(b Purworedjo, Java, 20 Dec 1858; d The
Hague, 3 March 1928).
He moved to the Netherlands in 1872 and took a course in
drawing at the Polytechnische School in Delft (1876–9). He
also studied at the Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunsten in
Amsterdam (1880–82) and at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs in
Brussels (1882–5). In Amsterdam he joined the St Lukas
Society, and in Belgium he was a founder-member of Les XX in
1884. Although he had met Jozef Israëls in 1880 and
respected the style of the Hague school, he was more
attracted by what he saw in Brussels, particularly work by
French artists. His portraits of 1884 are painted in an
Impressionist style. With other members of Les XX he trained
himself in plein-air; he learnt from James Ensor how
to apply colours with a palette knife and how to use white
with the same intensity as other colours. His style,
however, remained austere and his scenes of workmen show a
sensitive realism reminiscent of Gustave Courbet’s work, for
example Respect for the Dead
