.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
With After the Strike (Otterlo, Museum Kröller-Müller) that has the same dimensions, The Eve of the Strike seems to form a pair. Both in style and in content these paintings are a remarkable statement by the artist. He succeeded in uniting social progressive content with the most advanced style of that moment. As such, these paintings are a landmark of modernity.
In 1887, Georges Seurat exhibited seven paintings in Brussels at the progressive salon of Les Vingt, among which the famous Dimanche d'été la Grande Jatte. A number of Belgian painters, and also the Dutch painter Johan Toorop, who was a founding member of Les Vingt, were duly impressed by Seurat's divisionist technique. Toorop absorbed this new style in his repertoire, but may have seen Seurat's work earlier in Paris.
Dating his own works was not Toorop's strongest point. Nor The Eve of the Strike', nor After the Strike bears a date, but it is known that the present painting was exhibited at Les Vingt in 1890, although it then bears the ominous and symbolist title Dark Clouds. The year before, he exhibited another pointillist work that commented upon prostitution, nr. 3 Au Nes (The Hague, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag), and a painting that is close in technique as in content to the present work Machelen, a Gardener Planting Cabbage. Both works are dated 1889. The same date can be found on Broeck in Waterland (Chicago, Art Institute) and on another pointillist landscape, 'Les deux saules (Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum) that was exhibited at Les Vingt in 1890. It seems safe to suppose that After the Strike and The Eve of the Strike both date from 1889, since the 1890 exhibition of Les Vingt opened in February.
As in all these 1889 paintings, The Eve of the Strike is executed in a not too precise pointillist technique. The dots serve not so much to create colour through an optical mixture as well as to denote a calmly lit atmosphere. Although it is dusk, some labourers are still working ferociously at a riverbank. In the immediate foreground a destitute, desperate couple is sitting on the ground. The companion painting is showing the sequel event: some people carrying away a victim af the suppresion of the strike.
Toorop's choice for the unusual, dramatic subject matter may have been triggered by an actual event, a strike in the industrial city of Charleroi in 1886. The circle of progressive lawyers around Octave Maus that founded Les Vingt was deeply committed to social causes and Toorop had already exhibited other paintings at their yearly Salons that reflected this commitment, albeit in a different, Courbet-like technique dominated by the use of the palet-knife. The new style of Seurat and Signac followers seemed to be eminently suited to such social subjects. In fact, the inventors of the style were of socialist and anarchist conviction. They saw in this style a rupture with class-dominated painting for the sake of objective analysis, not only of light, texture and space, but also of social conditions. It is interesting that Toorop, who was a great admirer of Courbet, Millet and also of Josef Israels, pushed this social comment much further than the inventors of the style. By concentrating on a few figures who embody the ominous events to come, he moreover succeeded in lifting his painting above the depiction of an incident. As such, the painting already announces a symbolist esthetic that Toorop was soon to embrace, again in a completely different style.
We kindly thank Dr F. Leeman for his help in cataloguing this lot.
In 1887, Georges Seurat exhibited seven paintings in Brussels at the progressive salon of Les Vingt, among which the famous Dimanche d'été la Grande Jatte. A number of Belgian painters, and also the Dutch painter Johan Toorop, who was a founding member of Les Vingt, were duly impressed by Seurat's divisionist technique. Toorop absorbed this new style in his repertoire, but may have seen Seurat's work earlier in Paris.
Dating his own works was not Toorop's strongest point. Nor The Eve of the Strike', nor After the Strike bears a date, but it is known that the present painting was exhibited at Les Vingt in 1890, although it then bears the ominous and symbolist title Dark Clouds. The year before, he exhibited another pointillist work that commented upon prostitution, nr. 3 Au Nes (The Hague, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag), and a painting that is close in technique as in content to the present work Machelen, a Gardener Planting Cabbage. Both works are dated 1889. The same date can be found on Broeck in Waterland (Chicago, Art Institute) and on another pointillist landscape, 'Les deux saules (Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum) that was exhibited at Les Vingt in 1890. It seems safe to suppose that After the Strike and The Eve of the Strike both date from 1889, since the 1890 exhibition of Les Vingt opened in February.
As in all these 1889 paintings, The Eve of the Strike is executed in a not too precise pointillist technique. The dots serve not so much to create colour through an optical mixture as well as to denote a calmly lit atmosphere. Although it is dusk, some labourers are still working ferociously at a riverbank. In the immediate foreground a destitute, desperate couple is sitting on the ground. The companion painting is showing the sequel event: some people carrying away a victim af the suppresion of the strike.
Toorop's choice for the unusual, dramatic subject matter may have been triggered by an actual event, a strike in the industrial city of Charleroi in 1886. The circle of progressive lawyers around Octave Maus that founded Les Vingt was deeply committed to social causes and Toorop had already exhibited other paintings at their yearly Salons that reflected this commitment, albeit in a different, Courbet-like technique dominated by the use of the palet-knife. The new style of Seurat and Signac followers seemed to be eminently suited to such social subjects. In fact, the inventors of the style were of socialist and anarchist conviction. They saw in this style a rupture with class-dominated painting for the sake of objective analysis, not only of light, texture and space, but also of social conditions. It is interesting that Toorop, who was a great admirer of Courbet, Millet and also of Josef Israels, pushed this social comment much further than the inventors of the style. By concentrating on a few figures who embody the ominous events to come, he moreover succeeded in lifting his painting above the depiction of an incident. As such, the painting already announces a symbolist esthetic that Toorop was soon to embrace, again in a completely different style.
We kindly thank Dr F. Leeman for his help in cataloguing this lot.