1. About finding
My blog is about art—specifically visual art. Art is an essential part of my existence. When I think, I often do so in images. Not everyone is convinced that such a thing is possible. You think in language. Yes, of course, but I also think in images, even in abstract images. A thinking process is often focused on problem-solving. In the visual arts, drama, dance, poetry, or music, a problem can be a lack of a challenging topic, an unsatisfying balance in a composition, or uncertainty about the right instrumentation.
Everything starts, however, with the basic process of finding. It either happens to you, or it doesn’t. Picasso put it this way: “I do not seek, I find.” Finding is the encounter with brainwaves. Sometimes those waves come smoothly. Sometimes they don't show up at all, which leads to desperate artists.
A continuous lack of inspiration in authors is called 'writer's block'—a mental block against writing. There is no satisfactory idea or content available. Painters and sculptors have comparable problems, yet they lack such terminology. You could perhaps speak of a 'painter's block' or a 'sculptor's block', although Iassociate the latter more with a block of stone or wood.
Art is to me, aside from all physical labour, above all a mental process that depends on the power of thinking and reasoning, and that starts with finding. You can compare finding with inspiration. “Finding something” is a blessing, but it also has its bad sides. Once you've found something, there is no imperative need to look further. The intriguing process of searching could stop. Several artists stopped developing after they thought they had found something.
Rutger Kopland (1934 - 2012), one of my favorite Dutch poets, published a poetry collection in 1972 titled: Wie wat vindt heeft slecht gezocht (“Whoever finds something has searched badly”). I think that’s a hopeful thought because it brings us back to the ongoing quest. It is a thought maybe at odds with Picasso's dictum, but on closer consideration, perhaps it is not.
2. The paintability of white
"How hard can it be to paint white?" This question takes me back to my own drawing lessons—specifically, lessons from the Dutch painter Jan Roeland. He is one of the great post-war painters of the Netherlands. Born in IJsselmuiden in 1935, he passed away in 2016 in his long-time home of Amsterdam. The Kunsthal in Rotterdam honored him posthumously with a beautiful retrospective exhibition. He painted highly simplified tables, everyday objects, and very stylized ducks and tulips. Today, his work can be seen in various museums.
Yes, Jan Roeland taught me how to improve my drawing at the art academy in Amersfoort.
I remember it very well. On a table, he set up a kind of white stage using white drawing paper, a white background, and a few large wads of white paper. He illuminated the scene with several spotlights—a very still life. We, the students, had to draw it in pencil. Well, white paper on a white background under an abundance of white light: more white is simply not possible. Meanwhile, Jan started painting on his own, leaving us muddling along for the time being. In those days, he painted tables—highly stylized tables. It was phenomenal to watch him work. Now, whenever I visit an exhibition featuring Jan's work, I occasionally see a piece that makes me think: 'I remember exactly how he made this one.'"
I carefully drew some contours, very restrained, afraid maybe to hurt the white. Occasionally, Jan came over to look. "It's nothing yet," he said. "You have to look, look closely before you draw" Yes, thanks a lot, but how do you draw white on white paper with a black pencil? After he had let us mess around quite a bit — I wasn't the only one who couldn't get it done — he gave us the tip to look through our eyelashes. "Squint your eyes and look at what you see." Damn, that helped! You really saw some dark tones. Photographers would have understood that earlier, they know the importance of the diaphragm.
Back to work. Jan came by again. "It's nothing yet," he said. The subdued "IJsselmuider" could be quite direct; perhaps he learned that in Amsterdam, where he lived. They were long evenings, working on a still life that didn't want to become one. Jan passed by again. "You know," he said, "you try to draw what you know all the time. You know that the paper is white, that the background is white, that the light is white. What you know prevents you from seeing it."
