The Mesdag Collection presents works by painters who were drawn to Barbizon

The Mesdag Collection in The Hague presents The Dutch in Barbizon: Maris, Mauve, Weissenbruch, an exhibition about nineteenth-century Dutch painters who were drawn to the French village of Barbizon and the nearby Forest of Fontainebleau. French artists went to that area – just a stone’s throw from Paris – to work in the open air, capturing their personal, often rough or sketchy impressions of the unspoilt nature around them. This exhibition features Dutch painters who followed the example of their French peers, visiting the same spots in and around the Forest of Fontainebleau to depict magnificent trees, unusual rock formations and village life. The art works of these French and Dutch artists hang side by side in this exhibition, in the museum that holds one of the finest collections of Barbizon paintings outside France, once assembled by Hendrik Willem Mesdag himself. The Dutch in Barbizon consists of 42 works, gr