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Lot Essay
Born in Groningen in the north of Holland in 1831, the son of a successful stockbroker and banker, Hendrik Willem Mesdag grew up in affluent surroundings. Although his parents encouraged his interest in art they never intended for him to pursue an artistic career. In 1851, he joined his father’s firm and in 1856 he married Sientje van Houten, a girl from a local patrician family. Sientje inherited a substantial fortune in 1866 and it was this, along with her interest in the arts, which allowed Hendrik to devote himself fully to painting. In the summer of 1866, Mesdag and his wife traveled to Oosterbeek, a popular artist’s colony, and there he met and was influenced by artists such as Johannes Bilders and Willem Roeloefs. On the advice of his cousin, Lawrence Alma Tadema, Mesdag studied with Willem Roelofs and under his guidance developed a broad but distinctive style of painting. While in Brussels, he also met the Belgian seascape painters Paul Jean Clays and Louis Artan, both of whom played an important role in his development.
Mesdag resolved to become a painter of seascapes and this subject matter would form the basis of his oeuvre for the remainder of his career. He soon became the leading artist of The Hague School; he was president of the Pulchri Studio, the center of the movement, for seventeen years. In 1908, G. H. Marius commented, ‘Hendrik Willem Mesdag came, with his direct and realistic point of view, to surprise the world with the fact that with the unbiased painting of the sea, straight from nature, the aspects of the North Sea coast were now for the first time represented as they appeared before our eyes’ (G. H. Marius, Dutch Painters of the 19th Century, Suffolk, 1908, p. 156). Marius realized that Mesdag’s broad touch, impressive truth and tonal power differed significantly from the highly finished and minutely detailed seascapes of romantic painters of that time. Mesdag’s vigorous brushwork and ‘real’ seas were invariably seen as proof that his paintings possessed truth and immediacy.
Mesdag’s international career was established in 1870, when his Les brisants de la mer du nord won a gold medal at the Paris Salon, where it was hung next to Gustave Courbet’s La vague. This cemented his reputation as a painter of seascapes, and the artist gained recognition in both Holland and abroad. Mesdag’s paintings resonated strongly with collectors in the United States and his work was represented in the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, where it was very well received. The newly rich American collectors of the last quarter of the 19th Century eagerly purchased his paintings, and they remain the core of many collections in the United States today.
View of a Harbor represents a departure for the artist from the scenes of fisher folk on the beach at Scheveningen. Rather than a serene coastal landscape with boats dotting a benign sea, Mesdag has captured a busy industrial harbor, complete with smokestacks churning away on steamboats, warehouses built down to the edge of the water, and the suggestion of the church steeples that help to identify the location of the harbor. However, he does remain true to form in dividing the canvas between sea and sky, with the sky taking up most of the picture plane. Bright blue fills the middle ground, surrounded by white, fluffy clouds that hover over the horizon and the more ominous clouds at the top of the picture plane, tinged by the smoke from the bustling harbor. Sunlight falls through the center of the composition and illuminates the surface of the water. Just as Mesdag proved himself a master of light and air on the beaches of Scheveningen, so to he is able to capture the atmosphere of a busy Dutch port at midday.
Mesdag resolved to become a painter of seascapes and this subject matter would form the basis of his oeuvre for the remainder of his career. He soon became the leading artist of The Hague School; he was president of the Pulchri Studio, the center of the movement, for seventeen years. In 1908, G. H. Marius commented, ‘Hendrik Willem Mesdag came, with his direct and realistic point of view, to surprise the world with the fact that with the unbiased painting of the sea, straight from nature, the aspects of the North Sea coast were now for the first time represented as they appeared before our eyes’ (G. H. Marius, Dutch Painters of the 19th Century, Suffolk, 1908, p. 156). Marius realized that Mesdag’s broad touch, impressive truth and tonal power differed significantly from the highly finished and minutely detailed seascapes of romantic painters of that time. Mesdag’s vigorous brushwork and ‘real’ seas were invariably seen as proof that his paintings possessed truth and immediacy.
Mesdag’s international career was established in 1870, when his Les brisants de la mer du nord won a gold medal at the Paris Salon, where it was hung next to Gustave Courbet’s La vague. This cemented his reputation as a painter of seascapes, and the artist gained recognition in both Holland and abroad. Mesdag’s paintings resonated strongly with collectors in the United States and his work was represented in the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, where it was very well received. The newly rich American collectors of the last quarter of the 19th Century eagerly purchased his paintings, and they remain the core of many collections in the United States today.
View of a Harbor represents a departure for the artist from the scenes of fisher folk on the beach at Scheveningen. Rather than a serene coastal landscape with boats dotting a benign sea, Mesdag has captured a busy industrial harbor, complete with smokestacks churning away on steamboats, warehouses built down to the edge of the water, and the suggestion of the church steeples that help to identify the location of the harbor. However, he does remain true to form in dividing the canvas between sea and sky, with the sky taking up most of the picture plane. Bright blue fills the middle ground, surrounded by white, fluffy clouds that hover over the horizon and the more ominous clouds at the top of the picture plane, tinged by the smoke from the bustling harbor. Sunlight falls through the center of the composition and illuminates the surface of the water. Just as Mesdag proved himself a master of light and air on the beaches of Scheveningen, so to he is able to capture the atmosphere of a busy Dutch port at midday.