Johan Barthold Jongkind

JOHAN BARTHOLD JONGKIND (Lattrop, 1819-around Grenoble, 1891).
"Dutch Nocturne".1868
Oil on panel.
Signed and dated in the lower margin.
Accompanied by a book about the author.
Measurements: 18 x 33 cm; 41 x 56 cm (frame).

The painting "Dutch Nocturne" by Johan Barthold Jongkind presents a serene and melancholic atmosphere, characteristic of the landscapes of the Dutch painter. In the composition, a windmill stands out firmly on the horizon, while a large house rises beside it, both bathed in the twilight light that tinges the atmosphere with golden and earthy tones.

The chromatic palette is built on a base of ochers, browns and dark greens, which give weight and density to the earth and the buildings, in contrast to the wide blue sky that dominates the upper part of the painting. The water, in the foreground, reflects these colors with subtle sparkles, integrating sky and earth in the same luminous harmony.

The brushstroke, thick and energetic, is applied with impetuous and multidirectional strokes, bringing vitality to the scene and a sense of immediacy that anticipates the resources of impressionism. Despite the gentle tone of the motif, the pictorial gesture conveys movement and emotion.

True to his style, Jongkind, a painter of seascapes and night scenes, achieves here a pre-impressionist language, where light and color become protagonists, beyond the mere description of the landscape. The work captures not only the view of the Dutch sunset, but also its changing atmosphere and natural poetics.

Johan Barthold Jongkind was a Dutch painter and engraver considered one of the forerunners of impressionism. He studied art at The Hague School under the Romantic painter Andreas Schelfhout, and painted his first pictures in the style of traditional Flemish painting. In 1846 he settled in Paris and became a pupil of Eugène Isabey until, in 1855, he was forced to return to Holland because of financial problems and settled in Rotterdam. He returned to Paris in April 1860, and from then on expressed his attraction for the marines during his stays on the Norman coast in Le Havre, Sainte-Adresse (see watercolor), Honfleur and Trouville. There he met Boudin and above all Monet, who sincerely acknowledged his debt to the Dutch artist: "to him I owe the definitive education of my eyes". He participated in the Salon des Refusés in 1863 with the painting Ruins of the Castle of Rosemont, next to Manet's controversial painting Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (Lunch on the Grass); both are now in the Musée d'Orsay. His landscapes of Normandy, of canals and beaches of the North Sea, of the banks of the Seine, of Paris, and later of Grenoble, translate in finely nuanced tones the light and atmosphere of those places. Contrary to the Impressionists, he painted his pictures in the studio after the sketches and watercolors he drew outside. Sometimes he repeated the same subject under different lights or in different seasons (a typically impressionist idea later adopted by his friend Monet). He led a disordered life and finally, with psychic problems (melancholy, paranoia) and alcoholic, he died in the asylum of Saint-Égrève near Grenoble. According to Monet, Jongkind's work, along with that of Corot and Boudin, is the origin of Impressionism.