch-naar het expressionisme toegaande-, in dit donkere kleurengamma met de opklaterende vreugde-klanken van groen en geel en rood, een brok straatjolijt geven' (R. Bergsma, P. Hefting, Breitner, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 1994-1995, p.128) Where Breitner includes children in the series his palet becomes brighter and his composition livelier. The watercolour of 'Hartjesdag' in the Groninger Museum, Groningen, exemplifies this shift in style.
In the present lot Breitner's bold brushstrokes and rythmic composition accentuate the movement of the children, who are busy making the last adjustments to their paper sashes. With a few swift lines he has indicated their animated faces. Although the artist's use of colour in the present lot is characteristically slightly dark, striking contrasts created by red, yellow and white suggest the true atmosphere of the festive occasion. In this work where technique and subject-matter rhyme so perfectly, one finds a vivid example of the style generated by the Amsterdam Impressionists, of which Breitner together with Willem Witsen(1860-1923) and Isaac Israels(1865-1934) were the instigators.
See colour illustration and front cover illustration
Under the influence of the Hague School painters and their new realistic and unromanticized approach to nature, Breitner developed a modern and impulsive style of his own and was soon considered an extraordinary talent by fellow artists. Displeased with his academic drawing skills and drawn to the dynamic and inspiring city of Amsterdam, Breitner nevertheless left the Hague and entered at the Amsterdam Academy in 1866. During the second half of the nineteenth century the capital flourished economically and the number of inhabitants increased from 300.000 to nearly half a million before the turn of the century. Various building projects had far-reaching effects on the city's infrastructure and the completion of the 'Rijksmuseum', het 'Concertgebouw', het 'Centraal Station' and de 'Stadsschouwburg' provided Amsterdam with a worldly appearance. The tumultuous developments of industrialization and upcoming socialism also provided fertile ground for new art forms.
In the same year that Breitner moved to Amsterdam, a group of young bohemian writers set up the literary magazine 'De Nieuwe Gids', in which they published their reflections on contemporary artists and passionately propagated the 'L'art pour l'art' ideal. Van Eeden, Kloos, Witsen, Gorter and Veth, also known as the 'Tachtigers', considered individual impressions far more important than the rendering of realistic details and regarded Breitner's work as the formal expression of their movement's ideology.
During his years in The Hague, Breitner had already been inspired by modern everyday life subject-matter and often set out to draw in the working-class quarter of the city, in the company of his friend Vincent van Gogh. In a letter to his patron A.P. van Stolk, dating from 1882, Breitner expressed his desire to become an engaged painter: 'Ikzelf, ik zal de mensch schilderen op de straat en in de huizen die ze gebouwd hebben, 't leven vooral. Le peintre du peuple zal ik trachten te worden of liever ben ik al omdat ik 't wil. Geschiedenis wilde ik schilderen en zal ik ook, maar de Geschiedenis in haren uitgebreidsten zin' (Hefting, G.H.Breitner in zijn Haagse Tijd, Utrecht 1970, p. 9). Roaming through Amsterdam with his sketchbook and camera, Breitner again sought inspiration in the life of the common man and recorded those daily activities that lent themselves particularly well to his bold and spontaneous brushwork: labourers at work on buildingsites, young maids crossing the streets in a hurry, horse-tram drivers on a rainy day, workmen with dray-carts, skippers on sailingbargers, and in between it all the playing children.
In the present lot Breitner depicts a group of children dressed up for 'Hartjesdag', a typical local feast celebrated anually on the third monday of August. Wearing colourful costumes made of paper, boys and girls went through the streets of Amsterdam singing:'Hartjes jagen, door de stal en door de wagen, Haringpakkerij een steek in je zij, een roos al op je hoed, morgen ben je dan weer goed'(De Tijd,10-12-1968) 'Hartjesdag' was also a day traditionally used to settle disputes and to light fire works and bonfires. The 'bezemvuur' was built up with old wood debris, cleared out from attics well in time for the festivities. During Breitner's Amsterdam period he often painted the same theme repeatedly, as is evident with 'Hartjesdag' of which there are different versions in oil and watercolour and for which Breitner made colourful preparatory sketches in pastel. The 'Hartjesdag' , in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, shows four women dressed up in the traditional paper hats and sashes gaily swinging arm in arm. When this specific painting was exhibited by the artdealer Buffa in 1922, it was Breitner's bold and daring style that struck the viewer: 'want niemand kan gelijk hij, zoo fel en forsch impressionistisch-naar het expressionisme toegaande-, in dit donkere kleurengamma met de opklaterende vreugde-klanken van groen en geel en rood, een brok straatjolijt geven' (R. Bergsma, P. Hefting, Breitner, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 1994-1995, p.128) Where Breitner includes children in the series his palet becomes brighter and his composition livelier. The watercolour of 'Hartjesdag' in the Groninger Museum, Groningen, exemplifies this shift in style.
In the present lot Breitner's bold brushstrokes and rythmic composition accentuate the movement of the children, who are busy making the last adjustments to their paper sashes. With a few swift lines he has indicated their animated faces. Although the artist's use of colour in the present lot is characteristically slightly dark, striking contrasts created by red, yellow and white suggest the true atmosphere of the festive occasion. In this work where technique and subject-matter rhyme so perfectly, one finds a vivid example of the style generated by the Amsterdam Impressionists, of which Breitner together with Willem Witsen(1860-1923) and Isaac Israels(1865-1934) were the instigators.
See colour illustration and front cover illustration