Exhibition: Dutch painter Johan Jongkind

Harbour of Honfleur 1876

Johan Jongkind was born in 1819 and was taught drawing in The Hague. He got the eye of a French painter, who invited him to Paris.
Here Johan Jongkind soon had some successes. His way of painting, his Dutch approach to landscapes was something the French public liked and he was even awarded at the Salon.

He became friends with the painters of the Barbizon school of painting and like them, painted a lot of his paintings outdoors.

Claude Monet considered Jongkind a mentor and even said that Jongkind taught him how to use his eye.

In 1855 however Jongkind was broke and bitter, since his newest paintings were refused at the Salon. He left again to go back to The Netherlands and painted in Rotterdam and Dordrecht. His French friends helped him by organizing an auction for him to raise the money to bring Jongkind back to Paris in 1860.

Canal St, Martin, Paris 1875

He finally died in 1891. He never exposed his work at the Impressionist's exhibition, so he was not considered on of the Impressionists, but you can say he was at the root of Impressionism.

Le rue faubourgh St. Jacques in Paris 1879

In the Dutch town of Dordrecht is now an exhibition of this work and that of his friends. It is very beautiful and divers and it shows how Jongkind was both a modern painter who painted the world around him, but also stood firmly in the Dutch landschape tradition. a very beautiful exhibition that I enjoyed very much.

The exhibition Jongkind and friends can be seen at the Dordrechts museum in Dordrecht until May 27th 2018.

Rotterdam, 1873