August Jansen (1881–1957)

August Jansen was one of those artists who did not spend even one day studying at the Pallas Art School yet supported the development of the Pallas-style school in every respect with his art. In an interview he gave in 1930, however, he admitted that his teaching work and other such activity prevented him from concentrating on his own creative work and thus he had to devote himself to painting primarily in the summertime. He also said that he painted landscapes as if in passing since “that isn’t work that would satisfy his artistic senses; those draw him to more serious tests of strength, to the creation of compositions.” He was an artist in his fifties who actively participated in exhibitions, organised artistic life and created a number of paintings in different genres. Though he did not rise to the centre of the interest of critics of that time with his art, Jansen was nevertheless an artist whose works could not simply be ignored either.