Jacob Maris, 'Three Windmills', 1880

Born in The Hague, Jacob Maris trained at the city’s Drawing Academy – as did his two brothers, Matthijs and Willem, who were also artists – and at the Academy in Antwerp. His interest in specifically Dutch landscape perhaps began on his first visit in 1859 to the artists’ colony at the village of Oosterbeek. After travelling in northern Europe, Jacob moved to Paris in 1865, where he encountered work by Corot and by the Barbizon group of landscape painters, who became the prototype for the Oosterbeek colony (itself sometimes referred to as the Barbizon of the North). He returned to the Netherlands in 1871 where he became a leading figure of the Hague School of painters.

This relatively small, dark painting shows Jacob’s preference for typically Dutch subjects, which include the windmills, still river or canal and overcast sky we see here, although this picture may not necessarily be of an actual place. By the time he painted it, Jacob had moved away from the smooth finish of his earlier work and had developed a looser style using thick, often impasto, paint and broad visible brushstrokes.