by Ton van Kalmthout
The Haagsche Kunstkring in art society life around 1900
The Haagse Kunstkring, founded in 1891, represents a unique attempt at collaboration between the arts and has occupied an essential place in the cultural life of The Hague since its inception. But how did this multidisciplinary association come about, and what made it different from established names such as Pulchri Studio and Oefening Kweekt Kennis?
In this article, Ton van Kalmthout takes us back to art life around 1900, a time when traditional associations struggled to connect with a new generation of artists. With historical depth and vivid detail, he outlines how the Haagse Kunstkring made its mark on the artistic community, as an association that not only gave room for freedom of expression, but also brought together different art forms and involved art lovers in innovative ideas.
This story shows how the Haagse Kunstkring grew into a platform for new art as well as a meeting place where collaboration and inspiration prevailed, in an era of great changes in the artistic milieu.
Van Kalmthout, “A friendly and useful association
Ton van Kalmthout
A friendly and useful association
The Haagsche Kunstkring in art society life around 1900 (1)
Introduction
In June 1891 an editorial appeared in the weekly magazine De Portefeuille, devoted to art and literature, on “Society life among artists”. It states that repeated attempts have been in vain to revive associational life – this “child of the nineteenth century” – among artists in Amsterdam. One of the few societies, says De Portefeuille, which managed to hold its own, is Arti et Amicitiae, which dates back to 1839, albeit that art and friendship “play war like the sails of the mill” and that it “stretched its sapless existence by a large piggy bank, over which a club of old gentlemen keeps watch, while the young people pay them a visit from time to time, like a cousin is obliged to a great uncle”.
That younger artists, in particular, no longer feel at home in the existing societies, according to the weekly, is not only due to the poshness and excessive ceremonial of some societies. There is also a gulf between celebrities and lesser gods, which detracts from pleasant intercourse. And in addition, De Portefeuille believes, there are differences in outlook on life and artistic beliefs, which have kept young people from joining.
In that respect, a great shortcoming is that the old organizations do not give sufficient shape to the interconnectedness of the various arts. What is lacking, the magazine states, is a “temple dedicated to the muses in which both the painter and the composer, the writer and the actor could build tabernacles. And that temple is lacking, “because one before the other will not provide a single stone for it, without that stone being marked with his name and each carrying his sacred cottage with him.” Still, De Portefeuille does see possibilities for renewed society life. In any case, there are enough artists who “could erect a bulwark in defense of the sacred rights of the beautiful, in the face of the unartistic masses,” while the fact that art societies are constantly being founded already indicates a certain need. (2)
The rise and flowering of the influential Hague societies Oefening Kweekt Kennis (1834) and Pulchri Studio (1847) in the sixties and seventies of the nineteenth century apparently could not undo the fact that society life in general was languishing and needed new impetus. Only after 1880 does it indeed seem to have received that impetus. And it seems that a particular group of societies, such as De Portefeuille advocated, had a special share in that revival. These societies were often composed of a society and separate sections for the branches of art they represented. The primary goal was to bring together enthusiasts and practitioners of those diverse disciplines. To this end, exhibitions and art reviews were organized as well as concerts, plays, recitals and lectures. And, if possible, a reading table and a library were set up, whether or not in their own society room, where the traditionally known “social gatherings” were held.
The founders of these new societies often used the designation “kunstkring” when naming them, a direct derivation from the French “cercle artistique et littéraire,” as various societies in Belgium and France were already called. The Cercle Artistique d’ Anvers is even referred to in the cited Portefeuille article as a model for the Kunstkring of The Hague.(3)
With such a name one distinguished oneself in the Netherlands from bodies, where a previous generation was supposed to hold a stoffige respectability. From the 1980s, the name “art circle,” in the words of the painter A.G.A. van Rappard, secretary of the Utrechtsche Kunstkring (1883), stood for “a convivial, casual Circle, in which Art is discussed, practiced and promoted.”(4)
Especially after 1910, the multidisciplinary connotation of the term seems to fade again somewhat. I am thinking, for example, of the renowned group of painters who from that year on, in Amsterdam and elsewhere, acted as the Modern Art Circle. However, where in the remainder of my story I refer to art circles, I am referring to societies that explicitly devoted themselves to the interconnection of visual art, music, literature, architecture and applied arts. None of these arts was given primacy in principle. Such a society was the Haagsche Kunstkring (Hague Art Society), which not only became one of the largest and best-known art circles, but also far exceeded the others in age. (The Rotterdamsche Kunstkring, founded in 1893, follows at 75.) Here the Hague society occupies a central place, as an example of the phenomenon of the multidisciplinary art circle, the emergence of which I will first discuss and the ideas on which it was based. After describing the founding history of the Haagsche Kunstkring and the artistic role it played in its early years of existence, I will highlight the place this type of association occupied in artistic association life around 1900.
