Herman Bieling artwork • painting • for sale A coloured little something

Jean-Louis Pisuisse (1880-1927) performed with his Cabaret Artistique from 1912. The painter Herman Bieling captures him here during one of his performances and uses a point of view in the back of the room. At least half of the canvas is occupied by the spectators, who sit on the amphitheatre-shaped seats and stand out darkly against the illuminated stage. Bieling thus achieves an atmosphere of tense watching, a means that, for example, Isaac Israëls also used before him. Pisuisse was one of the first comedians in the Netherlands. As a journalist he travelled to Paris at a young age, where he was impressed by the cabaret artistique 'Le Chat Noir' with Aristide Bruant and numerous other celebrities as the big star. Back in the Netherlands, he founded a full-fledged cabaret company and from 1912 organizes performances in the Kurhaus in Scheveningen. He himself brings songs with a powerful singing voice and holds conferences. With his erudition, international orientation and his leadership, Pisuisse had a great influence on the development and later flourishing of Dutch cabaret. In 1927, he and his wife, the singer Jenny Gilliams, were shot dead by her jealous lover on the Rembrandtplein.