Janus de Winter - 'Row of trees along a river'

Janus de Winter (Utrecht 1882 - 1951 Den Helder)

'Row of trees along a river'
oil on plywood
74 x 59 cm.
signed lower left and dated unclearly (5 12 '42?)

De Winter was born in Utrecht in 1882. He got a job as a civil servant at the Railways, emerged as a visionary and initially painted landscapes and dream fantasies. When he became acquainted with the work and theories of Kandinsky in 1912, it meant a turning point. Kandinsky's ideas about the psychological meaning of independent colours and lines and the connection between colours and sounds particularly appealed to him. They fit in perfectly with a mystically charged way of thinking that was extremely popular in that period in certain circles of artists, musicians, writers and intellectuals. Der Sturm painters such as Franz Marc and August Macke also made their influence felt, as did the French symbolist Odilon Redon.

At exhibitions in Brussels (1914) and Amsterdam (1916), De Winter stands out with expressionist works that are strongly abstract. Theo van Doesburg is enthusiastic about them and becomes a passionate advocate of his works in their 'unprecedented beauty of colour'. It is the man of letters Frederik van Eeden who, equally impressed, praises De Winter as a painting mystic. From 1923 onwards, the painter lives now in Utrecht, then again in Paris, where he also exhibited and had regular contact with Mondriaan. They were interested in each other's work.

There is much to tell about De Winter and also about his place in art history. In 1985 he had his first major retrospective exhibition in the Centraal Museum in Utrecht. De Winter may now - wrongly - be a little-known painter, in the 1910s and 1920s this was quite different. In progressive Utrecht art circles he was one of the most talked-about figures, who made an impression with his occult visionary ideas and was admired for his paintings, which he exhibited regularly.

His oeuvre includes paintings in oil, gouache, chalk and pastel. They are dream landscapes and colourful natural scenes with birds of paradise, hummingbirds and parrots, but also tropical underwater views, and flowers, especially orchids. With these orchids, De Winter was not so much concerned with colours and exotic forms as with their symbolic charge: they stood for the lower instincts of man. That is why his orchids take on whimsical spider-like shapes, have greedy tentacles and sometimes look more like monsters. The lower in man fascinates the painter enormously.

An even more fascinating aspect of De Winter's oeuvre are the expressionistic, (semi) abstract depictions of spiritual themes. For example, he painted human auras and gave shape to feelings and thoughts in colour and form. These were given titles such as 'Aura of an egoist', 'Imagination of a feeling of slander' or 'Sensitive feeling of the growth process of a plant root under the ground'. In addition, De Winter converted sounds, movements and the music of Wagner and Beethoven into expressionistic colours and rhythmic, abstract structures. With this, De Winter was one of the first in our country to focus on the abstract. A fact that is preferably overlooked. Abstraction was a term that De Winter himself never used. Abstraction and regularity were not an end in themselves either. He was concerned with the sensation of expressing the 'mystical unity of things' in a visual language that was determined by the inner feeling of the artist. At a later stage, his art developed in the direction of a refined and decorative naturalism. As he strove for the higher, the demonic disappeared from his work.

His life was dominated by painting and the search for the secrets of the eternal essence. Touched by Eastern philosophy and theosophy, he consistently extended the lines to his art based on that conviction. He also put his thoughts and theories about this in writing.

Besides paintings, drawings and etchings by him are also known, and he made decors for the Moulin Rouge in Paris. For Rath & Doodeheefver he designed wallpapers with stylized flower and plant designs. In his later years he mainly painted landscapes, flowers and aquarium views again. He is also one of the first in our country to turn away from the figurative to work abstractly. This happened under the influence of German-Russian expressionism. De Winters pastels and oil paintings of flowers - orchids in particular were his favorite -, birds, fish, landscapes and depictions of abstract concepts were always produced quickly. In this he built on a romantic and symbolist tradition, in which he tried to bring mysticism and oriental philosophy, coupled with a free interpretation of Freud, to a synthesis. His intuitive style can best be characterized as expressionist.