Multidisciplinary art circles
It is obvious to see art circles as social exponents in the Western European tradition that envisioned a harmonious unity of the arts. As is well known, the idea of such a synthesis, partly following Richard Wagner’s idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk, took on very powerful contours in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. People looked back with nostalgia at idealized Middle Ages, which, in the monumental conception of the cathedral, would have seen a harmonious relationship between the various artistic disciplines before the separation of those disciplines had taken place in the Renaissance.
Alongside the idea of unity, however, grew an awareness of the mutual limitation of the arts. Indeed, not everyone was convinced that separation was again inevitably dissolved. Marcellus Emants, for example, took a diametrically opposed position to Wagner in 1876, when, after attending the Bayreuth Festival, he expressed the hope “that the separate arts will not withdraw from the new presumptuous sister out of excessive modesty.” For, according to Emants, art must seek its future precisely “in a limitation within its limits in every single field.”(5)
And even the disseminators themselves of Wagner’s work, Alphons Diepenbrock still complains in 1891, “are out of communion with the literature and painting” of that time.(6)
Yet that same year Emants had himself appointed chairman of the Fine Arts Department and a member of the general board at the Haagsche Kunstkring. This appointment was probably only possible because an association such as this was not so much aimed at fusion ascooperation of the arts. Reflection (in lectures, for example) on the unification of the arts was usually lacking and the name Wagner was not mentioned remarkably often. That is why these societies should be called multi-disciplinary rather than interdisciplinary: they proved their right to exist as stages on which artists-members and guests alike-could present a wide range of individual arts and artistic disciplines.
Although the founders of an art circle were usually artists, they ultimately made up only a limited part of the membership. After all, not every city could boast an artist corps like the one found in The Hague, for example, where working members were at least the powerful core of the association. The basis on which association life was founded with dues and entrance fees was formed by a much larger group of art-loving or ordinary members, who at the same time functioned as a relatively regular audience.
What the reach of a large art circle could be shows the Rotterdamsche Kunstkring, which in 1904, for example, had 775 members, 45 of whom had working member status. A concert conducted by Catherine of Rennes on December 10 of that year was attended by 278 members, who brought 450 guests. This attendance of a total of thus 728 listeners is called representative in the board minutes. (7)
Then again, these are numbers that most sister associations could only dream of, especially in the years when they were not yet a familiar phenomenon.
With that I return to the early days, when in the year 1882 the Haarlemsche Kunstnaarskring was constituted as “a union of letter-, painting-, tone-, construction- and other artists.” At that time it was still called “just about one of a kind” in the Netherlands. But a forward-looking correspondent of De Amsterdammer already wondered whether it would not make sense if “other places of any weight” would follow suit, so that in due course the Dutch would be able to “rely not only on an impenetrable net of telephones, but also on a no less dense fabric of art criticism, art practice and ditto expression.”(8)
The Kunstnaarskring itself was defunct after only a year, but indeed something almost like a network seemed to emerge as the phenomenon spread throughout the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies over the following decades. The word “kunstkring-opricht-mania” surfaced in the press – a mania with which the painter Jan Veth made fun of an announcement in the weekly De Amsterdammer, in which he replaced the names of the obligatory prominent figures with those of artists of the second tier:
Also under some reserve, we report that an Art Circle has been established at Schiermonnikoog. Already such men as J.D. Huibers, J. Taanman, J.G. Smits and Jan Striening would have pledged their benevolent cooperation. (9)
After the establishment of the Bossche Kunstkring in 1893, his secretary speaks of no less than “the daily rise” of such associations.(10)
So far, I have found about twenty in the period 1880-1914 in thirteen Dutch localities and three in the Dutch East Indies. The increased activity in society life is especially noteworthy because the understanding had become commonplace that an artist should be able to work on his art precisely in seclusion from society in order to achieve the best artistic performance. Artists, says the writer Herman Robbers, became “quite a species of wild animals” in the nineteenth century. (11)
In this sense, the younger generation faced the dilemma of forming an association of individualists. But at the end of the century, with the idea of the unity of the arts, the idea of community also gained ground. And it is therein that arguments are found to relativize the exclusive position of the artist. “As soon as the band presses,” writes the author P.A.M. Boele van Hensbroek in 1891, the personality asserts itself and…. stands alone, you think. No; its first work is to establish a new circle to live and work together and bind itself anew.(12)
That this personality would not be trapped again was guaranteed by the space allotted to the individual within the new art circles. They had to have the opportunity to hold different artistic views in an atmosphere of tolerance and freedom. I presume that it was this ideal of freedom – lying behind the statutory objectives – that contributed to a revival of the society after 1880. “Without freedom no art!” cries Boele van Hensbroek in connection with the Haagsche Kunstkring, which, he says, “after all, means nothing more than the convivial and useful identification of artists of every direction, of every opinion.”(13)
