ABSTRACT
1. This chapter establishes the context for the origins of Neorealism as an aesthetic tendency in The Netherlands. Introducing the six artists most frequently designated with this appellation—Pyke Koch, Carel Willink, Charley Toorop, Raoul Hynckes, Dick Ket, and Wim Schuhmacher—this chapter explains the origins of this category and its basis in the criticism of the period. I claim that the development of Neorealism as an interwar aesthetic mode is best understood as having come about through a centripetal form of influence. This chapter also explores the concept of realism as one that had a distinct definition in The Netherlands that complicates our understanding of “Magic Realism.”
