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Showing posts from June, 2016

Jacob Maris, Dutch Poet of the Sky

Bluff-bowed Fishing Boat on the Beach at Scheveningen, 1899 Jacob Hendricus Maris was a Dutch painter born on August 7, 1837 in The Hague, Netherlands. A key member of the Hague School , a group of Dutch landscape artists in the late 1800's known for their subdued, low-key palette, which gave them the nickname the Gray School . Not every single painting was gray, of course, but it was rather the way in which they used gray as inspiration for mood in depicting pastoral scenes. Clouds became the focal point instead of just a background element. Using gray to its fullest range, experimenting with temperature and values created beautiful and pensive landscapes that furthered the incredible work a couple of generations before in France with the Barbizon School and in particular the brilliant work of Corot . In Bluff-bowed Fishing Boat on the Beach at Scheveningen above, we quickly understand how Maris used gray to full effect. We can almost hear those seagulls hooting in the di