Mauve's Sheep on the Dunes.—One of the gems of the modern landscapes is Mauve's Sheep on the Dunes. The sheep, all of which have their backs to the spectator, the rolling dunes with their tall, waving grass, the shepherd boy and his dog, are all painted with equal skill; and over the still landscape hovers a poetic feeling that communicates itself instantly to the spectator.
Mauve is also represented by A Fold and Woodmen.
Anton Mauve.—Anton Mauve (1838-89) was a native of Zaandam, and the son of a clergyman. He studied under the cattle-painter, Van Os, who was not particularly pleased with his pupil. After his apprenticeship was over, he began to paint little pictures in the neat manner and conventional style of his master. Mauve lived in Oosterbeck, "the Barbison of Holland," for a time, and at a later period spent his winters in Amsterdam and his summers in The Hague, where he could enjoy Scheveningen and the dunes.
A Dutch writer, A. C. Loffelt, says:
His Style.—"The poetry of Mauve's art, its tenderness, the unobtrusive, quiet sadness of the scenery and people which attracted him most; the homeliness, humor, and domestic happiness which he interpreted in his interiors and scenes of country and village life, can only be appreciated by people of the same descent."
The same critic tells us that Mauve lived for a time in a farm-house, near Dekkersdinn.
His Favorite Themes.—"Here Mauve found some of his most important and favorite themes, such as poor cots built in or near the downs, where slender, poorly nurtured women tended a few sheep or a goat, or occupied themselves in bleaching linen. His painting had not yet gained that transparency and brilliancy of tone which the artist acquired in subsequent years. At this time his work was gray, but not always pellucid or silvery. Thus it came to pass that critics and public began to talk of 'The Gray School,' for a few other artists painted in the same neutral scale of tints.
"As we walk in the rural lanes, beneath the slender birches wrapped in their mantle of silver-gray haze, or watch the chequered sunlight dancing into the secluded nooks of some emerald meadow, when we hear the echoes of the tinkling sheep-bells on the moors, we think 'There lives Mauve!'"
MAUVE
Sheep on the Dunes