Anton Mauve

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Anton Rudolf Mauve (September 18, 1838 – February 5, 1888) was a Dutch realist painter whose work very early on influenced his cousin Vincent van Gogh.

Mauve was born in Zaandam into the family of a Baptist preacher, who was sent to Haarlem a year after Anton's birth. His early work can be attributed to the Hague School. When Mauve moved to Laren in 1886, he was one of the founders of the Laren School, with Jozef Israëls and Albert Neuhuys.

Much against the wish of his parents he took up the study of art and entered the studio of Van Os, whose dry academic manner had, however, but little attraction for him. He benefited far more by his intimacy with his friends Jozef Israels and W. Marls. Encouraged by their example he abandoned his early tight and highly finished manner for a freer, looser method of painting, and the brilliant palette of his youthful work for a tender lyric harmony which is generally restricted to 'delicate greys, greens, and light blue. He excelled in rendering the soft hazy atmosphere that lingers over the green meadows of Holland, and devoted himself almost exclusively to depicting the peaceful rural life of the fields and country lanes of Holland - especially of the districts near Oosterbeek and Wolfhezen, the sand dunes of the coast at Scheveningen, and the country near Laren, where he spent the last years of his life. A little sad and melancholy, his pastoral scenes are nevertheless conceived in a peaceful soothing lyrical mood, which is in marked contrast to the epic power and almost tragic intensity of J. F. Millet. There are fourteen of Mauve's pictures at the Mesdag Museum at the Hague, and two ("Milking Time" and "A Fishing Boat putting to Sea") at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Most of Mauve's work shows people and animals in outdoor settings. In his Morning Ride in the Rijksmuseum, fashionable equestrians at the seacoast are seen riding away from the viewer. An unconventional detail — horse droppings in the foreground — attests to his commitment to realism. And in fact he is known mostly for paintings of peasants working in the fields, and especially for sheep herding scenes. His paintings of flocks of sheep were especially popular with American patrons. Examples of his work include Changing Pasture (ca. 1880s) and Entering the Fold (ca. 1885-1888).

As said, he was related to Vincent van Gogh, who worked under him for a short period, until they had a quarrel. Mauve died of an aneurysm in 1888, in Arnhem.