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Lot Essay
The period between 1860 and 1865 is considered to be most important phase of Johan Bertold Jongkind’s artistic career. At the time, the artist reached the height of his powers as an artist, and his ability to integrate color, texture and light in his canvases attained its zenith.
In Patineurs à Maasslius, Jongkind captures the essence of a cold but sunny day on the ice. The clear blue sky is punctuated with billowing white clouds, perhaps hinting at more snow to come. Jongkind is able to capture the reality of a Dutch winter scene without romanticizing it; accomplishing this through his choice of vantage point and painting only what his eyes see in the clear winter light. Skaters move quickly toward the viewer on a clear patch of ice which leads diagonally out of the picture plane to the right, while the snow-covered jetty that separates the inner and outer harbors of Maasslius bisects the picture. The town of Maasslius itself forms the horizon line, punctuated by the Groote Kerk with its distinctive architecture. The entire composition is one of movement and light and definitely presages the works of the Impressionists.
Upon meeting Jongkind, the Impressionist artist Claude Monet declared, ‘his painting was too new in far too artistic a strain to be then in 1862, appreciated at its true worth. Neither was there anyone so modest and retiring…He asked to see my sketches, invited me to come and work with him, explained to me the why and the wherefore of his manner and thereby completed the teachings I had already received from Boudin. From that time on he was my real master, and it was to him that I owed the final education of my eye’ (‘Claude Monet, the Artist as a Young Man,’ Art News Journal, vol. 26, 1957, p. 198).
In Patineurs à Maasslius, Jongkind captures the essence of a cold but sunny day on the ice. The clear blue sky is punctuated with billowing white clouds, perhaps hinting at more snow to come. Jongkind is able to capture the reality of a Dutch winter scene without romanticizing it; accomplishing this through his choice of vantage point and painting only what his eyes see in the clear winter light. Skaters move quickly toward the viewer on a clear patch of ice which leads diagonally out of the picture plane to the right, while the snow-covered jetty that separates the inner and outer harbors of Maasslius bisects the picture. The town of Maasslius itself forms the horizon line, punctuated by the Groote Kerk with its distinctive architecture. The entire composition is one of movement and light and definitely presages the works of the Impressionists.
Upon meeting Jongkind, the Impressionist artist Claude Monet declared, ‘his painting was too new in far too artistic a strain to be then in 1862, appreciated at its true worth. Neither was there anyone so modest and retiring…He asked to see my sketches, invited me to come and work with him, explained to me the why and the wherefore of his manner and thereby completed the teachings I had already received from Boudin. From that time on he was my real master, and it was to him that I owed the final education of my eye’ (‘Claude Monet, the Artist as a Young Man,’ Art News Journal, vol. 26, 1957, p. 198).