Canal in Holland

The artist went on her first trip to Holland in 1875. Tina Blau devoted this eagerly awaited trip to studying seventeenth-century Dutch artists and working in the open air. She accompanied Emil Jakob Schindler, with whom she was sharing a studio in Vienna at that time. Although working closely with this impressive artist, she found her own way of expressing herself and style of brushwork. Tina Blau regarded direct impressions from the ‘workshop of nature’ as most important for the artist. Even though some of her pictures are based on memory or photographs, the impressions of a work completed directly before the subject. In this country of canals, which held a fascination for many people at that time, the dramatic light effects are crucial. Here we see a wonderful contrast between the dark, heavy clouds and the lighter horizon, emphasised by the pale touches on the water’s surface. The reddish orange shade in lines and patches on the path and in the trees is typical of this period and provides a beautiful contrast with the blue and steely greys of the cloudformations.