The Modern Dutch School

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

Nevertheless it is important to note that there is not the same note of romanticism in pictures he painted only two years earlier. In 1868 Matthew joined his brother James in Paris, and we may see in the National Gallery a little picture he painted there in 1870. ‘Montmartre,’ as it is called, shows us dust-carts tipping rubbish on the side of a hill which has a windmill at the top. It is beautifully painted, perfect in its refined realism, but it is not romantic.

When the Franco-Prussian war broke out, James Maris returned to Holland. Matthew remained, went through the siege of Paris, and, like other residents, was enrolled in the Municipal Guard and called out for duty. His post was on the fortifications, opposite Asniéres and just under Mont Valérien, and he suffered considerably from the bitter cold during night duty. Military life was not congenial to this gentle artist, and the thought of killing anybody was abhorrent to him. He confessed afterwards, ‘I never put a bullet in my gun, but only pretended to do so!’

His war experiences certainly did Matthew Maris no good; they saddened him and tended to make him shrink into himself, so that he became more and more of a recluse. After the siege Matthew Maris came to London in 1872, and there he remained to the end of his days. He had rooms at first in the house of an art decorator named Daniel Cottier in St James’s Terrace, Regent’s Park, and Cottier, a strong active business man, had much influence over him, telling him what sort of pictures he ought to paint. Although Cottier, an admirer of Rossetti, undoubtedly encouraged the romantic element in the Dutch artist. Matthew Maris rebelled at painting under his direction and professed that he was thoroughly unhappy in his house. Yet between 1872 and 1875, when he was under the spell of Cottier, Matthew Maris painted what are generally considered to be his finest pictures. Among them we may mention ‘The Girl at the Well’ and ‘Feeding Chickens’, painted in 1872; ‘The Christening’ and ‘Enfant Couchée’, in 1873; ‘He is Coming’—in 1874; and ‘The Sisters’ in 1875. Yet even these works, full of indescribable poetry and romantic beauty, failed to satisfy the artist, who in after years would speak of them as ‘potboilers’ which he had compelled to paint by a tyrannical taskmaster.

Though discontended and professedly unhappy, Matthew Maris was slow to leave what he regarded as a house of bondage, and it was not till 1887—and then chiefly because Mrs Cottier was in ill-health—that he finally left. He went to 47 St John’s Wood Terrace, intending to remain there only a fortnight, while he looked around for a more convenient studio, and he stayed there nineteen years. In 1906 he found a home at 18 Westbourne Square, Paddington, in a half-flat with a small painting room, and in this modest abode, tended by a faithful housekeeper, he remained till he died on August 17, 1917. He seldom went out and he had few visitors, the most intimate friends of his later years being the Dutch picture-dealer, Mr E J Van Wisselingh and his wife, a Scottish lady, daughter of Mr Craibe Angus, of Glasgow, who had been one of the earliest British patrons of Matthew Maris. His later paintings became more and more mysterious; instead of the clear outlines of his earlier pictures, forms were seen dimly as through a mist, and these pictures he would work over and over many times, each re-painting seeming to cast a new veil over faces and figures that became more and more spiritual. Had he wished, Matthew Maris might have had fortune as well as fame, for there were ardent collectors in many countries eager to secure examples of his works, but his means were straightened largely because he could with difficulty bring himself to part with a picture and desired to keep them all in his painting room. In 1911 a Dutch admirer of his work, Mr Thomsen, of The Hague, offered to the compatriot of whom he was proud a small pension. This the painter accepted, and the pension was continued till his death.

An abnormal being, Matthew Maris was ‘alone in the world’ because he chose of his own accord to live the life of a hermit shut up with his dreams.