Jakob Smits, *The Well*, 1920

by Atelier Liesjes

Beneath a high, pale-blue sky streaked with heavy clouds stands a whitewashed farmhouse with a dark, thatched roof and a reddish-brown door. To the right of the door, two small figures sit against the wall, one dressed in black, the other in blue. To the left of the house, the long, sloping lever of the well juts out sharply against the sky, with a tall, bare tree behind it, its branches branching out like veins. Between the hedge and the farmyard stands a brown animal by a dark, round haystack or bush; on the far left, a man in dark clothes leans over a fence. Above the band of clouds in the top right-hand corner hangs a pale moon or sun, small and round. The sky is covered with a thin layer of clouds, ensuring the light remains equally subdued everywhere. Smits builds up the image from grains and blobs of paint, creating a surface that almost becomes a relief; the sky is not air but a brick wall of grey, ivory white and sea green. The composition is simple and almost decorative: the yard, the hedge, the well and the house as dark silhouettes against a light sky. The atmosphere is that of a late afternoon in the Kempen, quiet and somewhat desolate, with the austerity of the Symbolist landscape. The figures are small and anonymous; it is the houses, the hedge and the well that carry the image. Jakob Smits (Rotterdam 1855 – Achterbos near Mol 1928) lived and worked in Achterbos from 1888 onwards, where his house and studio now form the Jakob Smits Museum. He was the central figure of the Mol School and painted the Kempen region using a palette knife, in thick, earthy paint. In 1920, the year depicted on the canvas, the Kempen was still a region of small farmers and poor soil. A tranquil, traditional work suitable for a farmhouse or country house.