Sorrow (Fantasy, since 1926)

Matthijs Maris was the most enigmatic of the three Maris brothers — Dutch painters who, with Anton Mauve, defined the Hague School. Unlike his brothers Jacob and Willem, who maintained recognizable Dutch realist subjects, Matthijs moved toward an increasingly visionary, Symbolist mode after settling in London in 1877. 'Sorrow' (1887) reflects his later style — the figurative subject dematerializing into paint and atmosphere, the identifiable world giving way to a dreamlike interiority. His work was championed by the Arts and Crafts movement in England but remained commercially difficult; he became a reclusive figure, increasingly detached from the art market.

Maris's late technique is characterized by a surface built up through reworking and scraping — paint applied, partially removed, and re-applied in layers that create a palimpsest effect, forms emerging from and dissolving into the painted ground. The handling is the opposite of Impressionist freshness: labored, obsessive, the surface recording a long struggle between the painter and his vision. This quality of worked, uncertain surface is central to the emotional meaning of his subjects.