Haven van Rotterdam

For most of his life, Jongkind lived in France, but in the late 1850s he spent a number of years in Rotterdam, where he liked to visit the port to sketch. He would then develop these sketches in his studio to create paintings that appear to have been done in the open air. In the yellowish twilight, we see sailing ships moored up, along with a few manned rowing boats, while a couple of windmills tower above the trees in the background. When he returned to France, Jongkind became acquainted with other artists, including Gustave Courbet and Claude Monet, and in 1863 he exhibited in the sensational Salon des Refusés, alongside Édouard Manet, Paul Cézanne and others, which made his name as an artist. Jongkind’s free and relaxed style of painting inspired a number of young artists, particularly the Impressionists. They viewed Jongkind and Eugène Boudin as their most important precursors. Monet once said that he owed the “education of his eye” to Jongkind.