You have probably never heard of Anton Mauve, yet he gave Vincent van Gogh painting lessons. When Mauve died of an aneurysm at the age of 49, Van Gogh dedicated his painting of peach trees in full bloom to him, calling it Souvenir de Mauve.
Mauve himself was a realist painter who almost always included horses, cattle, and sheep in his paintings. A Dutch Road shows a road on a wet, cold winter day. One art historian called it “the wettest painting in Dutch art history”. And he’s probably right.
The grey colors – Mauve himself called them silver- are typical for the art movement ‘De Haagse School’ which also was called ‘the grey school’. As anyone living in The Netherlands can confirm, it is a very realistic painting of one of those dreary wet days which we have a lot at this time of the year.