Floris Arntzenius artwork • watercolour • drawing • previously for sale Passion

Arntzenius made several versions of Hartstocht, a depiction inspired by a passage from the book 'Een passie, analyse van een gemoedsstaat' by Vosmeer de Spie, pseudonym of Maurits Wagenvoort (1859-1944). The book must have provoked criticism at the time. Wagenvoort writes in a naturalistic way about human nature and all his desires. The first six publishers did not dare to publish, publisher D. Buys Dz. ventured into the publication of this 'immoral book' in 1891. In the watercolour we see a man, probably Arntzenius himself, in close embrace with his lover. One critic wrote that the passion here was expressed as 'two souls glowingly forged together.'