Beach in Scheveningen

The landscape presents a fragment of a beach in a well-known Dutch seaside resort in Scheveningen, at a distance of 6 km from the centre of the Hague, which is nowadays the administrative capital of the Netherlands. At the beginning of the 19th century, it was a quiet fishermen’s settlement with a sandy coast, a wide beach and small dunes overgrown with vegetation, directly adjoining the buildings. Identification of the location was possible on account of the tower with the characteristic cupola, namely Oude Kerk by Keizerstraat, which is seen behind the dunes subtly highlighted with soft sunlight. Next to it, roofs of adjoining buildings are visible; in the background, a two-tower façade of another church is also noticeable. The beach features a number of keel boats dragged to the shore; few others are sailing nearby. The focus of the painting is on nature: it is a peculiar study of the sky, which fills a predominant portion of the composition (the line of the horizon is in 1/3 of the painting). Small silhouettes of people strolling on the beach enliven the composition. A man wearing a cylinder and riding a horse, slightly closer to the viewer, was painted ˗ it seems ˗ in a scale different than other persons. The mode of painting confirms the artist's mastery of the miniature technique. The work was probably made by Johannes Hari I, the student of Jean George Teissier. Hari is primarily known as the author of numerous portrait miniatures, even though he also painted genre scenes and large format portraits. Johannes Hari II (1807-1887) continued the painting tradition in the family; similarly to his father, he lived in the Hague for all his life and also painted genre scenes, portraits and cityscapes. At the present stage of studies, on account of insufficient comparative material, it is difficult to unequivocally determine the author of the Szczecin painting, which could have been created in the 1830s, when both artists were active.

Dariusz Kacprzak