Willem Roelofs

Willem Roelofs (10 March 1822 – 12 May 1897) was a Dutch painter, water-colourist, etcher, lithographer and draughtsman. Roelofs was one of the forerunners of the Dutch Revival art, after the Romantic Classicism of the beginning of the 19th century, which led to the formation of The Hague school. His landscapes, especially the early ones with their dominating cloudy skies, demure bodies of water and populated with cattle, are typical for the School of Barbizon.

Biography Willem Roelofs was born in Amsterdam, United Kingdom of the Netherlands on 10 March 1822. When he was a young man his family moved to Utrecht, where his father became an enlisted member of the Painters and Draughtsman Society in Utrecht, and received lessons from the artist Abraham Hendrik Winter. In June 1839, they moved to The Hague so that the young Willem could study in the Academy for Visual Arts in that city and train in the atelier of Hendrik van de Sande Bakhuyzen.

In 1847, he was involved in the establishment of the artists society “The Hague Pulchri Studio”. In 1847, he left The Hague rather suddenly and went to live in Brussels where he remained until 1887. From 1866 up to 1869, he trained Hendrik Willem Mesdag, who would develop into one of the masters of The Hague school. His other students were Paul Gabriël, Frans Smissaert, Willem de Famars Testas and Alexander Mollinger. In 1850, he was captivated by Barbizon in the Fontainebleau area of France. 1887, oil on canvas, Rijksmuseum