Matthijs Maris, a Dutch painter influenced by…

Matthijs Maris, a Dutch painter influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites, is noted for his movement away from the Realism of the Hague school toward a more symbolic expression.

A good example of his work is The Enchanted Castle (c. 1887; Haags Gemeentemuseum), painted when he is around forty-eight.

In addition to painting, Maris makes etchings in limited editions and lithographs.

The brother of Jacob and Willem Maris, Matthijs had received a royal subsidy, and from 1861 to 1868 had lived and worked with his elder brother Jacob, on whom his more spiritual and mystical nature had had a refining influence.

He is without doubt the most gifted of the brothers.

Matthijs himself had gradually begun to soften the realistic style of his paintings, the contours of objects becoming more vague, his colors dominated by gray, and his subjects nearer to dream visions than to actual scenes from life.

From 1869 to 1875, he had worked in Paris, and from 1877 he has lived in London (where he will remain for the rest of his life).