This liberal attitude also made it possible to present lesser-known art to a wider audience. In Rotterdam, for example, where the Kring board explicitly strived to bring what was otherwise rarely seen or heard, it was customary for the musicians performing there to fill half of a concert with works by Dutch composers. Nor should it be surprising that such a benevolent attitude provided room for the avant-garde. Although one did not want to antagonize the artistic establishment by virtue of the principle of freedom, it was mainly a younger generation that represented the artistic circles, certainly in the big cities. And what thus fell to the Randstad had more chance of penetrating to the hinterland, where an art circle such as the Vereeniging tot Opwekking van het Kunstleven in Deventer tried to awaken the slumbering love of the muses there as well. For even the smaller sisters, which usually existed for only a few years, cherished lofty ideals. Thus, those who founded an art circle in Haarlem in 1904 had just as much in mind an organization “of younger forces, who, averse to drudgery and convention art, courageously go into the future,” according to the first annual report, “without sitting down to easily won laurels and without falling into worship of recognized local authorities.”(14)
This confident tone regarding local fame marks the open character of the art circles. For although, as could already be deduced from its name, an art circle usually operated in a local context and its members came largely from a particular city, they deliberately focused their attention on the outside world. In the Haagsche Kunstkring the establishment of domestic and foreign relations was even a statutory requirement.(15)
For the time being, the conclusion seems justified, that a revival of society life occurred between 1880 and World War I, with art circles that can mostly be characterized as open and free societies where a new generation of art practitioners and – especially – art lovers could come into contact with unknown or modern art. Characteristic of this was the interconnection of the various arts (although only the Amsterdamsche Kunstenaarskring of 1892 went so far in this endeavor as to meet “at the unusual hour of midnight” so that actors and opera singers were better able to join).(16)
The Hague Art Circle
Founding an art society in The Hague in 1891 must have been an overconfident undertaking. After all, two of the most renowned societies in the Netherlands were already located here: the literary Oefening Kweekt Kennis and the painterly Pulchri Studio. It has been suggested that the initiator of the Circle, the painter Théophile de Bock, wanted to take on Pulchri out of personal resentment toward its chairman Hendrik Mesdag. The latter would have treated De Bock and his colleague George Breitner unfairly when they collaborated on Mesdag’s Panoramavan Scheveningen.(17)
But considering that this panorama was completed as early as 1881, one can assume that ten years later there were more pressing circumstances that made the time ripe for the Haagsche Kunstkring.
To begin with, there were a number of practical objections to Pulchri at the time. It was difficult to reach because of its remote location outside the city center, and it lacked a daily society and summer activities. Moreover, as its fame rose, the atmosphere had not become more convivial. As is well known, Pulchri owed its fame mainly to the painters of the Hague School, who therefore set the tone in the society. Those who ventured too far outside the Barbizon tradition saw their work exhibited in less conspicuous places, or, worse, on an easel. Thereby the somewhat younger artists, pointillist and symbolist oriented as they mainly were, not only lost all honor, but also the greater sales opportunities.
All this led to a high-running power struggle in Pulchri, won for the time being by what 23-year-old painter Johan Thorn Prikker calls “the old chappies,” and “the usual rotten bunch.” You know, he writes in a letter about the hatred and envy in Pulchri, “what kind of chappies are now on the board for example Willy Martens, Boudewijnse, Openoorth, Konijnenburg, Henkes, Duchattel and such bums more, so you understand that our chance of getting good places at the upcoming triennial [exhibition at the Academy of Fine Arts] and art reviews at Pulchri is now gone for good […].”(18)
This placement issue would play out in The Hague for years to come, but in the meantime was grist for De Bock’s mill.
At about the same time, things were rumbling in Exercise Breeds Knowledge. Here, too, the objection arose that only the old, realistic guard was covered, but above all there was opposition to the limited co-determination of ordinary members vis-à-vis working members, the undemocratic position of power held by the board, and to the soupers that that board put on for itself after the lectures, at the members’ expense (the so-called Servetje). In a letter to the editor in Het Vaderland, an anonymous Exercise member even appeals to his fellow members to stop taking it and threatens secession. It is high time, he thinks, that those ordinary members show that they no longer allow themselves to be rowed along in the boat that has the words: old-fashioned and self-serving on the forecastle. And then I applaud them for wanting to break away from a society that is run in this way. […] [Should] the board […] remain deaf, then I sincerely hope that a sufficient number of members may be found to go along with those who want to found a new Society with fresh, young forces. (19)
On May 1, 1891, the time had come. In café Riche, fourteen gentlemen met under the leadership of Théophile de Bock, “with the aim of founding an association, which would essentially promote free expression in every field of art.”(20)
Who else was part of this company cannot be fully traced; I have found about twenty-five names of people who would have been among those fourteen founders. Only De Bock and the writer Theodoor Tromp are mentioned as such in the first annual report.(21)
It is likely that painter Edzard Koning was also among the founders. Indeed, preliminary discussions had been held at his studio. And further, it is obvious that the first board members were present at the founding. In addition to De Bock and Tromp, they were the writer Willem Tengeler, the art dealer Arnold Hazelhoff Roelfzema and the painters Daniël Jordens, Pieter de Josselin de Jong and Adolf Lange. That makes eight in all; the remaining six remain to be guessed at. Among the serious candidates mentioned over time were Marcellus Emants and Jan Toorop, who may indeed be called members of the first hour. But about their founding status, therefore, I have not obtained certainty.