That gave me food for thought. He was right. If you forget what you know, and just look, then you see a lot of gray in that white, and in some places even black too. Contrasts, shadows, depth — a fanfare of shades. Now it went better. I finally understood something about white. And I understood Jan's work better too — those simple forms, which are not so simple at all if you forget what you know and just try to see. I understood something of his struggle to get the minimal and functional aspects of an object on the canvas. The many layers of paint he needed for that. I also understood the despair that arises from time to time. It was a key experience.
3. Two neat gentlemen
Another anecdote about the Dutch painter Jan Roeland, who was one of my teachers at the art academy in Amersfoort. There was a short documentary about him and his work being shown on television. The broadcast was on an evening when he was teaching at the academy. We are talking about the early seventies. Video recorders already existed, but were not yet common for home use; they were still too low quality and too expensive.
Jan came to me worried: 'Jos, that film about me is on tonight. I would like to see it, but I won't make it home to Amsterdam on time. You are from Amersfoort after all. Don't you know someone I could visit after class?'
Well, my parents lived in Amersfoort, close to the academy. We went together to the 'Kleine Spui', the street where they lived in the old town. My mother was quiet and subdued, but my father was as eloquent as ever. 'Do you want to sit here, sir? Can you see it well from there? Would you like coffee, or perhaps a cognac, or a glass of wine? Isn't it beautiful to have a film about you on television like that? How can I be of service to you?'
It all seemed unstoppable, even though the film had already started. The polite Jan Roeland – clearly a bit annoyed – said quite directly: 'I would prefer it if you were quiet now, so that I can watch the film.' Well, that worked—even with my dad!
4. Still life
What a beautiful word that is. It's quiet and it's alive. In a still life, painters try to realize a still moment through the arrangement of coherent or less coherent objects. They look for a successful composition. Sometimes they have a message, for example, those detailed floral paintings in a beautiful vase: here and there a leaf with a hole, a gnawing beetle, a fallen leaf. “Beware,” says the still life, “life is finite. I still look beautiful, but decay is already there.”
I myself occasionally paint a still life. I call them “approaches to still life.” Actually, I paint the mutual relationships more than the objects themselves. A still life is not so much about depicting something as precisely as possible, nor about the reality that you have in mind as a painter. It's not about perfectly copying the beauty of a collection of jugs or bottles. It's not about reproducing the perfection of a vase with beautiful flowers so faithfully. There is nothing more beautiful than that vase with flowers itself. The painter's task is to make a painting that transcends the motif given, not so much in beauty, but as a concept.
Georges Braque (1882 - 1963), the inventor of Cubism, was very good at making such interpretations. The Italian painter Morandi, a great painter (he was two meters tall) who lived from 1890 to 1964, was a famous still life painter. He could paint groups of vases or bottles in an almost unimaginable way, in breathtaking compositions with tender, dusty, restrained colors and fascinating arrangements. Bottles and vases. His paintings are pieces of balancing art, of fragility and connectedness, of intensity and tenderness. Morandi painted objects, but not for the objects' sake. He painted relationships between objects—respectful, nevertheless drastic reductions. Morandi attacked the objects and what remained was silence, deafening silence.
5. Killing your darlings
Something contradictory seems to be going on here: killing your darlings. Why would you want to harm what you love? And what does such a thing have to do with art? Artists usually don't make it easy for themselves when they're working on an idea, a thought, an inspiration, an observation, or a work of art. Depending on the discipline, manual labor is required and a spiritual commitment is necessary. Artists are not easily satisfied. For the unsuspecting spectator, the work in progress often looks rather good already, but for the artist, it could be totally different. The artist struggles with the realization of what he or she imagines.
If a work is finally successful and the artist is satisfied, then the work could become a 'darling', or it could come close to such a qualification. You could also say: the artist is happy with the result. Many artists often call their latest work of art their most beautiful work. Incidentally, there are also many artists who consider their next work—the one that has not yet been made—as their most beautiful work. They already have ideas for it, but it's still in their heads. It has not yet been realized.
