GEORGE HENDRIK BREITNER
1857 Rotterdam – 1923 Amsterdam
WRITER FRANS ERENS
oil on board, 33 x 29.5 cm
dated c. 1887
provenance:
Frans Erens (1857-1935);
by descent to his widow Sophie Erens-Bouvy (1877-1958);
P. Erens, Hilversum;
Cécile Erens, Amsterdam, until 2023.
exhibited:
- Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Georg Hendrik Breitner, 1994-1995, no. 32;
- The Hague, Kunstmuseum, Breitner vs Israels: Vrienden en rivalen, 2020.
literature:
Harry G.M. Prick, Mr. Frans Erens: Vervlogen Jaren, Zwolle 1958, p. 278, ill.
‘Breitner painted my portrait in one of those early years, about 1887. It is a sketch, small in size, but it had the general admiration of painters. Isaac Israels said, that Breitner had never painted a better portrait in his life, and according to him it is a splendid piece. Altogether, I believe, I spent about ten hours posing for it.’
This painting connects two artists that were of great cultural importance in the Netherlands in the 1880s, the painter Georg Hendrik Breitner and the writer Frans Erens (fig.1). They were friends and both worked in Amsterdam at the time. Erens lived in Breitner’s studio for a while around the time this painting was made. The modernity and special appeal of this portrait lie in the frontal view of the sitter, notably low perspective and choice of cropping the picture directly where the top of Erens’ head ends.
Erens and Breitner were part of a close-knit, interdisciplinary group in Amsterdam. Together, they brought about a cultural change in the Netherlands during the 1880s. Writers played an important role in this movement that later became known as The Tachtigers. The writers opposed old-fashioned and moralizing literature. They drew inspiration from art and literature from abroad, France in particular. They developed the Dutch variant of the l’art pour l’art movement and advocated art as a personal form of expression, using only aesthetics as their guide, detached from all possible non-artistic goals. William Shakespeare and naturalist literature inspired them. Writers developed a new style better suited to their content. Their writing style is akin to impressionism in painting, focusing on the impression and the moment. They founded their own magazine, De Nieuwe Gids, which was innovative and highly popular among progressive artists.
In 1883, Erens’ writing career began with reflections and reviews, mainly on contemporary French literature. Three years later, he became a contributor to De Nieuwe Gids. Through Charles Baudelaire, Erens became familiar with prose poetry. He was the first to introduce this literary format in the Netherlands with a poem printed in De Nieuwe Gids in 1886. Erens was also the first author in the Netherlands to publish on Baudelaire.
Breitner painted Erens’ portrait at a crucial moment in his career. It was during this period that the painter had his artistic breakthrough in Amsterdam. In 1886, the Rijksmuseum acquired its first work by a contemporary artist, a large painting by Breitner, which attracted a lot of attention. Breitner became one of the leading painters in the Netherlands. The combination of a loose, painterly brush stroke, innovative compositions and working-class subjects made his paintings stand out as novelties. He had a decisive influence on many contemporary painters, Isaac Israëls in particular. Breitner is considered a pioneer and leader of the Amsterdam Impressionists.
Breitner began his training as a painter in The Hague. There he attended the academy until he was expelled after bad behavior. He worked in the studios of the highly successful and internationally sought-after artists Willem Hendrik Mesdag and Willem Maris, who quickly recognized his talent. With none other than Vincent van Gogh, he frequently went into the city to draw the common people of The Hague in 1882. He also worked in Paris for a few months in Fernand Cormon’s studio in 1884. Back in Holland, Breitner realized that his ambition was not to continue the success of The Hague School, a group of realist artists working along the lines of the French Barbizon painters, but to create innovative art. He decided to take more lessons under professor August Allebé at the State Academy in Amsterdam in 1886. The rapidly growing capital was the ideal environment for the young, talented artist.
Photography was an emerging medium that interested many artists. Breitner was an enthusiastic photographer. He had no ambition to present his photographs as art but mainly used them as studies for some of his paintings. Furthermore, striking cut-offs in his pictorial compositions are visibly influenced by experimentation with this medium. Erens’ comment that he had to pose for quite some time for this portrait makes it unlikely that Breitner based the present composition on a photograph.
fig. 1 Frans Erens photographed by Willem Witsen.