The meeting adopted the name of Haagsche Kunstkring at the suggestion of De Bock, who was elected its first president. It was also decided to have statutes drawn up and to apply for legal personality. Finally, the Afdeeling der Beeldende Kunst (Department of Fine Arts) was founded in one fell swoop. The Afdeeling der Fraieie Letteren would follow on December 7, 1891; the Afdeeling der Toonkunst on March 3, 1892; and the Afdeeling der Kunstindustrie was established in May 1892, but I have not been able to find out the exact date. The same is true of the Society, initially the fifth and last department, which was probably established before August 1, 1891.
According to the first statutes, these sections were to work together to achieve the following goal:practice of:
1. the Visual Arts;
2. the Fine Letters;
3. the Toonkunst, and
4. the Arts Industry,
and in particular promotion of, affiliation with and cooperation between the practitioners of the various arts.
As the appropriate means to achieve that end, these bylaws list:
The holding of exhibitions, lectures, recitals, musical and other performances, the collection of books, the establishment of a society for social intercourse among members, the establishment of relations both within and outside the Empire and other such means.
This was a program that caught on, as membership had already reached the respectable size of about 340 members after just one year. Thus, the Art Circle had become a dangerous competitor to Exercise Breeds Knowledge. Although this society was called literary, it was actually more culturally and historically oriented and thus largely aimed at the same audience as the Circle. Exercise struggled to withstand that competition and lost its leading position to the Arts Circle, among others.
Pulchri proved considerably more resilient to the new association, although the rivalry was all the greater because of it. While the competition was covered as much as possible with pleasantries, the relationship was cool to say the least, with each striving to outdo the other with exhibits or with the association building. This race culminated in 1898, when the Kring traded in its rented premises in the Passage at number 2 for its own accommodation at 13 Heerengracht, and Pulchri also suddenly moved into a more centrally located building, on Lange Voorhout.
With a cartoon in De Nederlandsche Spectator, Pulchri and Kring member Willem van Konijnenburg publicized this “Haagsche Kunst-race.” (23)
Offended, Willy Martens climbed into the pen on behalf of Pulchri for a letter to the Spectator, in which he still tries to deny Pulchri’s competitive intentions. To which the editor replied to him in a postscript: “We merely observed a race, which exists.”(24)
But painting was only one facet of society life in the Kunstkring,which as a whole was perhaps better expressed in the society. It was set up primarily to ensure unity within the society and, in addition, was to become the center of the “artistically developed part of the nation.”(25)
It served primarily as a meeting place for art lovers and artists of various disciplines, and as such was the hub around which club life revolved. Here people conversed and met, played billiards and cards. And those who, on the contrary, sought peace and quiet retreated to the reading room, where the librarian had provided the usual periodicals in German, English, French, Italian and Dutch. In 1894, for example, 27 different magazines were available for perusal. People could also use the writing desk or borrow a book from the small library. The society regularly held social gatherings at which, for example, a smaller musical or literary recital or an art review was given. Such gatherings, moreover, were held after a larger performance. The painter Frans Smissaert describes a pleasant meeting after a performance of the Frauie Letteren department. There they partied late into the night with can-can music on the piano, while someone gave a parody of Faust, for which the maid of the Circle had to lend herself as Gretchen. In addition to De Bock and Emants, a toast was given by the painter Tony Offermans who, standing on a chair that in turn was on a table, simultaneously balanced a glass of beer on his head, holding a walking stick clasped in one hand and a champagne bottle with a Gouda pipe in the other. Only the glass of beer came down.(26)
Art reviews, performances and lectures in the society were more modest in scope and pretension than the activities that emanated directly from the four art departments. After all, these departments organized their activities with the goal of presenting their art in itself, without social ulterior motives. And these were also the activities with which the Kring went public.
