Jan Toorop

Dutch

25 paintings in our database

Toorop was one of the most important figures in Dutch and Belgian Symbolism and his influence on subsequent Dutch art was profound — Mondrian's early symbolist paintings show direct Toorop influence before his turn toward abstraction. Toorop's Symbolist style is among the most distinctive and personal in European art — a synthesis of Javanese wayang puppet theatre, Pre-Raphaelite line, Japanese decorative pattern, and European Art Nouveau into an image-world of great strangeness and beauty.

Biography

Jan Toorop (1858–1928) was a Dutch-Javanese painter born in Java who became one of the most important and stylistically versatile artists in Dutch and Belgian Symbolist art. Born in Purworejo, Java (then Dutch East Indies), to a Dutch colonial official, he grew up in the East before moving to the Netherlands and later to Brussels, where he studied at the Brussels Academy. He became a member of Les XX in Brussels alongside van Rysselberghe and absorbed the full range of European avant-garde currents passing through that group — Impressionism, Neo-Impressionism, and Symbolism. His early work includes straightforward naturalist portraits and landscapes — Portrait of Annie Hall (1885), Schaatsenrijders (1885) — but from around 1890 his style underwent a dramatic transformation. Under the influence of his Javanese background, Pre-Raphaelite art, and Symbolist imagery, he developed a highly personal art nouveau Symbolist manner characterised by flattened forms, writhing linear patterns, and an exotic decorative energy. His Three Brides (1893) became a landmark of European Symbolism. He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1905 and his later work combined religious mysticism with the formal innovations of his Symbolist period. He was deeply admired by the young Mondrian, who studied under him.

Artistic Style

Toorop's Symbolist style is among the most distinctive and personal in European art — a synthesis of Javanese wayang puppet theatre, Pre-Raphaelite line, Japanese decorative pattern, and European Art Nouveau into an image-world of great strangeness and beauty. His early naturalist work is competent but conventional; his Symbolist paintings are overwhelmingly individual, their elongated figures and elaborate linear rhythms unlike anything else in Dutch or Belgian art.

Historical Significance

Toorop was one of the most important figures in Dutch and Belgian Symbolism and his influence on subsequent Dutch art was profound — Mondrian's early symbolist paintings show direct Toorop influence before his turn toward abstraction. His unique synthesis of Javanese and European visual cultures makes him a historically significant figure in the wider story of non-Western influences on European modernism.

Things You Might Not Know

•Toorop was born in Java (then Dutch East Indies) to a Dutch father and partially Indonesian-Chinese mother — his mixed heritage gave him an unusually direct connection to Asian visual culture that distinguished his Art Nouveau work from that of any of his European contemporaries.
•His painting 'The Three Brides' (1893) is one of the most technically audacious Art Nouveau works ever created — a densely patterned composition of swirling hair and elongated figures that synthesises Javanese shadow puppet art with European Symbolism.
•He converted to Catholicism in 1905 and subsequently produced devotional paintings in a more restrained style — the conversion transformed his work as completely as it transformed his life.
•He went almost completely blind later in life and had to abandon oil painting — he then worked in pastels and drawings, producing tiny works of concentrated intensity.
•His daughter Charley Toorop became a significant Dutch painter in her own right, working in an entirely different Expressionist direction from her father's Symbolism.

Influences & Legacy

Shaped By

Javanese shadow puppets (wayang kulit) — Toorop grew up seeing these in Java; their elongated, flat figures with elaborate patterned costumes are directly visible in his Art Nouveau work
Georges Seurat — Toorop worked through a Pointillist phase and Seurat's divisionist colour theory was an important technical foundation
The Pre-Raphaelites — Toorop encountered their work in England and absorbed their combination of literary subject, decorative line, and intense colour

Went On to Influence

He is the central figure of Dutch Symbolism and Art Nouveau, and the 'Three Brides' is the defining image of the movement in the Netherlands
Charley Toorop — his daughter, who developed an independent Expressionist career
His hybrid of Asian and European visual elements anticipates the globalised visual culture of the 20th century