Duck heaven

Willem Maris was the only Hague School painter who was self-taught. True, he had attended evening classes and his brothers must have taught him a thing or two when they happened to be in the Netherlands, but their influence on his work is relatively limited. Willem Maris painted highly individualistic and distinctive landscapes, usually featuring summer pastures bathed in sunshine and crossed by ditches and canals. In 1880 Hague journalist Johan Gram wrote, “Willem Maris has reaped praise for one subject in particular, and that is his ducks, which he paints wonderfully well. Sometimes the feathered creatures emerge from some obscure patch of leafy shade; sometimes they frolic and rock among the weed at the edge of a water-filled ditch.” Source: J.Sillevis, R. Doorn, H. Kraan (eds.), De Haagse School: De collectie van het Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague 1988.