If I had to summarize in one word the significance of many of these activities – and thus of the young society itself, it would be innovation. This took place alongside, and probably thanks to, the presentation of art that had already more than proved its worth. But – in the words of Marcellus Emants, chairman of the Board of Letters – “it has always been the intention that the H.K.K. should give something special, something that another school did not or could not give, something original that attracts.
In this regard, it did not stop at the famous Van Gogh exhibition in May/June 1892. (28)
Looking back at the concerts of the Toonkunst department, for example, one sees that it too has kept to its explicit intention to perform as many contemporary and Dutch composers as possible in addition to unknown older works.(29)
In the Fine Arts department, a simpler and more stylish performance practice than had previously been the norm was advocated for the stage. The small Art Industry department was in line with the rapidly growing interest in monumental architecture, applied arts and decorative arts, strongly supported by Fine Arts.
In turn, this department paid great attention to the then rapidly emerging graphic technique. And in addition, it tried to contribute to the revival of sculpture, which had fallen into decline, to which end the work of sculptors was often deliberately exhibited in the most conspicuous places. Thus, the first exhibition of the Kring, held in August/September 1891, was already intended to show “the seriousness of the Kring’s endeavor to do justice to all the arts as much as possible and to give sculpture, hitherto so poorly served in the country, a place of honor.
And in all these departments there was a special interest in such modernities as medieval and Oriental art – an interest that received its first powerful impulse with the August/September 1893 exhibition of Japanese prints, graced with Oriental arts and crafts. The exhibition was largely composed of the famous collection of the Parisian Samuel Bing, to whom the exhibition committee wrote: “Nous avons l’intention de ranimer l’intérêt pour l’art Japonnais et Chinois.”(31)
Unfortunately, I must suffice here with a summary overview, without doing justice to all those individual artists and artistic expressions, which gave shape to this renewal.(32)
But it should be clear that the progressive attitude of the Kunstkring is expressed above all in the presentation of new or rediscovered forms of expression and the practice of new or renewed branches of art. The Kring’s tendency to venture into uncharted territory is also evident in its attempts to contribute to a change in exhibition practice in general by a sober, well-considered arrangement of what is exhibited, possibly amidst special plant decorations or appropriate utensils. For example, De Bock’s successor, general chairman Mr. F.W.J.G. Snijder van Wissenkerke, emphasized in his opening speech at the International Invitational Exhibition of July/August 1895 “that the now-given “Triennials” were reminiscent of the halls of wealthy parvenus, who crammed their salons with gilt-edged paintings, and that here at this exhibition only two were found one above the other.”(33)
Following in the footsteps of the Brussels artist association Les XX, the Kunstkring also provided lectures and musical performances amidst the exhibits.
The opportunity par excellence to realize the statutory objective of connection and cooperation between the various arts must have been the so-called art evenings. These were large-scale events of which the first in The Hague was attributed to the Kunstkring. The Frauie Letteren department provided texts, actors and speakers; Toonkunst provided compositions and performing musicians; and Beeldende Kunst and Kunstindustrie provided the sets, the puppets for the shadow plays (also considered one of the Kring’ s hautes nouveautés ), the hall decorations, the program booklets and designs for tableaux vivants.
How glorious an evening of art could be becomes clear to anyone who imagines that organizers sometimes did not mind hiring a string orchestra or recruiting a mixed choir to perform in specially made costumes. Nor did the decorators shy away from covering the hall up to and including the ceiling with textiles, and when it was convenient, they had a lantern made with which, for example, a sunrise could be imitated. Not surprisingly, the Art Society was in danger of becoming ailing when the cost of the November 26, 1896 art evening approached the sum of f 2,000. That the number of activities of more modest size has far outnumbered the number of art evenings will be obvious.
In addition to exhibitions and musical performances, the Arts Circle also got involved with lectures and readings on topics related to literature, painting, sculpture, crafts, architecture and art in general (the first years, curiously, not on musical issues). For example, Auguste Vermeylen was present when Emile Verhaeren lectured on “Les esthétiques littéraires contemporaines” at a Toorop exhibition in April/May of that year on April 19, 1894.
With such guests, the Kring gained a reputation among its contemporaries for being exceptionally open to what was new. When the poet Albert Verwey invited his colleague Stefan George to the Netherlands to read about modern German literature, the latter replied that he would prefer to speak for an artists’ society. “Don’t you agree”, Verwey then wrote to Lodewijk van Deyssel, “that the only one is the Haagsche Kunstkring? They also asked Verhaeren at the time.”(34)
On March 28, 1896, George performed at the society. It was one of the many occasions when the Haagsche Kunstkring functioned as a lock through which foreign art entered the Netherlands. This function is evident first of all from the existence of the Kunstkring in itself. It connected with foreign examples by bringing different branches of art to cooperation, upheld the idea of freedom and oriented itself abroad. In turn, it served as a model for Dutch sister societies and was thus one of the media through which the phenomenon of the free and multidisciplinary society came to the Netherlands.
