Lot 20: Jan Verkade (Dutch, 1868-1946)

Graveyard in Palestine
signed 'Verkade.' (lower right)
oil on canvas laid down on plywood
24 x 24 cm.
Painted circa 1910.

Amsterdam, Vincent van Gogh Museum, Jan Verkade, 11 March-21 May 1989.
Albstadt, Städtische Galerie Albstadt, Jan Verkade, 1 October-3 December 1989.

Caroline Boyle-Turner, Jan Verkade. Hollandse volgeling van Gauguin, Zwolle 1989, cat.no. 81, p. 159 (ill.)

Family of the artist, thence by descent.

When in 1909 painter monk Jan Verkade was looking forward to returning to Fiesole in Tuscany after having worked in Münich for a few years, his superior, the abbot in Beuron, had other plans for him. He sent Verkade to Palestina to decorate the chapter room of the Sion monastry near Jerusalem. There, besides this commissioned project Verkade mainly depicted non-religious subjects, trying to recapture some of the spontaneity of his earlier synthetic work. Synthetism (striving for a synthesis of emotions, the observation of nature and the pure formal characteristics of line) colour and form was developed by Paul Gauguin and artists like Emile Bernard and Paul Sérusier, whom Verkade had befriended at the beginning of the 1890's when living in Paris. After his stay in Palestina Verkade moved to Vienna in 1912.

The present lot, Graveyard in Palestina, shows that Verkade was aiming for a well organised composition, using straight lines. Within this strict order he would repeat the small triangular cipresses and the round shapes of the other trees, possibly olive trees. The present lot is the final version of this subject, two earlier sketches are known. All pictures show a limited use of colour. In this version the shapes are fixed, without concealing the loose brush strokes from his synthetic period, which he had rediscovered in his Münich still lifes. The brush strokes flatten the shapes and create a series of horizontal planes placed above each other rather than behind each other in space. (C. Boyle-Turner, Jan Verkade, Zwolle 1989, p. 160.)

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