René Gockinga – { feuilleton }

The art of Henk Bremmer, 1871–1956

Landscape with Mill (1894; Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden).

This week’s post is another by Sander Bink about a Dutch artist whose work may be unfamiliar to those outside the Netherlands. As before, Henk Bremmer was an artist whose work I hadn’t seen until now. My thanks again to Sander for the post.

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Hendricus (Henk) Bremmer was a Dutch painter, art critic, collector and art dealer. Nowadays he is mostly known for his role in forming the collection of what has become the Kröller-Müller Museum. He was enough of an authority on Dutch Modernist art from the early twentieth century to be known as “de Kunstpaus”—”the Pope of the Arts”. Bremmer was an early and important advocate of Mondriaan’s work, but the Bremmer landscapes I will focus on here are much more Modernist than those being made by Mondriaan at about the same time. Although Bremmer’s paintings from the 1890s and from around 1900 are seen as early examples of Dutch pointillism, readers of this blog will probably appreciate them for their Symbolist qualities. They are usually not seen as such but to me the Symbolist affinities are quite clear. That Bremmer was acquainted with Symbolist theory is apparent from his being an avid reader of the French Symbolists and a great admirer of Huysmans’ À rebours.

Windmill (1894; private collection).

In the 1890s Bremmer was friends with Dutch (Decadent-Symbolist) writers and painters such as Henri Borel, Henri van Daalhoff, Jan Toorop and Johan Thorn Prikker. When Josephin Péladan, the High Priest of Symbolism, visited the Netherlands in 1892 he stayed with Bremmer and invited him to exhibit at his Rose+Croix shows in Paris. The exhibition never materialised but one can easily understand the mystical qualities Péladan must have appreciated in Bremmers paintings. Like many Dutch intellectuals of the period Bremmer was strongly influenced by Spinoza’s mysticism. But whatever the source of his art, the landscapes here depicted can be considered “Symbolist landscapes”, like those being painted in France by Alphonse Osbert or Charles Filiger.

Continue reading “The art of Henk Bremmer, 1871–1956”

The art of Jacob Bendien, 1890–1933

Corner of a Canal (1919–20).

This week’s post is another by Sander Bink about a Dutch artist whose work may be unfamiliar to those outside the Netherlands. Jacob Bendien was certainly new to me. My thanks again to Sander for the post.

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Jacob Bendien, born in Amsterdam in 1890, was one of the pioneers of abstract art (“absolut art” as Bendien and kindred artistic spirits called it) but is nevertheless little known in the Anglophone world. In the Netherlands he is not ignored or forgotten since he is mentioned in most overviews of early Dutch abstract art. Bendien’s work belongs to a somewhat later period than the other Dutch artists in this series but can be related thematically via his roots in the mystical/Symbolist art from around 1900.

Although Bendien was an early admirer of Mondrian’s art, his work differs from Neo-plasticism in its use of lines and round forms instead of bars and straight lines.

Composition (1912); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.

Peinture I (1912); Centraal Museum, Utrecht.

Two examples of Bendien’s early abstractions are the graceful oil-on-canvas Composition from 1912, and the slightly Surrealist portrait Peinture I from the same year.

Amsterdam Canal (1916).

Somewhere between Surrealism, Modernism and Symbolism is the lithograph Amsterdam Canal which could just as well be a décor for some German Expressionist movie from the 1920s.

Seven Masks (1917); Museum Belvédère, Heerenveen.

Surreal and Redon-like is his chalk drawing Seven Masks from 1917.

Melancholy (1917).

Around 1916 Bendien made some drawings which seem to be directly inspired by Dutch Decadent-Symbolist artist Carel de Nerée (see this Dutch article) of which his self-portrait Melancholy is a fine example.

Musician.

More realist but quite endearing is his Musician lithograph from the early 1920s.

As far as I know the last Bendien exhibition was in Utrecht in 1985. His work is hard to find and rarely offered on sale although if one is lucky one can find his lithographs.

Sander Bink

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Henricus Jansen, 1867–1921
• The art of Antoon van Welie, 1866–1956
• The art of Simon Moulijn, 1866–1948
• René Gockinga revisited
• Gockinga’s Bacchanal and an unknown portrait of Fritz Klein
• More from the Decadent Dutch

The art of Henricus Jansen, 1867–1921

This week’s post is another by Sander Bink about a neglected artist of the Dutch fin de siècle. Once again, this is an artist whose work was new to me. The Mucha-like style of the later pictures (and the one above from the same series) are especially good. My thanks again to Sander for the post.