Second, the Society was a conduit for new ideas and means of expression from abroad. And by abroad I mean especially France and the then strongly French-oriented Belgium. For example, at least half of the lectures given at the Art Society in the 1990s were given by French speakers and French-speaking Belgians. This lock function was probably made possible in large part by the principle of freedom. Looking through the first membership lists, one gets the impression that the members themselves were generally more conservative. Presumably their artistic preferences were more towards the depiction of sensory reality. This was diametrically opposed to the plea of a Sar Mérodack Joséphin Peladan, the French novelist and playwright, who on November 12, 1892, in the presence of Paul Verlaine, delivered a controversial lecture on “L’art et l’amour selon la magie doctrinée des Rose + Croix,” in which he argued in favor of the depiction of a transcendental reality in modern art. That space was nevertheless created for such a controversial figure as this magician was only possible because of the tolerance with which dissenters in the Circle were treated. Thus, within one society, the new could present itself alongside the old.
Portrait by Pieter de Josselin de Jong (1861-1906) of Ed. Risler, during his performance on November 3, 1898. Under his signature this pianist placed the exclamation “vive d’Indy!”, thus referring to the signature of Vincent d’Indy (1851-1931) who had visited the Art Society on February 17, 1893 with ErnestChausson (1855-1899). On February 2, 1896, Alexander Skrjabin (1872-1915) added his own.
The signatures of Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) and the novelist Sar Mérodack Joséphin Peladan, Grand Maître de la Rose + Croix du Temple et du Graal (1859-1918), placed in the Golden Book of the Haagsche Kunstkring on their visit on November 12, 1892. According to the caption by Henricus (pseudonym of Hendricus Jansen, 1867-1921, many members witnessed the placement of signatures.
The art association life
When, finally, I turn to the question of how multidisciplinary societies like the Haagsche Kunstkring related to earlier and contemporary forms of sociability, it should be stated at the outset that relatively little is known about club life after 1850. But by now it does seem certain that in the mid-nineteenth century a period of society malaise set in, in which only the phenomenon of the rederijkerskamer, which devoted itself to eloquence, was able to take off.(35)
Remnants of this “oral cult” can still be found in the history of later art circles. The association Ontwikkeling door Oefening (1902), from which the Haarlemsche Kunstkring emerged in 1904, and the art group In Consten Eén, founded that same year in Nijmegen, wanted to get their members, among other things, to “practice speaking.”(36)
There are also lines to societies and leading associations that focused on one discipline, such as Oefening Kweekt Kennis, Pulchri Studio and Arti et Amicitiae. For although I have just shown a direct connection between the founding of the Haagsche Kunstkring and the then as old-fashioned institution of Pulchri and Oefening, the new societies derived the means by which they pursued their aims largely from such societies. There is, observes the painter-publicist Isaacson with regard to the Haagsche Kunstkring, “no question therefore of new means: lectures, readings, exhibitions, allesschon dagewesen.” (37)
On the other hand, relations can be established with non-institutionalized predecessors, such as discussion groups that met in cafés or private salons. The Katholieke Kunstkring De Violier (1901) took its name from, among others, De Vioolstruik, the company that gathered at the home of its great predecessor J.A. Alberdingk Thijm in the 1960s and 1970s. And De Portefeuille, in its plea for an Amsterdam art circle, recalls the beer hall De Bavaria, which in the 1980s had naturally become a kind of society, where scientists and politicians exchanged artistic and political views with painters, writers, musicians and architects.(38)
In the Hague case, a similar example can be found in the beer club Het Vlondertje, a group of artists who, after 1875, met every Saturday at café Lincke and discussed new developments such as Wagnerism, Naturalism and Impressionism. Later Kring members like Marcellus Emants and Théophile de Bock must have already nurtured here the ideal of freedom that fifteen years later would underlie the founding of the Haagsche Kunstkring. (39)
Some forty years later, in 1913, Karel van de Woestijne still calls the tendency toward organization “specially Hollandsch.”(40)
