Shell Fisherman on the Beach

By 1891 Jan Toorop had settled on a subject he would return to for years: the fishing communities of the southern Dutch coast, in the province of Zeeland, and the hard, plain work that filled their days. Here a shell gatherer labours on the wet sand of the beach. The shells he collected were burned for lime, one of the poorest kinds of coastal work. Toorop built the scene from small separate touches of colour, the pointillist technique the neo-impressionists were then spreading through the Brussels art world he moved in. He was drawn to the simplicity of these lives, and the picture carries a quiet social note, a painter from an avant-garde circle turning his attention to people who gathered shells for a living.