The Hague had a flourishing artistic climate in the early 1860s. Artists like Jozef Israëls, the Maris brothers, Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch and Hendrik Willem Mesdag moved to the city and started depicting the world around them in an innovative way. Their mentors, the romantics, had idealised landscapes, but this group of artists took to the great outdoors, and opted to depict things in a realistic manner. Their greatest skill lay in rendering the huge skies and the light reflected on water. The Hague School enjoyed great success, dominating the art market until the First World War, and inspiring younger painters like Breitner and Van Gogh. Their work continues to appeal to the imagination to this day. The Hague School in a Different Light at Kunstmuseum Den Haag will explore this success, taking visitors on a journey to a time of fishing barges and fishing folk, and the first railways.
Most Hague School paintings show the landscape of Noord and Zuid Holland provinces. Thanks to the invention of ready-made paint in tubes and the construction of new railways, the artists were able to get out and about, and work outdoors, where they made numerous studies in oils. These would serve as inspiration during the colder winter months. So, although the landscapes are painted in a realistic manner, they do not always represent a particular situation. The focus is on depicting light and atmosphere. Willem Maris once famously said, ‘I don’t paint cows, I paint light’.
The Hague School in a Different Light will illustrate the enduring attraction of the Hague School on the basis of six themes: sentiment, spontaneity, light, poetry, experiencing nature and landscape in transition. Each theme will include both highlights and less well-known works from Kunstmuseum Den Haag’s collection. In addition, one of the works in each of the thematic groups will feature in an unexpected encounter with an artist from another period. This might include a portrait by Jozef Israëls alongside one by Van Gogh, a painting that reflects industrialisation in combination with a contemporary photograph that documents change, or a poem that expresses a sensation evoked by an artwork.
The painters of the Hague School were there at the birth of Kunstmuseum Den Haag in 1866. They were among the co-founders of the museum. Artists like Anton Mauve and Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch donated some of their best work during their lifetimes, ensuring they would represent them in the future. There are always several works by artists from movement on display in our permanent exhibit, Discover the Modern. The museum also regularly organises exhibitions in order to show more of its sizeable Hague School collection, which includes paintings, oil studies, drawings and sketchbooks.
Caption: Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch, Beach Scene, 1887. Kunstmuseum Den Haag