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Henricus Jansen (1867–1921) was a Dutch painter, graphic artist and illustrator who used ‘Henricus’ as his artist’s name, ‘Jansen’ being a very common and decidedly unsexy surname. He originated from The Hague where Art Nouveau and symbolism flourished in the 1890s more than any other Dutch city.

In the little that has been written about Henricus he is usually considered not to be avant-garde or progressive enough to be an ‘important artist’ (whatever that may mean). He is, however, mentioned in the standard reference work Symbolism in Dutch Art by Polak from 1955. Extensive studies have never been published about him and my main source of information about his life and work is an unpublished university thesis from 1988 by Louis Baeten of which I happen to have a copy. Baeten had spoken to Henricus’s daughter who was then still alive. According to the thesis Henricus must have made hundreds of drawings and paintings but they seem to be quite rare nowadays and seldom come to auction.

For example, Henricus visited Tunisia in 1901 where Baeten says he produced more than 67 pastels and drawings of which “only seven survive”. These were exhibited in The Hague in 1901, and Leiden in 1907. One of these is depicted here from a private collection: a charming, somewhat cartoon-like ink drawing of three Tunisian male figures.

From 1887 till 1892 Henricus lived in Paris where he mingled in the bohemian and artistic circles around Le Chat Noir, and knew people like Rodolphe Salis and Paul Verlaine. The drawings and illustrations he produced from around 1890 are strongly influenced by Parisian graphic artists like Steinlen, Grasset and Willette, uncommon models in Dutch art of the 1890s. Examples like the drawing of a lady in an antique market (above) are to be found in his illustrations for a book by Johan Gram, ‘s-Gravenhage in onzen tijd (The Hague nowadays) from 1893.

More Symbolist in style, and therefore probably more of interest to { feuilleton } readers, are his illustrations for the popular magazine Elsevier’s. The picture shown here is a lithograph he made for the poem ‘Paulinus van Nola’ by the Flemish poet Pol de Mont, published in 1895.

But his chef d’oeuvre is a series of lithographs inspired by the medieval folk song Heer Halewijn (Lord Halewijn), published in 1904 and exhibited in The Hague the same year, of which three are depicted here (from the collection Van der Peppel.) The most famous of the series is plate number sixteen in which Lord Halewijn’s head is decapitated by a charming lady. It is obviously inspired by Beardsley’s Salomé but is made with an entirely different technique and in colours. There is also a touch of Puvis de Chavannes and Carlos Schwabe to them. They are among the finest examples of Dutch fin de siècle graphic art.

Sander Bink

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Antoon van Welie, 1866–1956
• The art of Simon Moulijn, 1866–1948
• René Gockinga revisited
• Gockinga’s Bacchanal and an unknown portrait of Fritz Klein
• More from the Decadent Dutch

The art of Antoon van Welie, 1866–1956

The Artists’ Studio (1906).

This week’s post is another by Sander Bink about a neglected artist of the Dutch fin de siècle. There’s no need for me to add a great deal to Sander’s appraisal below other than to point out the evident debt that Antoon Van Welie seems to owe to the Pre-Raphaelites for whom Ophelia was a popular subject. British artists of the 19th century have often been criticised for adding little to the evolution of Continental art but the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites and the Arts and Crafts movement pervades European Symbolism. My thanks again to Sander for the post.

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Antoon van Welie (Dutch Wikipedia only) was a Dutch painter known mainly for his portraits of the rich and famous. Around 1900 his work was praised by writers and critics such as Camille Mauclair, Jean Lorrain and Anatole France. He had studios in The Hague, London, Paris and The Vatican. There’s not much information about him in English, and for a long time there wasn’t a great deal in Dutch either, since during his lifetime he was already more or less forgotten. His being openly gay could have been one of the reasons. Male beauty is one of his subjects, as illustrated by The Artists’ Studio. His preference for depicting Catholic priests and flamboyant society ladies might also have been a little too extravagant for Dutch artistic standards of the period. The influence of Symbolism and mysticism on his work sets him a little apart from the crowd as well. All this does make him somewhat of a “decadent” or fin de siècle artist. What surely did not help his posthumous fame was a portrait of Mussolini he painted in 1921, and apparently he later also made one of Hitler. But in 2003 he was rescued from art-historical oblivion by the good people of the Louis Couperus Museum in The Hague. An exhibition there was followed in 2007 by a larger one at Museum Het Valkhoff in Nijmegen: The Last Decadent Painter. The book published for the occasion gives an extensive overview of Van Welie’s life and oeuvre but is unfortunately only available in Dutch.

