Willem Bastiaan Tholen

Tholen’s generation used camera's alongside their sketchbook. Tholen wanted none of that. Relying on photographs seemed to him to signal ‘the death of art’. He relied on his own eye and hand: he drew.

‘Work outside as much as you can and observe every detail so that you later have enough in a single glance to then go to your studio and immediately set it down on the canvas’.
Gabriël to Tholen,1879

‘There is far too much beauty here! This afternoon I exclaimed in despair that I don’t want to return, every step that I took a new painting, the one more beautiful than the other and such variety.’

‘We finally glided into Giethoorn at dusk, sailing unexpectedly between lushly overgrown trees, through rustic bridges, past houses with large thatched roofs – in the quiet of the village.'

The Zuider Zee with its picturesque towns was much-loved by artists. Enkhuizen was once an important harbour full of activity, around 1900 it was a town where time seemed to have stood still.

Tholen based himself in Enkhuizen and enjoyed the calm. The deserted streets and harbours in his paintings exude a dreamlike tranquillity. Particularly when he captured them at twilight or by night.

It was at Ewijkshoeve that Tholen developed his eye for unusual details and surprising compositions – the ‘snapshots’ that would become his trademark.

Sky, light and water play a leading role in nearly all of Tholen’s landscapes. Sometimes a cloudy sky or the sea are even the sole subject. He liked the spots where water and clouds predominated.

The Tholens lived in the 'Kanaalvilla' for many years, together with the Arntzenius family. Life in and around the Kanaalvilla was a daily source of inspiration.

Tholen and his wife enjoyed a strong bond with the Arntzenius family. They all lived in the same house in The Hague.

‘Who could have imagined that in the hands of an artist a building site with piles of stones […] and wooden beams could become a glorious piece of colour and tone?’
Algemeen Handelsblad, 1896

‘Owing to his great knowledge, he is able to […] combine his tender feelings with his sharp intellectual perception, which happens as it were automatically.’
R. Bakels in biography of Tholen, 1930