This tendency has meanwhile undergone a substantial change, which could be described as socialization: from the practice and promotion of art, the attention of the art association life broadened to the extra-artistic terrain of material advocacy and social or religious involvement. Here, of course, I am thinking particularly of two important nineteenth-century emancipation movements, which also asserted themselves in society contexts: the socialists and the Catholics.The Roman Catholic cause not only found an influential advocate in the aforementioned art circle De Violier, which manifested itself not only in Amsterdam but also with branches in Rotterdam (1905/06) and The Hague (1906/07); there was also the no less Catholic art circle Oisterwijk Omhoog (1912), which bravely resisted “the cancer of neutrality” in the dark South.(41)
However, the Oisterwijkers did not have to fear that socialites would also penetrate the Dutch art circles. With their relatively high membership fees, membership was simply not available to artisans or the lower middle classes. Those who were socially less fortunate could go for “higher art” to popular associations which, as multidisciplinary as the art circles, came into vogue after 1900 with a movement originating in the German-speaking world that wanted to bring “art to the people.” Nor did the art circles pose the social question by advocating the improvement of artists’ material conditions. That was to be done by artists’ unions specifically set up for this purpose, such as the Vereeniging van Letterkundigen, which dates back to 1905. Not until the latter took the initiative in 1911 to found the Verbond van Nederlandse Kunstenaarsvereenigingen did artistic and social interests seem to be reconciled to some extent. Hence the Haagsche Kunstkring could participate in this mammoth organization with a clear conscience. According to Herman Robbers, chairman of the Association, it does not only want to “assure more power to the whole artistic world”. It also aims – and this sounds familiar again – “through constant contact between different artists, especially by teaching them to cooperate on the most ordinary things, to bring about more unity, thereby more harmony, and thus l… to obtain a more monumental art.”(42)
1 This contribution relies on merging and editing two articles that I previously published as “De Haagsche Kunstkring 1891-1900” and “Temples devoted to the muses, Multidisciplinary art circles in the Netherlands between 1880 and 1914,” in The Nineteenth Century, 13 (1989) 2 (June), pp. 91-105, and 14 (1990) 1 (Mar.), pp. 95-110, respectively. To these I refer for a more comprehensive set of notes than one finds here.
2 “Society life among artists” in The Portfolio, June 13, 1891, pp. 807-808, and June 20, 1891, pp. 821- 822.
3 “Society Life,” p. 822.11
4 A.G.A. van Rappard in Verslag van den Utrechtschen Kunstkring over het jaar 1883-84, Uitgebracht ter Algemeene Vergadering van 23 November 1884, p. 2-3.
5 M. Emants, “From Bayreuth,” included in J. Fontijn, Leven in extase, Opstellen over mystiek en muziek, literatuur en decadentie circa 1900, Amsterdam 1983, p. 80-81. For Emants’ views on the incompatibility of music and dramatic art and on the division of the arts, see also N.M.H. Maas, Marcellus Emants’ views on art and life in the period 1869-1877, Arnhem 1988, pp. 174-175 and 190-192, respectively.
6 A. Diepenbrock, “About Verhulst,” in De Nieuwe Gids 6 (1891) dl. I, p. 142.
7 Minutes main board Rotterdamsche Kunstkring, Dec. 16, 1904 (GA Rotterdam).
8 “Haarlemsche letters, Art sense, substantial and apparent,” in De Amsterdammer, Weekblad voor Nederland, Feb. 18, 1883, p. 3.
9 De Amsterdammer, Weekly, Mar. 19. 1893.
10 Letter J.A. Cornelissen on behalf of the Bossche Kunstkring to a “Weledele Heer, 30 Mar. 1893 (GA Rotterdam, arch. RKK).
11 E. d’Oliveira, The younger generation, (Sequel to “The men of ’80”), Conversations with representatives of the newer direction in our literature; also a survey of some principles in our national spiritual life, Illustrated, 2nd ed., Amsterdam 1920, p. 113.
12 Flanor [= P.A.M. Boele van Hensbroek], “Vlugmaren,” in De Nederlandsche Spectaror, May 30, 1891, p. 177.
13 B.v.H. [= P.A.M. Boele van Hensbroek], “In den Haagschen Kunstkring,” in De Nederlandsche Spectator, Jan. 21, 1893, p. 25.
14 W. van Diedenhoven in Haarlemse Kunstkring, Jaarverslag over het Vereenigingsjaar 1904-1905, p. 7. After the Kunstnaarskring of 1882, this Kunstkring was preceded by a Haarlemsche Kunstclub founded in 1894.
The minutes of the first society meeting on December 6, 1892, dealing, among other things, with the use of the Golden Book. Henricus illustrated them with portraits of the painter Edzard Koning (1869-1954) and society president J.J.H. van Frankenhuijsen. The latter he calls “Mr. le Juge d’Instruction” in reference to the strict regulations advocated by the president. In view of the outward resemblance, Henricus also depicts him as a cat.
15 Statutes of the Vereeniging Haagsche Kunstkring, The Hague, 1892, art. II.
16 Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, Dec. 20. 1892.
17 See, e.g., an undated letter from H.A. Wegerif, containing memories of the painter Simon Moulijn, recorded Apr. 4, 1940 (GA The Hague, arch. HKK).
