Johan Barthold Jongkind
Johan Barthold Jongkind
Now considered a key precursor of Impressionism, Johan Barthold Jongkind
(1819
- 1891) came to Paris from the Netherlands in 1846 to study under Eugène Isabey*; despite
critical acclaim by Baudelaire and Zola, his early efforts remained
unsuccessful, and he shifted between Rotterdam and Paris.
He frequented the artists of the school of Barbizon, and in
Honfleur, Normandy, during the early 1860s, he met Eugène Boudin and
the young Claude Monet, who astutely acknowledged Jongkind's formative
influence:
"C'est à lui
que je dois l'éducation définitive de mon œil."
["It is to him that I owe the definitive education
of my eye."]
His alert
vision of the interplay between light, cloud, and water, set over a low
horizon in the classical Netherlandish style, was to define the canons of a revolutionary artistic movement.**
Though he only
produced a few more than twenty etchings, these fine prints, mostly
published by Cadart in Paris, and printed by Delatre, most often feature views of his native
Netherlands, ever a source of nostalgic inspiration.
His seminal role in the development of French art however remained unrecognized in the late century, and he died despondent in the asylum at Saint-Égrève, in the Isère.
*
https://jongkind.fr/jongkind-de-passage-en-normandie/
** Edmond de Goncourt, in his Journal (1871), wrote,
"Tout le paysage qui a une valeur à l'heure qu'il est descend de ce
peintre, lui emprunte ses ciels, ses atmosphères, ses terrains"
["All landscape of value at present derives from this painter,
borrowing his skies, his atmospheres, his grounds."]
|
Soleil Couchant, Port d'Anvers [Sunset, Port of Antwerp] |
  |
