Lot Essay
The present lot is one of the paintings out of a series with moonlit landscapes, all executed between 1910-1912.
This subject had been relatively popular in the first decennium of the 20th Century among Dutch painters; Piet Mondriaan f.e. used it in a series of landscape paintings from 1906/1907. Sluijters first version (46.5 x 39.5 cm), dated 1910 was executed in a very expressive, strong luminist manner. The artist later recalled (A.B. Loosjes-Terpstra Moderne kunst in Nederland 1900-1914, Utrecht 1984, p.261) how he often during his work looked behind the curtains of his room to see the nightly landscape outside his house in Laren. In the beginning of 1911 Sluijters moved to Amsterdam and gradually turned away from luminism. Although his colours remained bright they were now used in larger, more clearly defined planes.
Loosjes-Terpstra (Loosjes-Terpstra, Op.cit. p. 127, 128) places the last versions in a so-called 'decorative style' which emerged during these years in the work of Sluijters, as well as that of Mondriaan and Gestel. This post-luminist style was partly based on Gauguin and late fauvism, especially Van Dongen. In Holland the emphasis lay much more on the expression of an inner subject than, as in France, on the formal side of painting.
This version differs from the other nightscene. Here it does not concern a country landscape. Obviously here his new residence, the city of Amsterdam, has been his inspiration
See colour illustration
This subject had been relatively popular in the first decennium of the 20th Century among Dutch painters; Piet Mondriaan f.e. used it in a series of landscape paintings from 1906/1907. Sluijters first version (46.5 x 39.5 cm), dated 1910 was executed in a very expressive, strong luminist manner. The artist later recalled (A.B. Loosjes-Terpstra Moderne kunst in Nederland 1900-1914, Utrecht 1984, p.261) how he often during his work looked behind the curtains of his room to see the nightly landscape outside his house in Laren. In the beginning of 1911 Sluijters moved to Amsterdam and gradually turned away from luminism. Although his colours remained bright they were now used in larger, more clearly defined planes.
Loosjes-Terpstra (Loosjes-Terpstra, Op.cit. p. 127, 128) places the last versions in a so-called 'decorative style' which emerged during these years in the work of Sluijters, as well as that of Mondriaan and Gestel. This post-luminist style was partly based on Gauguin and late fauvism, especially Van Dongen. In Holland the emphasis lay much more on the expression of an inner subject than, as in France, on the formal side of painting.
This version differs from the other nightscene. Here it does not concern a country landscape. Obviously here his new residence, the city of Amsterdam, has been his inspiration
See colour illustration