JACOBUS VAN LOOY
1855 – Haarlem – 1930
DRAWING CLASS AT THE STATE ACADEMY [De Teekenklas der Rijksacademie]
watercolor heightened with white and ink on paper, 530 x 550 mm
each drawing signed at the lower right: Jac. v Looy
date: c. 1880
provenance:
private collection, the Netherlands;
Sotheby Mak van Waay, Amsterdam, 15.06.1982, lot 400;
Mr. A.M van den Broek (1932-1995), Haarlem;
by descent until 2024.
literature:
Peter Winkels, Ten tijde van de Tachtigers: Rondom de Nieuwe Gids 1880-1895, Rotterdam 1985, p. 23.
Marco Daane, Monsieur le Coloriste Jac. Van Looy, dubbeltalent, Amsterdam 2022, p. 72, ill.
Drawing class at the academy presents a life model drawing and its academic context in which it was created. The work consists of two drawings. A watercolor of a male nude model with a human skeleton depicted next to him and a specially made ink drawing where the watercolor is placed in the middle. The outward edge of the ink drawing is drawn. An illusion is created as if the artwork is again mounted on another underlying paper.
From 1877 through 1885, Jacobus van Looy was a student at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam. The academy had been founded by King Willem III in 1870. It was intended as a traditional academic academy. Students first received a two-year preliminary course based on classical art history before they could start their professional training as a painter or sculptor. The key focus was the development of technical skills. Drawing played a key role on developing of their skills. Students had to copy the work of their famous predecessors, plaster models to eventually being allowed to draw from life models, Van Looy started in 1879.
The ink drawing depicts three rows of Van Looy’s fellow students at work in the academy. In the bottom row, the second figure from the left is probably the Indonesian-born Jan Toorop. In the second row on the far left the student with the outstretched arm looks like Jan Veth. The student at the end of the second row on the right is probably Van Looy himself, to his left is his friend Maurits van der Valk identifiable by the characteristic inlets in his hairdo. In front of them, student wearing his hat appears to be Gerard Muller. On the floor in the middle of the composition is an object that students used as a support for their work with the name Koning written on it. Arnold Koning was a fellow student at the academy.
At the academy, Van Looy was part of an exceptionally talented generation students. Compared to their teachers, they had their own divergent artistic interests. They were more interested in contemporary stylistic developments than those of the classical past. They were self-conscious and demanding. The students were mostly dissatisfied with the extremely conservative teachers and their teaching. This eventually led to a confrontation which resulted in the principal’s departure in 1878. Professor August Allebé was one of the few teachers who did enjoy popularity among the students. He was more approachable and open minded for the young artists’ their interests. He was appointed their new director in 1880. Under his leadership, the education was modified with an improved curriculum and private studios were given out to advanced students. Allebé thus had a defining influence on the institute which flourished under his leadership. Many artists saw him as a father figure. Van Looy remained in contact with him for years after he had finished the academy. Van Looy was less rebellious than some of my fellow students. An outstanding student at the academy he was awarded the prestigious Prix de Rome prize in 1884.
The above generation of painters at the Rijksacademie were part of an interdisciplinary group of artists in Amsterdam who had a lot of contact with each other. 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. What is particularly interesting about Van Looy is that he was not only a painter but also a very talented writer. He was a uniting figure within the movement of The Tachtigers.
The writers opposed old-fashioned and moralistic literature. They draw inspiration from art and literature 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 a guide, detached from all possible non-artistic goals. Shakespeare and naturalistic literature inspired them. They developed a new writing 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 progressive and influential.
Van Looy’s parents were of humble origins. They died shortly after each other when the artist was five years old. He ended up in the Reformed Civil Orphanage in Haarlem. He was trained as a house and carriage painter where he stood out for his talent for drawing. Van Looy received additional drawing lessons. With support from others he was able to purchase some drawing supplies. Through financial support and encouragement from a locals Van Looy finally did qualifying exams at the Rijksacademie. He was immediately excepted developed very positively at the academy. He worked diligently and enjoyed this great opportunity to develop as a professional artist. The academy must have been very special for the former orphan Van Looy. He was appreciated there and had many interesting colleagues, also from very good families, around him. The Prix de Rome he won resulted in a two-year study trip to Italy, Spain and Morocco. The prize winner had to study and reproduce classical art during his trip. Van Looy experienced this as a straitjacket; he preferred to go outside to capture real life. During his journey, the painter also began writing. Mainly realistic descriptions of bullfights and folk festivals, intense narratives but also surrealistic dream scenes. Some of these sketches appeared in 1886 in De Nieuwe Gids. Until 1892 he lived in Amsterdam, when he married Titia van Gelder and moved to Soest. His wife’s well-to-do family supported the couple and acquired some of the most important works. He exhibited several times until a major retrospective of his work in Arti et in Amsterdam in 1901 was criticized by several contemporaries. This annoyed Van Looy so much that he decided to concentrate on his writing career and stopped exhibiting his paintings. Van Looy moved back to Haarlem in 1913, the year the orphanage where he grew up was vacated and became the current location of the Frans Hals Museum. He continued to paint beautiful works until his death in 1930. Most of his oeuvre remained in his family. His house in Haarlem served as the Van Looy Museum from his death until 1976.
