Willem de Zwart

Willem de Zwart’s painting style showed a shift and experimentation in Dutch painting at the turn of the 19th century. He initially painted copies of academic masters like Johannes Vermeer and Rembrandt. When he moved from Hauge, a small village, to Amsterdam, he adapted an Impressionist style with fast, loose brushstrokes that mimicked the busy feeling of living in a rapidly industrializing city. Along with images of city life, de Zwart painted landscapes, figures, and still lives with a smoother brushstroke. He sometimes worked with color straight from a tube, and usually applied paint in thick, heavy layers.