The many worlds of Jan Toorop in miniature

The name Jan Toorop might suggest a single style, but his work actually reveals a surprising versatility. In this blog, we explore the various 'worlds' in which he moved, from Impressionism to Symbolism. The occasion is the exhibition 'The Worlds of Jan Toorop' at the Singer Museum Laren (on view until May 11), where his development is beautifully visible. Through postage stamps, we look along at how Toorop continually shaped his art – curious, inquisitive, and always in motion.

The word 'worlds' aptly characterizes the artist: during his artistic career, Toorop was not only a follower and precursor of various painting styles contemporary at the time, but also an active contact person between contemporaries and kindred spirits. They were important for his personal life and artistic development.

Toorop's credo: “Examine everything and retain what is good.”

Jan Toorop (1858 – 1928) was a prominent Dutch East Indies artist born in Central Java. He described his ancestry as Eastern and Indies, with parents of mixed Norwegian, Indies, Chinese, English, and Dutch backgrounds. The cosmopolitan moved to the Netherlands at the age of 11 for his education.

Jan Toorop is known as a versatile artist who employed various art styles throughout his career, often influenced by changing international movements and perspectives. He alternated working methods and styles within a relatively short span of approximately twenty years. Like a chameleon, he consistently developed his own recognizable thematic visual language:

1) In Toorop's Impressionist painting style, the changing light and the atmosphere of a fleeting, everyday moment are central, including in portraiture (period 1888 – 1891).

2) With the pointillist painting technique, Toorop attempted to capture light effects with brightly colored dots (period 1888 – 1891).

3) From 1893, Toorop became a follower of symbolic painting. He created mystical, dreamy scenes with intricate Javanese motifs.

4) With gracefully flowing lines characteristic of the Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) art movement, Toorop designed the poster for the Delft salad oil factory Calvé Delft.

5) In 1905, Toorop converted to Catholicism. His religious art is characterized by a more austere, geometric, and linear style.

Around 1900, Toorop was the celebrated top artist of our country. Van Gogh only became one many years later, after his death in 1890, and Mondrian was then at the beginning of his major breakthrough and development.

Could I experience a re-enactment with the current Singer Museum exhibition of Jan Toorop featuring 80 works, given the glowing reviews?

1) Annie Hall with milk jug (Impressionist painting style)

In the painting 'Annie Hall with Milk Jug' (1885), Toorop depicts his future wife still in her parental home in Lissadell (Surrey), England.

She is dressed in a white, high-necked gown with embroidery near a window.

The painting depicts a very ordinary everyday scene (impression, fleeting moment) of Annie pouring milk from a small milk jug into one of the cups on the table.

The light of the morning sun, falling through a window, emphatically illuminates not only Annie's back but also the activities on the table during a domestic moment while drinking morning coffee. With this lady in white, the emphasis falls on white as an independent color, which has been applied here and there with a palette knife.

In this impressionistic painting (100 x 74 cm), a lifelike, naturally intimate atmosphere is created by placing unmixed paint strokes next to each other with quick brushstrokes. From a distance, these colors appear to blend into intermediate colors.

2) 'Landscape with water' or 'Chestnut tree'

Pointillist painting style of the stippling technique.

In a windless landscape, a meandering river flows through a flat and peaceful landscape toward the horizon under a partly cloudy sky. To the right of the slowly flowing river, a dominant and richly foliated chestnut tree is reflected in the calm water.

This intellectually scientific representation of nature comes across as rigid, stiff, and lifeless.

The landscape with river and tree on the stamp is unusually placed in front of an enlarged fragment of the right part of the painting. Usually, an enlarged detail stands in front of the complete image.

* Pointillist painting technique. Along with many other painters, Toorop applied the scientific separation of colors into primary and secondary colors, creating a shimmering/vibrating representation of light in the painting. This striking, time-consuming, and meticulous painting style was first applied by the French painter Seurat. Toorop worked on this painting for three years (1886–1889).

Color theory: front triangle primary colors and back triangle secondary colors.

The three primary colors red, yellow, and blue are placed next to each other as small dots, unmixed. Due to the optical fusion of two primary colors, the eye perceives (for example, red and yellow) that another color is created, namely orange as a secondary/derived color. A similar fusion takes place between red and blue, which will produce purple, and between yellow and blue, which will yield green.

3) O Grave, where is thy Victory?

