Polder landscape

The bright colours of Paul Gabriël’s paintings make them stand out among the other Hague School paintings, with their famously greyish tonalities. Moreover, his work is less atmospheric and more a direct record of the Dutch landscape on a sunny day. He deliberately opposed the ‘grey school’, which he characterized as ‘a lot of cardboard with here and there a hint of colour’. The more he looked at the landscape of Holland, the more colourful he found it, claiming that ‘Our country is not grey, even in grey weather’. That opinion is clearly reflected in the vivid blue of the sky and water, the fresh green of the vegetation and the warm glow of the afternoon sunshine in this view of a Dutch polder landscape.

Source: J. Sillevis, A. Tabak (eds.), Het Haagse School boek, Den Haag, Zwolle, 2001