Dutch Landscape, c. 1875

In 1875 Emil Jakob Schindler (1842–1892) and his fellow artist Tina Blau-Lang (1845–1916) traveled to Holland. There, Schindler explored not only the characteristic landscape but also the landscape art of exponents of The Hague School. In his painting Dutch Landscape, created around 1875, Schindler processed the influences derived from this artist’s association in the coloring based on few tones and the emphasis on the wide, cloudy sky. In the background we see one of Schindler’s preferred motifs, a mill, which evokes a pre-industrial harmony between man and nature. Schindler studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts under Albert Zimmermann (1809–1888) who was famous for his heroic mountainscapes and encouraged his students to paint en plein air. Schindler made it his central artistic aim to capture constantly changing lighting and weather conditions at varying times of day and seasons in atmospheric renderings.

AGW, 2021