Transition from life to death; symbolic art movement from 1892

Toorop made a symbolic chalk drawing on paper of a dying person who is freed from earthly torments by several heavenly beings, seraphim (angels of the highest order), hovering in the air above the open grave.

This biblical-symbolic chalk drawing is richly adorned with metaphorical comparative images, depicting the transition from life to death in a figuratively understandable sense.

Apostle Paul challenges death and the grave. He states that through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, death has lost its power. For believers, it means passage to eternal life and not the end. See Bible verse “O grave, where is your victory?” (1 Corinthians 15:55).

* Two simplified representations of wayang puppet-like female beings (women in long dresses, floating here in a partially horizontal position as representatives of the good of the earth, with unnaturally long, wavy hair trailing behind them) float unrealistically above an open grave with long, symmetrically pleated and wavy skirts. Both women remove the overgrown thorny branches (earthly burdens) from the deceased man, whose head lies near the open grave. Thus, the person detaches himself from earthly life and suffering.

Three men (hidden in umbrella-like flowers on the right, barely visible in the image) try to keep the person here on earth with their grasping, claw-hands. These three represent earthly trials such as envy, jealousy, and hatred.

The deceased with the hanging-down legs is partially visible. Apparently, both legs appear to belong to the front lady in the long, fringed dress. To the left and right lie both grave covers, with the opened grave between them (unfortunately invisible due to an orange band with the text 80 c + Netherlands).

On the left and right lie both cover plates, with the opened grave between them (unfortunately invisible due to an orange band with the text 80 c + Netherlands).

Two trees with gnarled, drooping, mournful, and grasping branches (in the background) support both floating figures through form, movement, and direction. The whole is placed in an unreal, gloomy, and melancholic landscape.

In Toorop's imagination, he merges the religions of East and West into a whole through color, form, plane, and line. Dream and reality flow into one another.

When the First World War broke out in 1915, nearly a million Belgians fled to our country. The Royal National Relief Committee asked the business community to provide assistance. NOF / Calvé Delft issued ten different sealing stamps featuring artworks, including the NOF poster by designer Jan Toorop. The charity series, which cost ten cents, was a success, but was also a tremendous publicity stunt for the factory.

4) Advertising seal 'Dress salad with salad oil' (Art Nouveau / Jugendstil painting style)

Both heavenly women, with flowing, flowing hair and dressed in strikingly flamboyant clothing, fill the entire picture plane. The complex, rhythmically moving interplay of lines in the hair makes such an impression that Art Nouveau owes its nickname 'Salad Oil Style' to it.

The two aristocratic women are reminiscent of wayang puppets with the dynamic shadow play of the Indonesian island of Java, where Jan Toorop spent a large part of his childhood until he was eleven.

The seated lady dresses a salad in a large bowl with salad oil (from a bottle) as dressing, while the standing lady directs her gaze and hands upwards.

Peanuts from Senegal, from which the salad oil is pressed, are depicted almost at the top left of the stylized image.

To the right of that stands the crowned coat of arms of the factory with the initials NOF for Nederlandsche Olie Fabriek in Delft.

Before the drawing made in 1894, the public still had the patience to look at the meticulously drawn advertising plate. The advertising message conveyed by a few bottles of salad oil (top left and right) pales in comparison to the rhythmic interplay of lines in the outfits of both ladies.

5) Children's stamps 1923 in a clear linear / geometric design

From 1905, Toorop converted to Catholicism. Giving and receiving is an essential part of the faith. Catholics believe that everything they possess is ultimately a gift from God.

Through enlargements, the action of the hands—involved in giving and receiving humbly and submissively—is rendered more visibly on the blue stamp. Attentive eyes are involved in the action. The giver's backing consists of abundantly fruitful crops, while that of the receiver consists of barren, infertile crops.

In contrast, on the enlarged orange stamp, the spoken word underscores the act of giving and receiving. The giver and receiver look at each other with concern. The backdrop for both individuals consists of plant life in a flowering, round form. Both individuals are happy and elated. The reason? Charity has been practiced and gratitude is being radiated.

The symbolized interplay of communication between giver and receiver is clear, sleek, and stylized, executed with geometric planes and linear lines.

Over the years, Toorop applied the sharply outlined stamp images in his drawing style, entirely in accordance with the traditional outlining of the vision, customs, and way of life of the Catholic Church.