18 Prikker reports on the struggle for power in Pulchri in his letters to Borel c.s., Oct. 2, 1892, Nov. 27, 1892, Dec. 6-9, 1892 and Feb. 10-12, 1893, in J. Thorn Prikker, The letters from – to Henri Borel and others,12 1892-1904, With excerpts by way of introduction from Henri Borel’s diary 1890-1892, Compiled and illustrated by Joop M. Joosten, Nieuwkoop 1980, pp. 68, 81, 87 and 92, respectively. The last quotation is on p. 87. In addition to Willy Martens, Prikker here has in mind A.J.P. Boudewijnse, Willem Oppenoorth, Willem van Konijnenburg, G. Henkes and F.J. van Rossem du Chattel.
19 This letter opens a polemic between the Exercise member signed with X and Arnold L.H. Ising, president of Exercise. The polemic is conducted under the heading “Exercise” or “Exercise Breeds Knowledge” in Het Vaderland, June 17 (with an “Improvement” on June 18), June 20, June 28/29 and June 30, 1891.
20 Haagsche Kunstkring, First Annual Report, 1891/92, p. 1.
21 Haagsche Kunstkring, First Annual Report, 1891/92, pp. 1 and 3.
22 Statutes of the Vereeniging “Haagsche Kunstkring” at The Hague,[1892], art. II-III
23 Print at The Dutch Spectator, Feb. 5. 1898.
24 De Nederlandsche Spectator, Feb. 12, 1898, p. 55.
25 Haagsche Kunstkring, First Annual Report, 1891/92, p. 12.
26 Diary papers of Mr. F.A.E.L. Smissaert, Feb. 26, 1894 (GA The Hague, arch. HKK).
27 Minutes of main board HKK, Mar. 26, 1894 (GA The Hague).
28 See, e.g.. T. van Kalmthout, “The sicknesses of this sad end of the century, The breakthrough of the art of the Fin-de-Siècle in the Haagsche Kunstkring,” in Yearbook Die Haghe 1989, pp. 131-145. Recent writing on the Van Gogh exhibition has also been done by M. Op de Coul, “The Van Gogh exhibition at the Haagsche Kunstkring,” in M. van der Mast & Ch. Dumas (ed.), Van Gogh and The Hague, tent.-cat., Zwolle [1990], pp. 166-169, and by A. Ligthart, “Vincent van Gogh & Théophile de Bock,” in Young Holland 6 (1990) 6, pp. 18-34, esp. 30-32.
29 Haagsche Kunstkring, Second Annual Report 1892-1893 and list of names of members, p. 6.
30 Haagsche Kunstkring, First Annual Report, 1891/92, p. 2-3.
31 Copy letter to S. Bing, July 15, 1893 (GA The Hague, arch. HKK).
32 For this I refer to the contributions by G. Knuttel, S. Mouliin and A.H. Wegerif in cat. Jubilee exhibition Haagsche Kunstkring 189-1941, The Hague (1941); and by R. de Leeuw, R. Eggink & P. Fuhring, A. Vogel and Chr. Verhoog in Haagse Kunstkring: work collected, The Hague 1977.
33 “International Invitation Exhibition of the ‘Haagschen Kunstkring’ at the Academy of Visual Arts in The Hague,” in Amhemsche Courant, July 20, 1896.
34 Letter Verwey to George, Dec. 30, 1895, in Albert Verwey and Stefan George, The documents of their friendship, Collected and explained by Mea Nijland-Verwey, Amsterdam 1965, pp. 13-14; letter George to Verwey, Feb. 3, 1896, in idem, p. 16; letter Verwey to Van Deyssel, Feb. 4, 1896, in L. van Deyssel & A. Verwey, De briefwisseling tussen -, Met een woord vooraf en voorzien van aantekeningen bezorgd door Harry G.M. Prick, dl. 2, The Hague 1985, p. 163.
35 See W. van den Berg, “Sociability, sociability and the oral cult,” in M. Spies (ed.) Historical Literature, Facets of Professional Practice […], Groningen [1984], esp. pp. 167-169.
36 Reglement der Kunst-Vereeniging: Ontwikkeling door Oefening te Haarlem,[1902], art. 1, and Statutes & Regulations of the Vereeniging In Consten Een, [1904], art. 2.
37 J.J. Isaacson, “Artists’ Association,” in The Portfolio, Mar. 19, 1892, p. 1259.
38 “Society life,” pp. 821-822.
39 E. van Uitert, “Visual art and music,” in Kunstenaren der idee, Symbolist tendencies in the Netherlands, c. 1880-1930, […], The Hague 1978, p. 69, points to the Vlondertje as a precursor to the Haagsche Kunstkring.
40 D’Oliveira, The Younger Generation, pp. 46-47.
41 KKOO board minutes, p. 1 (GA Oisterwijk).
42 D’Oliveira, The Younger Generation, p. 114.