Jacob Abelsartist • painter • watercolourist • draughtsmanAmsterdam 1803-1866 Abcoude

Jacob Abels initially painted summer landscapes, but increasingly concentrated on painting river and city views by moonlight. These 'nocturnes', also called 'moonshine', connected with the romantic admiration of his contemporaries for the mysterious, embodied in the atmosphere of night and moonlight. The moonscapes of the 17th-century painter Aert van der Neer were his example.

Abels comes from an Amsterdam merchant family. His parents sent him to boarding school in Hilversum, where he came into contact with artists such as B.C. Koekkoek and Willem Bodeman who lived and worked there temporarily. In Hilversum he took lessons at the drawing school of Jan van Ravenswaay and Pieter Gerardus van Os. Abels married the daughter of Van Os and after 1830, together with his parents-in-law, moved to The Hague for a long time. For the upholstery on his landscapes, Abels liked to work with his father-in-law P.G. van Os and brother-in-law P.F. from Os.

Initially, Abels painted summer landscapes. Around 1840 Abels started what would eventually become his specialization, the 'nocturne'. Night scenes, where he focused on a few subjects, village and river views by evening and moonlight and fire in larger cities. Abels tried as much as possible to translate the atmosphere that Van der Neer evoked in the 17th century into the 19th century, without using the colour black. Most of his paintings are painted in different shades of brown, applied in several layers. That gave a certain translucency, so that the light could still play through it. Because the position of the moon is always low, it shines through the clouds and the painting gets light and depth. Another characteristic of his paintings is the high water level, in which the houses and mills almost seem to sink. He often depicts a boat with fishermen in the middle of his paintings, as his contemporary Andries Schelfhout also did in the nocturnes he occasionally made.

From 1848 Abels settled in Haarlem. He spent the last years of his life in Arnhem and Abcoude. In addition to paintings, Abels also made many watercolors and drawings. He was a member of the Royal Academy in Amsterdam and won medals at several exhibitions.