Kerkhof te Warmond

Only shortly after painting some of his most renowned and characteristic still lifes, Floris Verster executed this singular impressionistic view of a snow-covered graveyard in Warmond. From the year 1895 onwards, the artist had expressed a great fascination for solid and above all sober objects such as tin cans, wooden dishes and eggs and most likely felt a sudden urge to move outdoors and capture the intangible atmosphere of a cold winterday with a vibrant brushstroke that clearly betrays his Hague School background. When compared with the still life of a plain dead crow also painted in 1907, one distinctly senses the artist's supposed need to break away from the stillness of his well-considered compositions. Floris Verster was known to be an introvert individual who rarely attended the social gatherings of his contemporaries and was jestingly called the hermit of Groenoord, where he lived a solitary life with his wife Jenny Kamerlingh Onnes. It was also in the vicinity of this country estate that the artist found inspiration for the majority of his landscapes, recording secluded spots in Oegstgeest, Katwijk and Rijnsburg. Only on one occasion did the artist travel abroad to Switzerland in 1897. In a letter to a friend dated 1895, Floris Verster explains his reluctance to travel: "mijn aard is te dromerig daartoe, ik kan onder een hollandse hemel nog zoveel moois zien, dat ik nooit tevoren ontdekt had, dat het mij hier nog altijd nieuw lijkt en onontgonnen".(A. Verwey, Floris Verster, Leiden 1927, p. 7). As opposed to artists such as G.H. Breitner and I. Israels, who manifested themselves as the painters par excellence of modern everyday life subject-matter, the Leiden-based artist omitted figures or animals in his landscapes and townviews. Hereby creating timeless testimonies to nature's beauty. In using a bright and colourful palette, Verster furthermore bestowed his landscapes with a symbolic and dream-like quality. The central tree calling to mind Floris Verster's lyrical and Jugend-stil inspired view of Endegeest dating from 1893.