Bernardus Johannes Carolus
Dutch painter. Sluyters was
born in 's-Hertogenbosch and trained in Amsterdam at the Teachers'
Training College ( 1897 – 1900 ) and the Academy of Art ( 1901 – 4
). He won the Prix de Rome at the Academy and spent 1904 travelling
in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and France. His early works owe a debt to
van Gogh and Breitner , the Dutch Impressionist. However, in about
1906 , inspired by his exposure to contemporary French painting, he
adopted a Fauvist palette and technique. This too changed, after
1914 , under the influence of Henri Le Fauconnier , the French
Cubist-Expressionist, who spent the years 1914 – 18 in the
Netherlands where he played an important role in the development of
northern Expressionism. Working among the Calvinist peasantry in
Staphorst, a village near Amsterdam, Sluyters adopted a sombre
Expressionist style to depict the puritanical austerity of their
lives. From 1916 , working in Amsterdam and in contact with the
Belgian Expressionists de Smet and van den Berghe , he reverted to
his earlier, brighter colours and developed a personal Expressionist
style which he named ‘Colourism’, best seen in the paintings of
nudes, which brought him a considerable reputation.
