Netherlandish The Hague School, Willem Maris 1844-1910, Impressionistic Landscape Oil Painting

Willem Maris (1844-1910) was a Dutch impressionistic landscape painter of the “Hague School of Art”. In fact Maris himself often cited his motto,  “I don’t paint cows, but rather effects of light”  and for this reason his focus on “atmospheric” effects made him known as an “impressionist” painter of  The Hague School.

Maris was born in The Hague, the third in a family of five children and the younger brother of  Jacob and Matthijs, by whom he was first taught. In literature he is often characterized as a self-taught man and Maris described his early study years as follows: “From the time I was young I worked outdoors. Even before I was twelve I would sit in the meadow and watch the cows before and after school. As my brothers were older than me, naturally I got part of my training from them, and in the winters I went to the Academy of Art”.

He lived and worked in The Hague and for his entire life he remained true to the subjects he had chosen in his youth: meadow landscapes with willows and ditches, cows or calves in a meadow, by a river or pond, and later ducks and chickens. Around 1880, he began to use broader strokes, combining this with impasto, creating works that have an intimate atmosphere. His lively use of colour distinguished Maris from the ‘gray mood’ of his contemporaries and he was often called the ‘impressionist’ of the Hague School.

The beauty of nature, the laid-back ‘summer atmosphere” and the essence of the Dutch landscape; this painting has got it all including the fabulous frame with glorious textural floral relief work. The superb choice of colors and the fine balance between areas with little or nothing going on and those with lots of details make the scene almost tangible, in spite of the rather rough brushstrokes. Vincent van Gogh was impressed, too: “A painting by Mauve, Maris, or Israels, expresses more, and more clearly, than does nature itself.”

Dimensions: Image : height 18″ x width 20.75  Frame: height 28″ x width 32″

Signed lower right.  Framed in an exquisite gilt wood and gesso frame.