Lot Essay
Floris Arntzenius received his training at the Amsterdam Academy together with other students such as Willem Witsen, Isaac Israels, Eduard Karsen and George Hendrik Breitner, whose unfolding impressionistic style Arntzenius deeply admired. Besides studying at the Antwerp academy for a year, Floris Arntzenius for the greater part spent his early years in the Dutch capital, regularly showing his work at Arti et Amicitiae. The painting Drie Maandaghouders, which shows three men on a bridge and with which Arntzenius contended for the Willink van Collenprice at the time, reveals the artist's early passion for daily urban activity and dreary weather conditions. After subsequently practising the genre of landscape painting in Nunspeet and the Geuldal for several years, Floris moved to the Hague in 1892 and further developed his mastery of city scenes, fervently making sketches and studies of various streets in the Hague (see D. Welling, op.cit., p.12). The artist preferred The Hague above the Dutch capital, because the latter only incited him to paint very large canvasses. During his years in the Hague, the artist mostly painted modest sized canvasses, thus emphasizing the intimate character of streets such as the Spuistraat on a rainy day, with figures hurrying over the wet and shiny asphalt past illuminated shopwindows and colourful sign-boards. In order to capture the city's wide range of everyday life subject matter, Arntzenius moved studio regularly, eventually settling on the Zoutmanstraat overlooking the Bierkade in 1909. The studio formally belonged to Arntzenius' fellow artist H.J. Haverman and was situated next to that of Willem Maris Jr. In a rare interview with the publisher of the Artistiek Weekblad Harms Tiepen, the notoriously silent Arntzenius went into the subject of finding the right and above all inspiring working environment: "Nou, als ik een goed straatje of een goed grachtje gevonden heb, dan ga ik eens rondsnuffelen of 'k niet een raam kan huren. Want op de gracht zelf gaan zitten met je rommeltje kan je nou eenmaal niet: dan krijg je zoveel bekijks. En achter een raam zit je rustig, wat! Daar kijk 'k alles zoo kalmpjes dan eens af: zoo van de Bierkade, 't Zieken op met al die bedrijvigheid daar. Op de Bierkade zelf, met die kisten en 't blauw van die vaten, en 't groen van de boomen, dat even rimpelen in het water" (D. Welling, op.cit., p. 94).
The present lot shows the above-mentioned Bierkade in the artist's favourite hazy weather condition. Despite the various activities taking place in the canal and on the quay, the composition breathes a quiet, nearly melancholic, atmosphere, foretelling the end of the artist's preference for small and crowded city views. As opposed to these spontaneous and modern impressions of the Hague for which the artist is mostly known, the present lot stands out due to it's classical, nearly monumental character. A little girl frontally approaching the spectator at the near end of the quay, unnoticebly draws one into this exceptional composition of one of Holland's most famous city painters.
See colour illustration
The present lot shows the above-mentioned Bierkade in the artist's favourite hazy weather condition. Despite the various activities taking place in the canal and on the quay, the composition breathes a quiet, nearly melancholic, atmosphere, foretelling the end of the artist's preference for small and crowded city views. As opposed to these spontaneous and modern impressions of the Hague for which the artist is mostly known, the present lot stands out due to it's classical, nearly monumental character. A little girl frontally approaching the spectator at the near end of the quay, unnoticebly draws one into this exceptional composition of one of Holland's most famous city painters.
See colour illustration