5.4 Artistic quest
In the evenings he often visited a – probably private – drawing academy. In order to practise his drawing skills, he would have liked to copy old masters in various ‘galleries’, but those collections turned out to be accessible only ‘by bribing the custodians of the cardinal’s palaces’.1 Although he drew inspiration from the work of famous colleagues such as Johann Friedrich Overbeck (1789-1869) and August Riedel (1799-1883), he soon abandoned his initial enthusiasm for modern art in Rome. Koelman proved to be picky: ‘Rome is full of paintings, but many that initially seemed good to me, I would now gladly see burned at the stake, as they only confuse our judgement.’ He characterised the exhibition of the Società degli Amatori e Cultori delle Belle Arti at the Porta del Popolo as ‘shitty miseria of five or six wretched pieces’.2 But two years later, Koelman himself would exhibit at the Società.
Koelman’s quest also led to a gradual distancing from his Dutch artistic roots. On 1 October 1841, he confessed to Bosboom he would see his teacher Cornelis Kruseman (1797-1857) again in Italy, but would definitely not to work with him. ‘CK’ would probably ‘ruin [a reunion] by asking me to do a few brushstrokes for him’ [4].3 He would therefore decline Kruseman’s invitation to spend the winter of 1841-1842 together on Ischia, much to the latter’s irritation. Koelman also kept his distance from Kruseman because he no longer liked his style. In his letter to Ehnle, he characterised it as ‘a hodgepodge of knowledge and affectation, revealed by its great pretension or pomposity’.4
At the same time, he was searching for his own style and subject matter. He criticised pompous history painting, with its large formats, sacred themes and the well-trodden paths of national history after 1600. Instead, he preferred the Middle Ages and small figures, ‘expressed with great truth’.5 Apart from some studies in the campagna, these insights had not yet translated into great productivity: ‘You know,’ he wrote to Enhle in 1842, ‘how I always make plans, abandon them to look for new ones, which are no better, and in the end I don’t do a cazzo [a damn thing].’6
4
Pieter van Loon,
Portrait of Cornelis Kruseman, seated in an armchair, Rome 1844,
pencil on paper, 35,5 x 25 cm,
Special Collections Leiden University Library, inv no. PK-T-AW-2354
Notes
1 ‘door omkoping der Gustoden der Kardinaals palaizen’, Koelman to Bosboom, 1 October 1841, HG/SB, inv. no. 663.
2 Respectively ‘Rome is vol schilderijen, doch vele die mij eerst goed toeschenen, zou ik gaarne op de brandstapel zien, daar zij ons oordeel maar confuus maken’; ‘kloterige miseria van 5 of 6 ellendige stukken’, Koelman to Ehnle, 3-4 January 1842, RKD, Archive Adriaan van der Willigen (NL-HaRKD.0392), ‘Brieven Koelman’.
3 ‘verknoeien [...] door mij te verzoeken enige penseelstreekjes voor hem te doen’, Koelman to Bosboom, 1 October 1841, HG/SB, inv. no. 663.
4 ‘een mengelmoes van kennis en gemanierdheid, met een groote pretentie of winderigheid aan het licht gebracht’, Koelman to Ehnle, 3-4 January 1842, RKD, Archive Adriaan van der Willigen (NL-HaRKD.0392), ‘Brieven Koelman’.
5 ‘met groote waarheid uitgedrukt’, Koelman to Ehnle, 3-4 January 1842, RKD, Archive Adriaan van der Willigen (NL-HaRKD.0392), ‘Brieven Koelman’.
6 ‘hoe ik immer plannen maak, ze laat varen om nieuwe te zoeken, die niet beter zijn, en op stuk van zaken geen cazzo uitvoer’, Koelman to Ehnle, 3-4 January 1842, RKD, Archive Adriaan van der Willigen (NL-HaRKD.0392), ‘Brieven Koelman’.