
Willem Maris (18 February 1844 – 10 October 1910) was a Dutch landscape painter of the
Hague School
The Hague School () is a group of artists who lived and worked in The Hague between 1860 and 1890. Their work was heavily influenced by the realist painters of the French Barbizon school. The painters of the Hague school generally made use of re ...
.
Biography
He was born in
The Hague
The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...
. Willem was the third in a family of five children. His two brothers
Jacob
Jacob, later known as Israel, is a Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions. He first appears in the Torah, where he is described in the Book of Genesis as a son of Isaac and Rebecca. Accordingly, alongside his older fraternal twin brother E ...
and
Matthijs Maris
Matthias Maris (17 August 1839 – 22 August 1917) was a Dutch painter, etcher and lithographer. He was also known as Matthijs Maris or Thijs. He initially belonged to the Hague School, like his two brothers, Jacob Maris, Jacob and Willem Mar ...
preceded him as painters. In literature he is often characterized as a self-taught man, and Maris described his early study years as follows: "From the time I was young I worked outdoors. Even before I was twelve I would sit in the meadow and watch the cows before and after school. As my brothers were older than me, naturally I got part of my training from them, and in the winters I went to the Academy of Art, where I often drew from plaster models and also often practiced drawing in perspective. In the summer I always studied outdoors, and in the winter in the stable." Maris also received advice from the cattle painter , who gave him work to copy.
In 1862, Maris made his debut with ''Cows on the Heath'', which may have been painted in Oosterbeek, which he visited for the first time that year. It was in Oosterbeek that he met
Gerard Bilders and
Anton Mauve
Anthonij "Anton" Rudolf Mauve (; 18 September 18385 February 1888) was a Dutch realist painter who was a leading member of the Hague School. He signed his paintings 'A. Mauve' or with a monogrammed 'A.M.'. A master colorist, he was a very signi ...
. Maris would write about his legendary meeting with Mauve: They would remain good friends for the rest of their lives.

In 1863, the Mauve family moved and set a studio where all the three brothers could work. As his brothers had done before him, Willem also took a trip along the Rhine. Later he shared a studio with
Bernard Blommers, and Matthijs Maris and Anton Mauve could often be found there. In the
Mauritshuis
The Mauritshuis (, ; ) is an art museum in The Hague, Netherlands. The museum houses the Royal Cabinet of Paintings which consists of 854 objects, mostly Dutch Golden Age paintings. The collection contains works by Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt van ...
, Willem copied the works of
Paulus Potter
Paulus Potter (; 20 November 1625 (baptised) – 17 January 1654 (buried)) was a Dutch painter
Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid sur ...
, a seventeenth-century cattle painter who also inspired
Gerard Bilders,
Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch
Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch, also known as Hendrik Johannes Weissenbruch (born 19 June 1824 in The Hague – died 24 March 1903 in The Hague) was a Dutch painter of the Hague School. He is noted especially for his watercolours.
Biography
Hendrik Jo ...
and the Barbizon painters.
Willem's painting career progressed regularly and he maintained a steady production. For his entire life he remained true to the subjects he had chosen in his youth: meadow landscapes with willows and ditches, cows or calves in a meadow, by a river or pond, and later ducks and chickens. His paintings and watercolors are best known for his emphasis on light. Maris' often cited motto was: "I don't paint cows, but rather effects of light." His early work in particular often contained a cool, cloudy atmosphere. Someone wrote: " In those days, the young painter had a pronounced preference for shrouds of mist, which is quite peculiar. On several occasions he angrily broke off his study trips as soon as the sun and wind had chased away the early morning mist."
Three major phases can be distinguished in his work. The first works were characterized by an exact reproduction of the surroundings. Maris was still finding his way in the anatomical portrayal of cattle. In the second phase he had completely mastered this and his use of color became more definite. The meadows and trees are painted in gradations of saturated shades of green.
Around 1880, he began to use broader strokes, combining this with
impasto
Impasto is a technique used in painting, where paint is laid on an area of the surface thickly, usually thick enough that the brush or painting-knife strokes are visible. Paint can also be mixed right on the canvas. When dry, impasto provides tex ...
. Yet these works have an intimate atmosphere. His lively use of color distinguished Maris from the 'gray mood' of his contemporaries, and he was often called the 'impressionist' of the Hague School.
Maris wrote that he never had any students, but about 1880,
George Hendrik Breitner
George Hendrik Breitner (12 September 1857 – 5 June 1923) was a Dutch painter and photographer. An important figure in Amsterdam Impressionism, he is noted especially for his paintings of street scenes and harbours in a realistic style. He p ...
must have studied with him. He also taught his son,
Simon Willem and certainly influenced others. When Maris was in his sixties, he often seemed tired of life. He went to Karlsbad a few times to take the waters, as his brother Jacob had done. On 10 October he died in The Hague.
Sources
*Sillevis, John and Tabak, Anne, ''The Hague School Book'', Waanders Uitgegevers, Zwolle, 2004 (pp 311–320)
Further reading
* Joost Bergman, & Nico de Reus: ''Willem Maris : impressionist van de Haagse School'', Wbooks, Zwolle (2012)
External links
50 of his oils and watercolorsOverview of his works at the Nunspeet Museum websitefree images of paintings and drawings by Willem Maris in the RijksStudio of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
biography information on Willem Maris and other sources in the Dutch R.K.D. Archive
''The Brothers Maris (James – Matthew – William)'', ed. Charles Holme; English text: D.C. Thomson publishers: Offices of 'The Studio', London - Paris, 1907
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maris, Willem
1844 births
1910 deaths
Hague School
19th-century Dutch painters
Dutch male painters
Painters from The Hague
20th-century Dutch painters
Dutch landscape painters
19th-century Dutch male artists
20th-century Dutch male artists