Floris Arntzenius: life and works

Pieter Florentius Nicolaas Jacobus Arntzenius (9 June 1864 – 16 February 1925) was a Dutch painter, water-colourist, illustrator and printmaker. He is considered a representative of the younger generation of the Hague School.

Arntzenius was born in Surabaya on the island of Java where his daddy served in the Royal Dutch East Indies Army. In 1875, at the age of 11, he was sent to the Netherlands to Amsterdam to live in the song of his aunt and uncle in order to unchangeable his education.

In 1882 he became a student of Frederik Nachtweh, under Nachtweh’s handing out he gained admission to the Rijksacademie van Beeldende Kunsten. During his get older at the Rijksacademie, from 1883 to 1888, his teachers included August Allebé and Barend Wijnveld, and amongst his fellow students were Isaac Israëls, George Breitner, Willem Witsen and Jan Veth. After his studies in Amsterdam he spent different two years at the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp, studying under Charles Verlat.

Back in Amsterdam, Arntzenius became a enthusiast of the artist’s societies Arte et Amicitiae (1890) and St. Lucas (1891), and he had a studio at the Sarphatistraat. In 1892 his mommy became widowed and moved to The Hague and Arntzenius in addition to moved there to keep her company. Around the similar time his former fellow students Isaac Israëls and George Breitner left The Hague for Amsterdam to be a portion of the capital’s more buzzing artistic climate. At The Hague the standard painters of the first generation of the Hague School dominated artistic life.

Arntzenius became a aficionada of the artist’s help Pulchri Studio in The Hague in 1892. From 1893 to 1895 he shared Bernard Blommers’ former studio afterward Cornelis Antonie van Waning. He after that contributed illustrations to Elsevier Geïllustreerd Maandschrift from 1892 to 1894. In 1896 he was admitted to the Hollandsche Teeken Maatschappij, a bureau that promoted the medium of watercolours in the middle of its members. He got married in 1900, to Lide Doorman, a gifted painter of floral nevertheless lives, who lived in the house opposite of Arntzenius’ mother, together they had four daughters, who he frequently painted.

Arntzenius was an accomplished performer in several mediums, but especially his watercolours gained high praise. During his first years in The Hague, he painted landscapes in the typical Hague School style. Arntzenius sophisticated switched to mainly painting cityscapes and street scenes, just in the same way as Israëls and Breitner made in Amsterdam. Arntzenius’ cityscapes were painted mainly in misty or rainy weather, he made use of these weather conditions to have his subjects be reflected on the damp asphalt. He next painted a lot in Scheveningen, which had misused from the destitute fishing village it was in the grow old of Jozef Israëls and Hendrik Willem Mesdag, into a popular seaside resort.

Though Arntzenius isn’t considered to be a relevant performer nowadays, he was appreciated in his own day. He won prizes at the exhibitions of Munich, Venice, Pittsburgh and Brussels and his works sold without difficulty during his lifetime. His contacts in The Hague included Willem Maris, Willem Bastiaan Tholen, Bernard Blommers and Herman Johannes van der Weele. In 1910 he opened a studio and started taking in students. During this grow old he mostly painted portraits in commission of wealthy patrons. This he continued to get until he died of tuberculosis in 1925, at the age of 60.