Art has a sacred image. As a spectator, you had better keep your distance. Everyone who visits a museum is confronted with the presence of attendants. They keep an eye on things to ensure that no one gets too close to a work of art, or even worse, tries to touch it. Those who do can expect an alarm to go off, or at least a rebuke from the attendant. Mostly, that is a good thing. There are always madmen who think they have to destroy a work of art. They 'kill' our 'darlings'." Yet, most works of art are not destroyed by deranged museum visitors. The artists themselves are the greatest destroyers of art—and for the record, mostly their own. Many artists do not know in advance exactly what their planned creation will eventually look like. Making art is a process of searching and finding, of trial and error. Some artists produce a lot of art in a relatively short time, while others take a long time to complete their work. This depends on the flood of ideas, which may or may not exist yet, but especially on the chosen technique, the material, and the size of the artwork. During the creation process, a bond is formed between the artist and the artwork. Making art is an emotionally charged activity, even if that is not always visible in the production process or the final result. When a work is finished, an artist is not always immediately willing to show it. Although making art inherently implies exhibiting it, artists generally do not like to expose their work directly to the uncontrollable eye of the viewer. What will the spectator think of it? If the work is appreciated and praised, that is fine. But what if the viewer turns out to be a cold and unempathetic critic?
Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973) showed his key work, “The Women of Avignon,” to a wider audience ten years after its creation, and after radical overpainting. He thought, and probably rightly so, that the public was not yet ready for it. Picasso was an artist who had trouble declaring a work 'finished' anyway. He often overpainted parts of work he had already signed and declared 'ready'. Story goes that he occasionally even changed work in galleries, even if that work had already been sold. Uncertainty plays tricks on artists. Artists can be bothered by elements in their work that they do not like. They work it over and over, often until they finally ruin the entire canvas. There are also artists who destroy their early work. They see what they initially made as stepping stones to what they are making now. They consider their early work immature and relentlessly dismiss it. That is a pity, even regrettable, because it is precisely from that early work that you can deduce the development of an artist. Often, that early work is not bad or inept at all; it is only imperfect in the eyes of the artist. Many artists regret this later, by the way.
It is a matter of balance. Being selective about what you produce and developing a critical attitude toward your own work is actually a good trait and a valuable skill. Becoming too attached to everything you produce is counterproductive for many artists. When creating an exhibition, artists are often inclined to show too much. Instead, they should be more rigorous in assessing their work; if that proves difficult, a good curator is a blessing. For artists, many of their artworks are 'darlings.' Nevertheless, 'killing' a few sweethearts could benefit the whole.
The term “killing your darlings” does not originate from me. The American author and Nobel Prize winner William Faulkner (1897–1962) already used it as writing advice. A writer's “precious darlings”—favorite passages or sentences—can be very beautiful, but they might not fit the work in progress. “Kill them” was his advice, “even though they are beautiful, in this context they weaken the whole.” Yet, Faulkner did not invent the term either. The English literature professor Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863–1944) said during a lecture in Cambridge in 1916 about writing: “Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.” From the Dutch author Godfried Bomans (1913–1971), we know the observation: “Writing is deleting.” As difficult as this is for writers, the same applies to painters and photographers.
