The Dutch Realist's Direct Vision To look at the work of Jacques Zon is to encounter the unadorned reality of early twentieth-century life. He was not interested in abstraction or the fleeting distortions of modernism; instead, he anchored his practice in the tangible. Born in The Hague in 1872, Zon developed a technical foundation that favored the weight and presence of his subjects. His training under the Dutch landscape painter Willem Maris provided him with an understanding of light and earth tones, while his time in the studio of Fernand Cormon introduced him to a different, French-infl…