The son of an observant Jewish family in Groningen, Holland, Jozef Israëls became one of the foremost Dutch artists of the nineteenth century. After initially painting portraits and historical subjects, in the 1850s Israëls turned to painting genre scenes in a powerful realist style, particularly depictions of the hard lives of fishermen and their families. In the 1870s, Israëls became a leader of the Hague school and achieved international renown. Late in his career, Israëls portrayed Jewish subjects, notably The Son of an Ancient People (1889) and The Jewish Wedding (1903), as well as biblical subjects.
A Son of the Ancient Race is one of the few paintings with Jewish themes made by Jozef Israëls. It is from a series of paintings and drawings of secondhand clothing peddlers in Amsterdam’s Jewish…
A young man graduates and heads off to get damaged
He’s got nothing urgent for now and though they push him around he manages
He has no water in his knees
He has no plaster in his joints
He’ll be…
Arnold Böcklin is dead—yet who among you knew that he lived? If I were to tell you that he was the man who knew how, with paintbrush dipped in colors upon a piece of canvas, to shake every heart…