Gloom and Doom for one Dutch Impressionistic Painter

Anthonius Henricus “Toon” Koster 

(Jan. 19, 1913- Nov. 25, 1989)

Night City

$1,200

24 x 36”

Oil

Antonius "Toon" Koster, a renowned Dutch artist, was born in Schiedam, (South Holland) Netherlands in 1913. He went to the Art Academy in Rotterdam, Netherlands and became a painter, printmaker, industrial artist, enamellist and muralist.

During most of his artistic career he lived and worked in Nieuwkoop near the Nieuwkoopse Plassen.

Koster was a member of the Dutch Federation of Visual Artists, and died November 25, 1989 in Woerden, Netherlands.

Koster often used dark earthy colors and painted in broad coarse brush strokes, creating depressive and gloomy atmospheres; making for subtle impressionistic qualities.

When asked to which movement he belonged or which subjects he preferred, he answered: “There is no movement… and everything repeats itself.”

“Night City”, is a signature city-scape by Koster that exemplifies all that he was known for: boats, cities, gloom, illuminating sun/moon behind clouds, and his pictorial post WWII depressive metropolis.

A one point perspective only exacerbates the depressive complexity of the work with the angling of the drab buildings that line the boulevards, structures as borders for the blackened water in the industrial canal, a waterline that is cut midway down the composition with the three arched bridge.

 We are boxed in on three sides with the horizon line blocking an eternal view.  However, our release from the melancholy is up into the sky, but wait – impending catastrophes await us in the heavy snow laden billows that weigh down on us with only a glimmer of light; a false hope.

Friedrich Nietzsche once said “Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.” ‘Tis true when dealing with Anthonius Henricus “Toon” Koster.

© Gabriel Diego Delgado/ J.R. Mooney Galleries

Ph. (210).828.8214

Arches- Not the "golden" ones.. but they can still be painted Yellow

-Gabriel Diego Delgado

Let’s take a look at these often overlooked and sometimes ordinary oval openings of fine art, and how they work as compositional elements in impressionistic painting.

Golden Arches dot the super highway of pop culture; the iconic name stay of over 500 million served.

A far reaching structure that reminds us of a nostalgic time of childhood innocence when we knew our metabolism would allow us to indulge in the sweet satisfaction of fast food feasting; complete with toy or Coca-Cola.

Regressing even further, let’s look to an era of timeless fine art exploration and the portrayals of the curved architectural feature of arches in a time-honored tradition of impressionistic painting.

“Arches appeared as early as the 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamia”, says the trusted sources at Wikipedia.  Now, with that said, artists have been painting, drawing, and illustrating these profound architectural accents for well over…..humm…….let’s call it a long time -- with possible pictorial depictions early in our art history timelines of the ornate carvings and reliefs of The Arch of Titus, a 1st-century arch located in Rome.

With architectural expressions not spoken much in painting, artists seem reluctant to render a precise depiction of these structures, leaving the intention to trained architects, graphic designers, and the like who will work to get exactness vs. creative painterly expression.

But, every so often, artists will use such building constructions to emphasis the gateway as visual guides to planar differences; seeing through to the distant background, a hidden recluse, or a concealed gem -- an entry to the unknown.

In Erich Paulsen’s Summer Sails painting, the arch is slightly off center for it to be the focal point, but none-the-less, it plays a role as a major component in the composition.  We are able to look out beyond the villas and see the cerulean blue ocean, the port that awaits us; an inviting blue allure. Although his palette knife gestures add an impasto quality to the painting, his strokes illustrating the water change direction to a horizontal motion, mimicking the horizontal land-bridge and archway, its top level brown constructs; reinforcing the brown tiled roofs of the adjacent buildings.

In James F. Yi’s garden delight titled Summer Paradise, competing arches duel for attention. Closer examination reveals a tiered arch doorway shares a common side with another optical curve -- one that does not stop at a dead-end, but a more generalized easement to freedom -- to the wide open world along the ever expanding ocean waves, a current to take you away. Overall, Summer Paradise really is a play on dichotomies,  on one hand a blocked direction with a close door, an entry unrevealed; the other, a visual magnetism drawing us out.

Koster’s Night City evokes a more sinister evocation, a trembling sensibility of some sort of impending doom.  The overcast heavens bear down on us with god-like fury, a blackened sky that covers the cityscape in an ashy haze.  Snow-covered rooftops and barren trees suggest a frigid climate, but the waterways are unfrozen, allowing safe passage of the passing boats.  The arches in Night City are like a trifecta of hollow, barren and utilitarian tunnels leading the way to a banal canal.  All three are marked with a horizontal hint of white snow, a three level color scheme that rises from black, to white to grey -- a repeated color palette of the artist’s choice.

Robbins’ Flowers, Music and Waves is a colorful bounty of floral arrangements, household furniture, and a musical instrument. The piano is centered in the composition, with two arches on either side that make for a pseudo facial expression. Blue water as eyes and seaport as sockets; then you begin to play Dali-esque surrealism games to determine carpet as mouth and piano as nose. The point being these arches are symmetrically balanced with a full on view of the outside, providing a solid anchor to the overly hyped inside cluster of color.  The arches propose the possibilities of such inviting Mediterranean weather.

Arches are, and can be, fully functional compositional features that do two main jobs: they can act as an anchor to all compositional elements within the picture, and as portals that draw your eye beyond the foreground boundaries. Yes, the aspirations of arches; growing up to serve over 500 million in museums and galleries, not just along the highway.  

All the paintings are available for sale at J.R. Mooney Galleries of Fine Art

www.jrmooneygalleries.com