Ferdinand Hart Nibbrig artwork • painting • for sale Bulbfields in Bennebroek
Ferdinand Hart Nibbrig
Amsterdam 1866-1915 Laren (N.H.)
1866-1915
Bulbfields in Bennebroek
oil on canvas 51.1 x 71.3 cm, signed l.r. and executed ca. 1900
This painting is for sale.
Price: € 105,000
After studying at the Rijkskademie in Amsterdam, Ferdinand Hart Nibbrig moved to Paris in 1888 to immerse himself in the ‘new’ artistic climate. There he came into contact with the work of the impressionist painters Claude Monet, Camille Pisarro, Georges Seurat and Vincent van Gogh. They broke with conventional painting traditions and painted in other techniques with bright, unmixed colours. Back in the Netherlands, Hart Nibbrig initially did not know how to process these impressions and spent a number of years searching for his own style. He experimented with various techniques to apply paint in still dark earth tones with little light-dark effect. But when, on the advice of his friend Simon Moulijn, he took a bicycle tour from Amsterdam in the spring of 1892 along the flowering bulb fields near Bennebroek and Hillegom, he knew what to do. The sight of this festival of colour changed his palette completely. The dark colours in a short brush stroke make way for fresh red, bright blue and white colours in a dotted technique that was supposed to depict the sparkling light. With this, Hart Nibbrig, together with ‘Co’ Breman, was one of the first painters in the Netherlands to use the pointillist technique to evoke a warm, summery atmosphere. When he made this painting, Hart Nibbrig was sitting on a slightly higher old dune wall in Bennebroek. These dune walls had been largely excavated in the 17th century and the sand had mainly been used for the urban expansion of Amsterdam. From around 1850/1860, this area was used for bulb cultivation. From where he was sitting, Hart Nibbrig had a good view of the somewhat lower bulb fields of Bakker and Van Lierop, the latter of whom had specialised in hyacinth cultivation. The house on the right is Huize Vrede-oord (now Bennebroekerlaan 31-33). In the middle of the painting we probably see Hotel-Restaurant De Nieuwe Geleerde Man, which burned down in 1927 and was rebuilt afterwards. With thanks to Martin Bunnik, Historical Society Heemstede-Bennebroek.