Monsieur le Coloriste: Jac. van Looy, dubbeltalent 1855-1930

Abstract

He became famous with the classic 'Jaapje' (1917). For decades readers hardly knew, if at all, that this writer was actually a painter. Van Looy was a special double talent. Today, his iconic painting 'The Garden' (1893) is regarded as the showpiece of late nineteenth-century painting. And it is precisely his writing that has faded into the background. Jac. van Looy grew up in an orphanage in Haarlem, but received an art education thanks to benefactors. He won the Prix de Rome and then made an exciting 'Grand Tour' by Italy, Spain and Morocco. He maintained valuable but dangerous friendships with Tachtigers such as Kloos, Verwey, Witsen and Breitner. His modern prose shook up rusty Dutch literature: realistic descriptions of bullfights, intense stories, surrealistic dream scenes and the bizarre, early modernist 'Wonderful Adventures of Zebedeus' (1910/1925). This biography follows Van Looy's birth and development as an artist through countless letters and documents. Unknown facts shed new light on his later career as a painter, when, disappointed, he is said to have only painted privately. Van Looy was a gifted letter writer, ardent mockingbird and controversial Shakespearean translator. His large flower paintings are said to have been created under the influence of Monet and Van Gogh, but letters and personal notes reveal a different reality. It is typical of this significant figure.