Beschreibung:

'Tempelhoekje' / A Balinese temple view signed and annotated 'W. Dooyewaard / Bali' (lower right) charcoal and pastels, heightened in white, on coloured paper, 59x75 cm Exhibited: -Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 'Bali, Schilderijen en Teekeningen van Willem Dooyewaard', 9-30 September 1933, exhibited as no. 42: ‘Tempelhoekje’, priced at 200 Dutch guilders. -The Hague, Pulchri Studio, 'Bali, Schilderijen en Teekeningen van Willem Dooyewaard', 22 December 1933 – 14 January 1934, no. 42: ‘Tempelhoekje’, annotated ‘in particulier bezit’ (‘private collection’). Literature: -J.P. Koenraads, 'De Gebroeders Jacob en Willem Dooijewaard', Hilversum 1966, ill. p. 92. -D.H. Dhaimeler, 'W. Dooijewaard, a Dutch artist in Indonesia', Jakarta 1992, ill. p. 150. Provenance: -Private collection, the Netherlands, acquired from the artist at the Stedelijk Museum exhibition Amsterdam, September 1933. -Private collection, the Netherlands. A century ago, Indonesia -at that time still a Dutch colony- was a very popular destination for well-known Dutch artists; Willem Witsen (1921), Isaac Israels (1921-1922), Willy Sluiter (1923), H.P. Berlage (1923), and Marius Bauer (1925), among others, travelled to the Dutch East Indies in the early 1920s. Most of them, however, were just ‘passing by’; they resided in the Dutch colony, mostly Java, for a few months or a year at most. In this respect, Willem Dooijewaard was quite different. One could argue whether Dooijewaard -like his soul brother Roland Strasser (1886-1974)- was a painter who travelled or a traveller who painted. Be as it may, it is beyond any doubt that Dooijewaard had a great passion for indigenous Asian cultures. For more than 20 years, on and off between 1912 and 1933, he travelled through Asia. Born in 1892 in Amsterdam, Willem Dooijewaard studied at the Royal Academy of Art in Amsterdam. He spent six years at a rubber plantation in Sumatra, from 1913 until 1918, after which he set out for Bali in 1919. The following year he returned to Holland, to go back to Bali just a few months later. Dooijewaard resided in Bali in 1920, 1921-22 and 1931-33. Stylistically, these three periods differ quite a bit; his 1920 work comprises small pencil sketches with a documentary feel to them, similar to the sketches produced in Sumatra through 1918-1919. The lithographs he made upon his return to Holland transcend these academic sketches, although they are still made in a traditional way. The second part of his Balinese oeuvre is much more convincing: under the influence of Strasser, in 1921-1922 his sketches became more bold, his oils more determined, clearly choosing an almost divisionist style. He would use this painting technique in the years ahead, travelling through China, Mongolia, Tibet, India, and Japan. Roland Strasser however, was not the only artist responsible for Dooijewaard’s shift to this divisionist style of painting. Another Austrian artist and art professor, Carl Fahringer (1874-1952), played a vital role too. Strasser and Fahringer must have known each other before they even embarked on their travels to Southeast Asia: both being Austrian, they studied -and Fahringer also taught- at the Vienna and Munich Academy, and both were war painters during World War I. Fact is that Strasser, Dooijewaard and Fahringer met, and probably even worked together in 1922. A nifty charcoal portrait from 1922 by Dooijewaard of ‘Prof. Fahringer, from Austria’ while sketching proves their acquaintance. By and large, it is safe to assume that Fahringer influenced not only Emil Rizek (1901-1988), but also Strasser, and in turn Dooijewaard, to develop their early 1920s post-impressionist style. Although Fahringer himself would stick to this style until the 1930s, Strasser and Dooijewaard would clearly change direction in the years that followed, probably feeling more comfortable with the impressionist style of painting they are commonly known for. Dooijewaard’s drawing style however, didn’t change drama