Laren School

The Laren School is the name of an art colony located in the Dutch village, Laren, in Het Gooi near Hilversum. The artists of this offshoot of the Hague School chose the inhabitants of Laren and the surrounding landscape as the subject of their art.

Discovered by painter, Jozef Israëls, the area around Laren School was distinguished by its unspoiled beauty and diversity of landscape, and was considered ideally situated by many members of the Hague School. After 1898, it was rediscovered by young artists known as the second generation of the Laren School, their work extending far into the 20th century. This colony of artists is significant in Dutch Impressionism, being seen as part of this international movement. The ideas fostered in the area found their way to the Modernist art movement.

The industrialisation of Rotterdam, Amsterdam and other regions of the Netherlands affected landscapes that had remained untouched for centuries. Many of these landscapes disappeared, and with them, the inspiration for earlier landscape and genre painting.

After 15 years of fame, from 1855 to 1870, the artists of the Oosterbeek School were looking for a new place to paint. Around 1870, the painter, Jozef Israëls, discovered the village of Laren. He visited often with his son, Isaac, whom he instructed in outdoor painting. His enthusiasm for Laren, and the surrounding landscape and agricultural activity, was infectious, and other artists from the Pulchri Studio began to join him. Albert Neuhuys and Anton Mauve were the first to follow Israëls in 1877 and in 1882. Later, Hein Kever, Willem Steelink, Hendrik Valkenburg, Wally Moes, Etha Fles, Arina Hugenholtz and Tony Offermans Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch, Willem Roelofs, and Max Liebermann (the first foreign painter at the Laren School and an old friend of Israël) came to work in Laren. Thus, the Laren School as an artist colony was born. Some of these painters settled in the region; their Laren-inspired works were shown to the public at the Pulchri Studio and affiliated galleries.

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