Hague school

An evolving style of 'modernist' painting from Tonalism to Impressionism to Realism linked to artists active in The Hague, Holland in the late 19th-Century, 1860 to 1900. Representative artists included Anton Mauve, Joseph Israels, Willem Maris, Hendrik Willem Mesdag and Bernard De Hoog. Many Hague School painters had studios in The Hague and in the peasant community of Laren, outside Amsterdam. Known as the "Dutch Barbizon", this town became an artist colony for leading landscape and outdoor-genre painters of the Netherlands as well as some from America. Impetus of the Hague School members was to depict Realism as the artist saw it in their immediate surroundings including nature and peasant life. They turned away from art training and themes of idealization taught at the prevailing academies. The early fascination of Hague artists was with light and atmosphere, and at first, their colors were quite sombre, mainly gray tones---i.e. Tonalist. Later their palettes lightened under the influence of Impressionism, and The Hague School became a primary force in spreading Impressionism to the Netherlands. Also the Hague School in its early years is credited as a major force in American Tonalism. Sources: http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/aria/aria_encyclopedia/00047631; Spanierman Gallery, ???The Poetic Vision, American Tonalism???, 2005; E. Benezit, ???Dictionnaire Critique et Documentaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs Dessinateurs et Graveurs???