MARIS, JACOB (1837-1899)

This article appears in Volume V17, Page 724 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: MAL-MAR

MARIS, JACOB (1837-1899) , Dutch painter, first studied at the Antwerp

Academy

ACADEMY, GREEK
ACADEMY, ROYAL

, and subsequently in

Hebert

HEBERT, EDMOND (s812-189o)
HEBERT, JACQUES RENE (1757-1794)

's studio during a stay in Paris from 1865 till 1871. He returned to Holland when the Franco-Prussian War broke out, and died there in August 1899. Though he painted, especially in early

life

LIFE

, domestic scenes and interiors invested with deeply sympathetic feeling, it is as a landscape painter that Maris will be famous. He was the painter of bridges and windmills, of old quays, massive towers, and level banks; even more was he the painter of water, and misty skies, and chasing clouds. In all his works, whether in water or oil colour, and in his etchings, the subject is always subordinate to the effect. His art is suggestive rather than decorative, and his force does not seem to depend on any preconceived method, such as a synthetical treatment of form or gradations of tone. And yet, though his means appear so simple, the artist's mind seems to communicate with the spectator's by directness of pictorial instinct, and we have only to observe the admirable

balance

BALANCE (derived through the Fr. from the Late Lat. bilantia, an apparatus for weighing, from bi, two, and lanx, a dish or scale)

of composition and truthful perspective to understand the sure knowledge of his business that underlies such purely impressionist handling. Maris has shown all that is gravest or brightest in the landscape of Holland, all that is heaviest or clearest in its atmospherefor instance, in the " Grey Tower, Old

Amsterdam

AMSTERDAM
AMSTERDAM (NEw AMSTERDAM)

," in the " Landscape near

Dordrecht

DORDRECHT (abbreviated Dordt, or Dort)

," in the " Sea-

weed

WEED, THURLOW (1797—1882)

Carts, Scheveningen," in " A

Village

VILLAGE

Scene

SCENE (Fr. scene, Lat. scaena, Gr. oflvil, a tent or booth, a stage or scene)

," and in the numerous other pictures which have been exhibited in the Royal

Academy

ACADEMY, GREEK
ACADEMY, ROYAL

, London, in Edinburgh (1885), Paris, Brussels and Holland, and in various private collections. " No painter," says M. Philippe Zilcken, " has so well expressed the ethereal effects, bathed in air and light through floating silvery mist, in which painters delight, and the characteristic remote horizons blurred by haze; or again, the grey yet luminous weather of Holland, unlike the dead grey rain of England or the heavy sky of Paris."
See Max Rooses, Dutch Painters of the Nineteenth

Century

CENTURY (from Lat. centuria, a division of a hundred men)

(London, 1899) ; R. A. M. Stevenson, " Jacob Maris," Magazine of Art (1900) ; Ph. Zilcken, Peintres Hollandais modernes (

Amsterdam

AMSTERDAM
AMSTERDAM (NEw AMSTERDAM)

, 1893) ; Jan Veth, " Een Studie over Jacob Maris," Onze Kunst (Antwerp, 1902).

End of Article: MARIS, JACOB (1837-1899)

If you wish, you can link directly to this article.

<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/MAL_MAR/MARIS_JACOB_1837_1899_.html">
MARIS, JACOB (1837-1899)
</a>

(Previous)
MARIPOSAN, or YOKUTS

(Next)
MARITIME PROVINCE (Russ., Primorskaya Oblast)

JCSM was founded in 1997 and exists to help the community and bring people into a life-changing and productive relationship with Jesus Christ. JCSM offers over 200,000 free web pages, including its weekly inspirational emails that were sent continuously for over a decade.

Jesus Christ Saves Ministries
P.O. Box 9297
San Diego, CA 92169
1-888-887-0417 or Email