Jozef Israëls

While convalescing in the seaside resort of Zandvoort, Israëls discovered the humble life of fisherfolk as a subject for his paintings. At first these were charming scenes, portrayed with a great eye for folkloristic detail, such as here the Delft Blue tiles and the tulip in the windowsill.

Israëls was fascinated not only by the picturesqueness of fishing life, but was also affected by the harshness of life at sea. This resulted in many paintings whose actual subject are death and sorrow.

In 1871 Israëls moved into a modern mansion on Koninginnegracht in The Hague, overlooking the canal to Scheveningen. The exhausting work of a sand bargeman with his vessel struck him as a visual representation of the boatman’s arduous life journey.

Israëls can be described as a liberal religious Jew. His interest in Jewish subjects was mainly related to his love of biblical stories. But sometimes he also depicted contemporary scenes of Jewish life, such as he encountered in the Jewish neighbourhoods of The Hague or Amsterdam.

Jozef’s son Isaac also became a well-known painter. Initially Isaac distanced himself from his father in search of his own direction, but later their relation improved. To distinguish himself from his father, Isaac wrote his last name without a diaerisis.

Laren was one of The Hague School painters’ most beloved places. Israëls had been coming there since 1874, when the village of smallholders and shepherds was still completely authentic. Life in the village continued to inspire him for a long time to come.

Israëls made five large oil sketches for his painting of Saul and David. These clearly show how in later years the thinly brushed and detailed modelling of his early work gave way to the rapid rendering of a figure with a few coarse brushstrokes.

While painting David and Saul, Isräels hurt his foot and, like his depiction of Saul, he showed himself lying on a sofa, frustrated. He sent this ironic self-portrait to the Drucker-Frasers, who were important patrons of his work. They left their entire collection of Hague School art to the Rijksmuseum.

Because of his choice of subjects and increasingly free manner of working, Israëls’ style around 1900 was often compared to that of the late Rembrandt. In fact, he consciously vied with the 17th-century Dutch master in paintings such as the Jewish Wedding and Saul and David.

Not only did Israëls’ contemporaries admire him, the young generation of artists also held him in high esteem. One of them was Vincent van Gogh, who derived inspiration from Israëls’ fishing scenes for his famous work The Potato Eaters.