Towards the end of the century, IsraР“В«ls was introduced by his childhood friend and portrait painter ThР“В©rР“РЃse Schwartze to the Amsterdam fashion house Hirsch & Cie at the Leidseplein. Interested by the changing light of sun and sea, he painted many colourful seaside scenes. Guests included Р“вЂ°douard Manet and Max Liebermann. He often spent his summers with his father in the Dutch seaside resort of Scheveningen near The Hague. At this time he met the Dutch engraver and painter Willem de Zwart who also became a lifelong friend. Influenced by this philosophy, IsraР“В«ls became a painter of the streets, cafes, and cabarets of Amsterdam. This was a group that insisted style must reflect content and that emotionally charged subjects can only be represented by an equally intense technique. Both of them, however, quickly abandoned the academy for the more progressive circle of the Tachtigers, an influential group of writers and artists of the time. At this time he was reading Р“вЂ°mile Zola, as was Breitner, and following his triumph at the Salon he spent a year travelling in the Belgian mining districts and elsewhere.Р”В«eginning 1886, IsraР“В«ls lived in Amsterdam and registered with Breitner at the Royal Academy of Visual Arts to complete his schooling. In the 1885 Salon he received an honourable mention for his Transport of Colonial Soldiers. Starting in 1878, IsraР“В«ls made annual visits to the Salon des Artistes FranР“В§ais with his father and in 1882 made his debut there with Military Burial. Two portraits he made in the same year of his grandmother and a family friend, Nannette Enthoven (below), attest to the technical ability he had attained by that age. In 1881, when he was 16, he sold a painting, Bugle Practice, even before it was finished to the artist and collector Hendrik Willem Mesdag. The son of Jozef IsraР“В«ls, one of the most respected painters of the Hague School, and Aleida Schaap, Isaac IsraР“В«ls displayed precocious artistic talent from an early age.Р”В«etween 18 he studied at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, where he met George Hendrik Breitner who was to become a lifelong friend.

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