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Lot Essay
Painted in early September 1883, In de Duinen captures the spirit of invention and experimentation that characterized Vincent van Gogh’s work at a pivotal turning-point in his early career. The composition dates to the final weeks of the artist’s twenty-month stay in The Hague, where he had thrown himself fully into his dream of becoming an artist—renting a small apartment on the eastern outskirts of the city, he worked diligently, honing his skills as a draughtsman, then a watercolorist, before he finally felt able to begin translating his vision into oil paint. Few of Van Gogh’s oils from his stay in The Hague still exist—out of more than seventy compositions that the artist mentioned in his letters, only around two dozen are known of today. As such, In de Duinen is a rare example of his bourgeoning painterly style, showcasing Van Gogh’s growing confidence in the medium, as he stood on the very cusp of a crucial breakthrough in his art.
In de Duinen was most likely inspired by the wild, windswept landscapes near Loosduinen, a small coastal village west of the center of The Hague, which was accessible by steam train from the city. Standing amid the dunes, small shrubs and sparse trees that lined the route to the North Sea, the artist would have experienced first-hand the powerful atmospheric conditions that swept through this part of the Netherlands, as clouds, heavily laden with moisture, rolled inland towards him, driven by the brisk wind. Van Gogh was fascinated by such moody, elemental displays of nature, and sought to capture their dramatic effects by working en plein air. In a letter to his brother Theo on or about 5 September 1883, Van Gogh reported on one such painting trip, vividly describing his commitment to capturing the scene: “I came home from the dunes behind Loosduinen soaking wet because I spent three hours in the rain, at a spot where everything was Ruisdael, Daubigny or Jules Dupré” (Letter 381, circa 5 September 1883, in L. Jansen, H. Luijten and N. Bakker, eds., Vincent van Gogh: The Letters. The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition, London, 2009, vol. 2, p. 415).
Invoking the names of the great masters of both the Dutch seventeenth century and the painters of the Barbizon school, this passage reveals the key artistic touchstones that shaped Van Gogh’s approach to landscape at this time. While the paintings of Jacob van Ruisdael and Albert Cuyp had long been familiar to him, the Barbizon school was something of a newer discovery for the artist. The previous summer he had attended an exhibition of French art assembled by the renowned seascape painter Hendrik Willem Mesdag and his wife Sientje Mesdag-van Houten, which featured a number of canvases by Jules Dupré, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Charles-François Daubigny, and Theodore Rousseau. Marveling at their vigorous, modern depictions of the landscapes around Barbizon and the Forest of Fontainebleau, Van Gogh found parallels to his own bold approach, and was reassured that he was indeed pursuing the right path in his painting.
Whenever the opportunity arose, Van Gogh would escape the confines of the city and take long walks in the countryside, absorbing the intriguing scenery and topography of wherever he was based, studying the play of weather and light across the landscape. However, as he admitted in a letter to Theo, he often found it difficult to capture and record the unique vision of nature that occupied his imagination: “I am still dissatisfied, because I still have that splendid scene too clearly in my mind to be satisfied with what I made of it. But I find my work an echo of what struck me, after all. I see that nature has told me something, has spoken to me and that I have put it down in shorthand” (Letter 260, 3 September 1882, in ibid., p. 146).
Here, the verdant coastline of the North Sea is depicted in sweeping, vigorous strokes of pigment, seemingly squeezed straight from the tube and then manipulated by the artist’s brush. Pushing beyond a precise rendering of the scene, Van Gogh instead captures a sense of his experience of being in the midst of this wild landscape, buffeted by the elemental forces of the changeable weather. As such, In de Duinen is an early example of the expressive handling of paint and color that would come to define Van Gogh’s iconic paintings of the landscape through the following decade.
In de Duinen was most likely inspired by the wild, windswept landscapes near Loosduinen, a small coastal village west of the center of The Hague, which was accessible by steam train from the city. Standing amid the dunes, small shrubs and sparse trees that lined the route to the North Sea, the artist would have experienced first-hand the powerful atmospheric conditions that swept through this part of the Netherlands, as clouds, heavily laden with moisture, rolled inland towards him, driven by the brisk wind. Van Gogh was fascinated by such moody, elemental displays of nature, and sought to capture their dramatic effects by working en plein air. In a letter to his brother Theo on or about 5 September 1883, Van Gogh reported on one such painting trip, vividly describing his commitment to capturing the scene: “I came home from the dunes behind Loosduinen soaking wet because I spent three hours in the rain, at a spot where everything was Ruisdael, Daubigny or Jules Dupré” (Letter 381, circa 5 September 1883, in L. Jansen, H. Luijten and N. Bakker, eds., Vincent van Gogh: The Letters. The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition, London, 2009, vol. 2, p. 415).
Invoking the names of the great masters of both the Dutch seventeenth century and the painters of the Barbizon school, this passage reveals the key artistic touchstones that shaped Van Gogh’s approach to landscape at this time. While the paintings of Jacob van Ruisdael and Albert Cuyp had long been familiar to him, the Barbizon school was something of a newer discovery for the artist. The previous summer he had attended an exhibition of French art assembled by the renowned seascape painter Hendrik Willem Mesdag and his wife Sientje Mesdag-van Houten, which featured a number of canvases by Jules Dupré, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Charles-François Daubigny, and Theodore Rousseau. Marveling at their vigorous, modern depictions of the landscapes around Barbizon and the Forest of Fontainebleau, Van Gogh found parallels to his own bold approach, and was reassured that he was indeed pursuing the right path in his painting.
Whenever the opportunity arose, Van Gogh would escape the confines of the city and take long walks in the countryside, absorbing the intriguing scenery and topography of wherever he was based, studying the play of weather and light across the landscape. However, as he admitted in a letter to Theo, he often found it difficult to capture and record the unique vision of nature that occupied his imagination: “I am still dissatisfied, because I still have that splendid scene too clearly in my mind to be satisfied with what I made of it. But I find my work an echo of what struck me, after all. I see that nature has told me something, has spoken to me and that I have put it down in shorthand” (Letter 260, 3 September 1882, in ibid., p. 146).
Here, the verdant coastline of the North Sea is depicted in sweeping, vigorous strokes of pigment, seemingly squeezed straight from the tube and then manipulated by the artist’s brush. Pushing beyond a precise rendering of the scene, Van Gogh instead captures a sense of his experience of being in the midst of this wild landscape, buffeted by the elemental forces of the changeable weather. As such, In de Duinen is an early example of the expressive handling of paint and color that would come to define Van Gogh’s iconic paintings of the landscape through the following decade.