The portraits which made him famous in his day are, in my opinion, technically not that great and sometimes tend toward kitsch. More subtle and beautiful are his early Symbolist works which, like those by Simon Moulijn, are strongly influenced by Maeterlinck’s neo-mystical writings.

Aglavaine en Sélysette (1899).

Some quite refined examples are the lithograph Aglavaine en Sélysette and the pastel Les Princesses de Légende, both directly inspired by Maeterlinck’s plays.

Les Princesses de Légende (1899).

Ophelia.

Literature was an important influence, as it was for many other Symbolist painters, and Van Welie duly produced the pastel Ophelia in 1898–’99. The same goes for musical themes, an example of which is the serene pastel Holy Cecilia with Lyre.

Holy Cecilia with Lyre (1899).

He also designed book covers like the one for Jean Lorrain’s novel Ellen from 1906.

La Douleur (1895).

But his most attractive work and as far as I am concerned one of the finest works of 1890s Dutch art is the chalk drawing La Douleur. Although the title emphasizes the young lady’s suffering, she also seems to be in a (sexual) ecstasy. A paradoxical beauty like Baudelaire’s femmes damnées: “de terribles plaisirs et d’affreuses douceurs”.

Sander Bink

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Simon Moulijn, 1866–1948
• René Gockinga revisited
• Gockinga’s Bacchanal and an unknown portrait of Fritz Klein
• More from the Decadent Dutch

The art of Simon Moulijn, 1866–1948

Landscape, Drenthe (1896). Collection Hein Klaver.

Sander Bink’s previous guest posts here concerned some of the forgotten artists of the Dutch fin de siècle, in particular the Beardsley-inspired work of René Gockinga. This new post from Sander is more Symbolist-oriented, with a look at the work of another Dutch artist.

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Simon Moulijn was a Dutch painter and graphic artist whose work shows a striking affinity with European Symbolism, in particular his prints and paintings made in the 1890s which would appear to provide a link between Dutch Realism and mystical Symbolism. Beyond their historical context, these are simply beautiful pictures which is, of course, the most important thing.

Cover design for Nachtsilene, 1902.

Landscapes were Moulijn’s main theme; some bring to mind the land- and cityscapes of Fernand Khnopff in which the world has become silent: a serene, quiet world, free from the noise and misery of modern life. “Anywhere out of this world”, but within the world we already know. Although not “Decadent” like Khnopff—there are no femmes fatales in his landscapes—Moulijn must certainly have been inspired by Khnopff and similar artists. Van Gogh and Jan Toorop were important for Moulijn as well. That Moulijn was well-versed in Symbolism and other new art forms at the time such as Art Nouveau is evidenced by his exhibition at Siegfried Bing’s Paris Gallery in 1895. Like many of the artists of his generation, he was greatly inspired by the mystical writing of Maeterlinck. No wonder, then, that he designed book covers and illustrations for Marie Marx-Koning, a Dutch writer unjustly neglected today, whose novels and stories also show a strong affinity with European mystical Symbolism.

Night (1893). Lithograph.

These qualities are already exemplified by Moulijn’s first printed work, the lithograph Night from 1893 which depicts a traditional Dutch subject, a farm; but there are no peasants, and the nightly tones and silence make it look more like a farm from an Ingmar Bergman film than a landscape by his painter contemporaries from The Hague School.

Farm at Diphorn (1896). Gemeentemuseum Den Haag.

Spring (1896). Drents Museum.

Autumn (1895). Drents Museum.

An 1896 painting with the same subject, Farm at Diphorn, brings to mind the imaginary landscapes of Félix Vallotton, as do, more or less, two pastels which I personally feel to be his best: Spring and Autumn. Once again, the coloured areas in these Symbolist landscapes are reminiscent of a Vallotton or Franz Melchers. But where Vallotton’s landscapes might be characterised as psychological landscapes, these two by Moulijn are almost abstract experiments in colour.

Vampire (1916). Collection Van Wezel.

Finally mention must be made, for curiosity’s sake and to satisfy the reader’s Decadent needs, of the 1916 coloured lithograph Vampire. This demonstrates Moulijn’s affinity with a more Decadent Symbolism, although by this time the style was increasingly outmoded.

Sander Bink

Previously on { feuilleton }
• René Gockinga revisited
• Gockinga’s Bacchanal and an unknown portrait of Fritz Klein
• More from the Decadent Dutch