PASSING OF A GREAT PAINTER

Evening Star, Issue 14688, 4 October 1911, Page 2

PASSING OF A GREAT PAINTER

Touching the. death of Josef Israels, the Great Dutch painter, the ‘Pall Mall Gazette’ ears;

He was the first of the modern Dutch to conquer our insular prejudices, and his victory was tho greater in that ho labored under a certain disadvantage. Hebrew blood may net be a handicap do tho financier—there are times when it would seem to be a pass-port—but.it cannot be i.oneiclored a recommendation in the world of Art. In Israels' ease tho handicap was doubled or trebled by the extent to which it influenced his outlook on life. While it sharpened his sensibilities and intensified his passion for tho sanctities of home, it served to concent rate all the bitterness of a persecuted race into a contempt for fashion in euhject and technique. Once ho had breken with the picturesque traditions of Picot and Delaroche, his trainers in tho school of tho historic tableau, Israels went to the other extreme. lie made a second nature of self-denial ; he studied tho art of doing without. Henceforward he was to be the master of the peasant, like Millet, but to exceed even Millet in austerity. The painter of ‘The Sower’ and ‘The Angeles’ retains tho fervor of his religion, the beauty of physiological outline, agd the bounty of the sunshrnn. Josef Israels forwent- all these. His were the cold northern light, the shadow of a day tlia.t was either sunless or fading, and a palette that simulated the grey and the furrows of old age. Probably no painter of our time has met with greater recognition, or stands a better chance with posterity. It remains to be seen on which period of his work the future will bestow its final laurels—on tho early student of Dutch history (which is unlikely), on tho veteran who could throw oil a scene of desolation with a few loose and nigged strokes of grey and black, or on the unapproachable excellence of his maturity,' when he searched tho depths of heartache and poverty in painting the unromantic hardships of tho lishcr-life. Israels was bom at Groningen in 1824. la his early boyhood he was a clerk in his father’s bank, and for a time his parents’ wish was that he should become a rabbi. But in his case, as in that of many others, tho artistic side of his nature found a means of asserting itself. It was illness that first set his mind and hands to the pictorial interpretation of the humble life of Holland. A Frenchman once said that the works of Israels were “sout points d’ombre et de douleur,” and in the main the statement is true. Ibo joy of life -seldom brightened his pictures. The sorrow that came to Judea thousands of years ago lingered in his Hebrew blood and soul, and directed his mental and visionary outlook. Mi scry, decrepit age, and death were Ids favorite subjects. That part of humanity which, strive as it may, suffers at the hand of fate from the cradle to the grave appealed to him with tragic force. Yet his doleful scones impress one with the great power and sincerity of their expression. There is no affectation in the pathos, no whining of tho conquered spirit, no frantic regret for blighted hopes. Tho figures in his dramas act unconsciously. Their grief leaves them inarticulate, motionless. For the time there is nothing else in the world for them but woe, and their dumb resignation, begotten of Jong, ; sad experience, touches the heart. But in the- life of tho poor peasant and fisherman he often found the nobility and strange beauty that remains unexplained in the simplest of the people.