DutchZie deze bespreking "Een andere werkelijkheid" en/of het langere "Over Thomas Cool (1851-1904). Schilder van licht en ruimte"Een tentoonstelling. Zie deze pagina voor meer afbeeldingen van diens werk. Zie hier voor zijn motivatie. Contacten met andere kunstenaars - en wat er nu over bekend is m.b.t. Vincent van Gogh en Louis Couperus en Mesdag. EnglishMy great-grandfather Thomas Cool (Sneek 1851 - Bussum 1904) is mentioned by Christopher Wright, “Paintings in Dutch Museums”, p81. He is hardly known. A general characterisation is, if I may try, that his paintings are between realism and impressionism, with a dreamy quality that is hard to pin down.There is a painting in the Frans Hals Museum and one in Boymans-van Beuningen. Some huge paintings on Saint Peter's Cathedral were once stored in the attic of the Peace Palace in The Hague but eventually deteriorated too much, and have been destroyed. This is an exhibition. The label "Frisian painter" derives only from his place of birth Sneek and makes as much sense as saying that Vincent came from Brabant and Rembrandt from Leiden. See this page for more images of his work. See contacts with artists around 1895 - and what is known w.r.t. Vincent van Gogh and Louis Couperus. Apparently, the character "Duco van der Staal" in Couperus book "The inevitable" (1900) has been inspired by my great-grandfather (see the Dutch discussion above). This link discusses prize-winning Dutch children books in 1914-1940. My great-aunt Tine Cool, daughter of this TC, apparently won a first prize in a contest with her book "Wij met ons vijfen in Rome" ("The five of us in Rome") in 1928, with autobiographical elements of living in Rome as a child in an artist's family. The jury consisted of well-known Dutch writers such as C.Joh. Kieviet, Theo Thijssen, Top Naeff and J.P. Zoomers-Vermeer. Interested readers still can find the book fully digitalized in the Royal Library (KB). A cousin is painter Thomas (Simon) Cool (1831-1870). |