Jan Weissenbruch

Sep 10, 2016 to Jan 08, 2017

Exhibition Room

Jan Weissenbruch

The landscapes and cityscapes by Jan Weissenbruch (1822-1880) are unsurpassed in the Dutch 19th-century art of painting. With its crisp imagination of Dutch city squares, locks, drawbridges and country roads, Weissenbruch occupies a unique position: none of his contemporaries knew how to picture with great finesse, the bright light back of a quiet summer day at the Lek, or the gentle sun on a late afternoon shining over the cobblestones of the old town.

Romanticism and Realism

On the basis of his finest works, this exhibition shows that Weissenbruch was located at the crossroads of the most important artistic movements of his time: Romanticism and Realism. The bright light that Weissenbruchs' cityscapes show brings each stone with the utmost objectivity into view. At the same time, however, it evokes a subtle but pervasive 'mood' on.

A Dutch ideal

Almost all places Weissenbruch painted can be localized exactly. From the center of The Hague to the banks of the Lek and the Merwede in Dordrecht to the market in Liege, most locations are easily recognizable.

The exhibition is a collaboration with the RKD and BC Koekkoek Huis in Kleef.