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THE PROPERTY OF A 'PLOEG' COLLECTOR In the present collection of Ploeg art, the painter Jan Altink is very well represented. Not a surprise if one thinks that he is widely regarded as the purest 'Groninger' of all Ploeg artists. W.J. de Gruyter also had a great admiration for Jan Altink: "Say Altink and you say 'Groningen', say 'Groningen' and you are bound to recall the 'Ploeg' (Plough), a group of artists founded in 1918. Jan Altink was responsible for the name, and he later must have said: "There were not many activities in Groningen, so I thought of cultivation and, thus, of ploughing."(...) Nobody felt so fundamentally related to this land and its people as Altink did. (...) Without any fuss, indeed, for Altink was always far from being a snob, a 'would-be' or an 'avant-gardist'. There is a particular honesty and naturalness, combined with a strong, active modesty; his work is above all simple. Yet this simplicity is misleading in that is goes hand in hand with great mastery and astonishing refinement." (exh.cat. Haarlem, Frans Halsmuseum, Jan Altink, 1978, p.15) Unlike for instance 'Die Brücke', 'De Ploeg' was not established for programmatical reasons. A number of young students in Groningen took the initiative on practical grounds. Jointly they wanted to work, compare notes and, above all, exhibit their art by means of exhibitions. There is nothing that points to a clear-cut artistic aim. Of course, like most of the other artists of the group, Jan Wiegers, Johan Dijkstra etc., Jan Altink was a true expressionist. Influenced by German expressionism, imported in Groningen by Wiegers, the originality of Altink's work is to be found in the representation of the essential features of the Groningen landscape. D.H. Couvée interestingly connects his art with that of historical predecessors in the art of landscape painting. He writes: "What in common parlance is called 'typically Dutch', or a 'provincial landscape' is usually a definition that finds its origin in what was typically Dutch as presented by 17th-century painters or the reference to a landscape in the blazing colours of the French Impressionists. It is his original creativity that, to this end, he made use of the techniques of the expressionists. The unmixed colours and the shadowless planes are the instruments with which the inhospitable, harsh commonness of the forlorn vast inimical polders with their slumbering vital impulses were presented." (Exh.cat. Haarlem 1978, p. 11). His work still moves and gives joy. Be it said again: he was the discoverer and translator of the landscape of Northern Groningen.

Jan Altink (Dutch, 1896-1978)

Vroeg voorjaarslandschap met slootje - Early spring landscape with ditch

Details

Jan Altink (Dutch, 1896-1978)
Vroeg voorjaarslandschap met slootje - Early spring landscape with ditch
signed 'J.Altink' (on the stretcher)
oil on canvas
52 x 44 cm.
Painted circa 1924.

Provenance

H. Ongering, The Hague.

Literature

Exh.cat. Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem, Jan Altink, 21 october 1885 - 6 december 1971, 1978, cat.no. 30 (ill., wrongly dated 1951)

Exhibited

The Hague, Haags Gemeentemuseum, Jan Altink, 1969, inv.no. 16/6
Haarlem, Frans Halsmuseum, Jan Altink, 10 September - 29 October 1978.

Special notice

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