Van der Velden — portrait of a romantic

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33739, 11 January 1975, Page 10

Van der Velden — portrait of a romantic

(By 1

FRED McLEAN)

Of all our artists Petrus van der Velden has been the most misunderstood. The reason is not difficult to follow.

From his arrival in 1890 until his death in 1913 his work had been marked by a diversity of style as puzzling to the critic as to the connoisseur. Because of this he has been labelled as being an impressionist as well as a realist. The fact is he was neither. He was a supreme romantic.

He never experimented outside this school. But within it he did. And there were three kinds of style which actually were three different interpretations of the school. To understand a work of art you must first know the artist who did it. So it is not surprising to find that along with Van der Velden's three styles go a corresponding three changes in his life-style. The first phase was a romantic-realism. Actually, this school was the rearguard of the preceding romantic school. Some art historians prefer to differ-? entiate between the two. Striking effect In the 1880 s Dutch art was in the throes of this particular school and Van der Velden’s painting “Double Blank” (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) portrays it to quite striking effect.

subtler aspects of romantic-realism at its best). No rebel for lost causes here.

Indeed, the artist at this period was a happy and well adjusted personality both to himself and to the Dutch milieu in which he lived. He was established and successful. The observation, therefore, as one writer has suggested, that he left Holland in a pique because an art competition he had entered had been awarded to one of its judges’ sons does not seem tenable.

A more likely reason would seem to lie in his restless spirit. He was an extremely subjective, very poetic and profoundly introspective person. These are all romantic traits.

One sees similar qualri ties in Katherine Mans-

It has all the necessary emphasis on light and it is by light and through its expression we know the subjects. The whole effect is redo-? lent with suggestion (the field, D. H. Lawrence and Frances Hodgkins. All nomadic types. Many moves Prior to his emigration he had been moving about quite a bit. London, Brittany and Germany. And his new life did not change old habits. For, eight years after his arrival in Christchurch he upstaked and went to Sydney (1898) whence, after a few years, he returned to New Zea-

land (1905). This time to Wellington. After this he went to Auckland, where he died.

His second phase developed soon after his arrival in the colony and can be detected as early as 1891 in his “Portrait of a Lady’’ (Auckland Art Gallery), The emphasis here is on a greater romanticism. The old, confident, realism is gone. The mood is sombre and brooding. Outlines are hazy and merge with the background. In 1892 he made a trip to the Otira Gorge where it is said he collected sufficient material to last him a lifetime.

Unhappily, these paintings handed down to us were never adequately catalogued as to the time and year they were done. But through them one can trace a growing trend to-

wards a greater romanticism.

It is significant that he preferred to paint the Gorge in its worst Sombre, wind-racked, clouds vie with swollen torrents crashing over forbidding rocks. Dark, cavernous, trees threaten us with their black mass. This is nature at its most formidable, Nature which would engulf. Nature which would destroy. (Otira Gorge, National Art Gallery, Wellington, see illustration). His third phase could be said to have begun when his wife died in 1899.

In Sydney and in poor health he looks back with nostalgia to happier times. But not to happier themes.

Towards the end of his life he turned again to the Gorge. This time romanticism borders on ex-

pressionism. It is, in fact, the extremes of romanticism.

The emphasis now is almost on light and atmosphere. But the light is gloomy and hidden in mists. And in these - swirling mists we get the hint of rocky crags. We do not see them but we know they are there. We hear the rushing torrents and the tormented trees bending in the storm.

Petrus van der Velden did not introduce romanticism into this country. It was already here. John Gully and J. C. Richmond among others had portrayed it to great effect. But it was an expression mainly in watercolours. Main legacy What van der Velden did was to carry on this tradition in oils but with a breadth and scope which

places his among the masters of our art tradition. Perhaps his greatest legacy lies in the suggestive

element of his work — a trend which was to be developed to quite a considerable extent by succeeding generations.