George Hendrik Breitner
George Hendrik Breitner (born September 12, 1857 in Rotterdam , † June 5, 1923 in Amsterdam ) was a Dutch painter who is particularly known for his 19th century Amsterdam cityscapes and is considered the most important representative of Amsterdam Impressionism . He was also successful as a photographer, leaving more than 2,000 negatives. Breitner himself gave himself the French nickname Le peintre du peuple ("The People's Painter").
Life
Breitner grew up as the son of a grain dealer in Rotterdam. He was a difficult and stubborn youth who at times fell out with his father. At the age of 14 he left school without a degree, worked in an office and devoted his spare time to painting and drawing . His favorite drawings were war, battle and military scenes. He took lessons from the Rotterdam genre painter and drawing teacher Cristoffel Neurdenberg, who discovered his talent and convinced his father to encourage Breitner in this direction. In 1876 he made it possible for his son to study at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.
In The Hague, Breitner came into contact with representatives of the Hague School , such as Jozef Israëls , Jacob Maris , Anton Mauve and others through the artists' association Pulchri Studio . He described them as “jovial guys who can really give you courage”. Her work appealed to him much more than what he learned at the rigorous academy. During this time, Breitner specialized in horse studies in addition to battle scenes and was therefore often to be found at the Hague State Riding School. Otherwise he worked in Willem Maris' workshop .
Because of poor leadership (he often did not appear for lessons for weeks and repeatedly violated the school rules) Breitner had to leave the Royal Academy in 1880. Despite these difficulties, he had already made a name for himself with his horse studies, so that Willem Mesdag became aware of him, who commissioned him to paint, among other things, the cavalry on the beach on his famous Panorama Mesdag in Scheveningen . In addition, Breitner himself was now teaching at the painting and drawing academy in Leiden , where he was “terribly bored”.
In 1882 Breitner got to know Vincent van Gogh , with whom he initially had a soulmate. Together they went out to draw The Hague workers and maids.
In 1884, after the Mesdag project was over, Breitner went to Paris, where he worked in Fernand Cormon's studio . In 1886 he returned to the Netherlands and settled in Amsterdam, where he stayed until his death. He broke away from the style of the Hague School. Impressionist landscape impressions interested him less and less, his style became more representational, “more real”, as he put it, but also darker. He started painting Amsterdam city scenes and cityscapes. Especially the less well-heeled districts of the capital, such as the Jordaan and the area around the Rokin (a street that is always characterized by busy pedestrian and tram traffic, on which, among other things, the Amsterdam Stock Exchange and the Arti et Amicitiae art hall were located), caught his interest. He worked with quick brushstrokes and tried to give an impression of life on the street with his artisans, housewives, dock workers, street dogs. His drawings often gave a gray, depressing picture of the streets of the capital. The capital was a magnet for young artists from all over the country, and so he quickly came into contact with "The Eighties" ( De Tachtigers ), an influential group of artists around the literary magazine De Nieuwe Gids . Other members of this group were Isaac Israëls , Willem Witsen and poets like Willem Kloos . In 1896 he received a large gold medal at the International Art Exhibition in Berlin .
In addition to cityscapes, Breitner also painted interiors, still lifes , portraits and nudes . His pictures of girls in kimonos, which he made in his studio at Lauriergracht 8 in 1893, became particularly well known. Most of the portraits from this series show 17-year-old Geesje Kwak, but other girls were also his models. His nudes, like his cityscapes, were not fantasy images with erotic perfection, but rather gloomy, depressing, often even malicious.
Breitner was well known during his lifetime, but this did not save him from financial worries. On June 5, 1923, the people's painter died of a heart attack. He was buried in Amsterdam with great public sympathy.
"Breitner's art is not the result of a period, it is the period itself."
“A shy, nervous, opinionated man who, although slim built, with his fat cheeks and small eyes resembled a piglet. He had bad manners and his shyness made an unfriendly impression. It was impossible to have a normal conversation with him: he spoke in short, broken sentences, regularly interrupted by abrupt salmon volleys. Sudden noise or sharp lights frightened him unduly. He would rather play chess with Willem Witsen than have a conversation. "
In his memoirs, Esser also wrote that he rated Breitner as the most important artist of the 19th century, while Willem Witsen, with whom Breitner remained friends throughout his life, considered him a genius. Breitner saw himself as Le peintre du peuple , the people's painter, a nickname he gave himself during his time in Paris.
From 1893 to 1899 Breitner lived on Lauriergracht 8, then on Prinseneiland 24b.
style
In his early days, Breitner focused on military and cavalry subjects, with his specialty being horse studies. His early work was influenced by the Hague School .
After a well-known statement, Breitner accused his colleague Vincent van Gogh of making "art for Eskimos ". It is not surprising that Breitner's style with its “dark” or “black” impressionism differed greatly in image content and execution from what the “light” French impressionism expressed. Where Van Gogh and his peers tried to create their own view of the world with the help of strong colors and contrasts, Breitner wanted to reproduce the pure, bleak reality as faithfully as possible.
In 2004, however, art historical research was able to show that Breitner did not paint as truthfully as was always claimed. For example, he made buildings that bothered him “disappear” from the street scene in his paintings or he tried to “hide” them. In one of his famous paintings, for example, the - then generally unpopular - stock exchange of Berlage from Damrak disappeared completely behind the sails of a ship. On his famous depiction of the Singel Bridge in Amsterdam, too, at the urging of his gallery, he replaced the maid, which was originally to be seen in the foreground, with a rich lady and, in this context, also adapted other figures so as not to depict a social gradient in the picture. As a result, the painting, which was initially difficult to sell, immediately found a buyer.
Breitner and photography
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Breitner discovered photography relatively late, probably around 1889, when cameras were becoming more manageable and cheaper, and began to experiment with this medium. He was probably inspired by his colleagues in the “eighties”, most of whom used photographs as an aid or reminder. Breitner's photographs became much more than aids for drawings and paintings; rather, an interaction between the two media developed. Today the photographs are excellent evidence of contemporary city life in the Dutch founding period . Most of all, recording movement and lighting in the city interested him, and he ultimately became a master in this field. His recordings were rarely made. These snapshots, dynamic black-and-white images of mostly chance encounters, but also carefully selected views are original and in some cases still seem modern today.
The camera stayed with him until his final years. His photographic legacy was only (re) discovered in 1962.
Trivia
Breitner is one of the few artists about whom his own proverb came about. When the weather in the Netherlands is typically gray and dreary again, the people of Amsterdam grumble "It's damn typical Breitner weather again" ( T'is damn real Breitnerweer ).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Koninklijke Bibliotheek: Dossier Breitner ( Memento from February 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Koninklijke Bibliotheek: Dossier Breitner ( Memento from February 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Kunstbus ( Memento of the original from October 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Koninklijke Bibliotheek: Dossier Breitner ( Memento from February 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Rijksmuseum ( Memento des Originals from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Web links
- Literature by and about George Hendrik Breitner in the catalog of the German National Library
- Koninklijke Bibliotheek: Dossier George Hendrik Breitner (1857-1923) ( Memento from February 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (Dutch)
- Kunstbus, biography Georg Hendrik Breitner (Dutch)
- Stadsarchief Amsterdam: About Breitner (Dutch)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Breitner, George Hendrik |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Dutch painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 12, 1857 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Rotterdam |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 5, 1923 |
| Place of death | Amsterdam |