I am a prime example of someone who struggles to 'kill their darlings.' I live with constant uncertainty about my current results. I never truly see my work as finished; I always tend to go back and rework it. In retrospect, I have ruined a lot of my own work this way. I kept working on it until I literally worked it to death. My only consolation is that I am not alone in this struggle. A famous example of this was described by the French writer Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) in his novella 'The Unknown Masterpiece.' Balzac writes about an older artist, Frenhofer, who has been painting a single masterpiece—the portrait of a woman—for ten years. When he finally shows it to two famous fellow painters, his artwork turns out to be nothing but a canvas covered in countless layers of paint and incoherent lines. Frenhofer had worked on his painting for so long and changed it so much that the masterpiece existed only in his mind, no longer on the canvas. Only a single foot remained untouched by the new layers of paint, and that foot was of such exquisite quality that it hinted at what the painting could have been. Frenhofer wanted to paint life itself, not just copy static figures. In his long pursuit of perfection, Frenhofer ultimately took his 'darling’s' life. Balzac’s novella describes the artist's unwinnable battle for perfect expression. In the end, Frenhofer destroyed all his paintings and died
In the catalogue “Alberto Giacometti. Begegnungen”, published for the exhibition at the Bucerius Kunst Forum in Hamburg in early 2013 by Hirmer Verlag in Munich, art historian Eva Hausdorf connects Balzac's novel with Giacometti's work (1901–1966). In his drawings, paintings, and sculptures, Giacometti struggles with the problem of expressing the inner person. What he sees is not enough for him; art is not about surface appearances, it is about the inner essence, Giacometti states. He scratches his sculptures until there is almost nothing left of them, they get smaller and smaller. His drawings and paintings consist of so many overpainted layers that the final product is an almost unrecognizable image. The artist himself admitted, after lengthy sessions working on a portrait of the Japanese professor Yanaihara, that if he put just one more stroke of paint on it, the image would completely disappear. To lose the image was the constant fear of the artist in search of depth and expression. This also happened to the painter Paul Cézanne (1839–1906). “Frenhofer, c'est moi,” he said. When is an artwork finished? “Never really,” Cézanne argued, “but perhaps there is a good time to stop working on it.”
6a. Carvers and Adders
Sculpture is an art form that creates three-dimensional shapes. While painters try to suggest space through techniques like perspective, sculpting is traditionally associated with carving hard materials, such as stone or wood, using a hammer and chisel. In this process, material is removed until the shape the sculptor has in mind remains. However, you can also create a three-dimensional sculpture by adding material, like clay. Formulated irreverently, you could speak of 'carvers' and 'adders'. In practice, sculptors often use these methods interchangeably.
The common denominator of sculpture is the spaciousness of the work. This definition provides significant latitude. It means, for instance, that landscape design – or Land Art – can also be understood as a form of sculpting. Constantin Brâncuși (1876–1957) even spoke of architecture as an "inhabited sculpture." Nowadays, many spatial art installations are created using a wide variety of materials. Viewers can often walk into or through them; it is a process of "furnishing" space. In this respect, you could supplement the categories of "carverss" (subtractive artists) and "adders" (additive artists) with "builders."
Auguste Rodin, the famous French sculptor (1840–1917), was such a builder. He possessed entire collections of plaster arms and legs in all sizes, which he added at will to the sculpture he was working on. In much of his work, you can still see the 'seams' or joining edges. Even after casting his work in bronze, he cherished the traces of that process. Later, the Italian sculptor Marino Marini (1901–1980) also liked to preserve these casting traces as essential expressive elements in his work.
The creations of sculptors vary widely, ranging from monumental, large-scale works to very small pieces. An example of a monumental statue is the Statue of Vallabhbhai Patel, one of the most important figures during India's struggle for independence against British colonial rule. It was created by Ram Vanji Sutar (b. 1925). The statue stands 182 meters tall, and reaches 240 meters when including the base. Compared to it, the American Statue of Liberty is just a tiny tot. Examples of very small sculptures include medals (in Dutch: penningen). The Dutch art historian Louk Tilanus, compiler of an overview of the history of medal art, refers to them as "handy sculpture"—and there is a lot to be said for that. This is especially true when it comes to beautiful sculptural examples such as “Leda and the Swan” by Fred Carasso (1899–1969). Carasso shaped his medal in such a way that you can truly perceive “Leda and the Swan” as a tiny, three-dimensional sculpture.
Other examples of such medals include 'Rembrandt', created by Piet Esser (1914–2004) in a great variety—all of them true sculptural works of art. Another example is Rodin's countenance, designed by Cor Hund (1915–2008). Kept in the right light, you will not only encounter the features of Rodin's face, but you will also catch a glimpse of the impressionistic way Rodin shaped his art. These pieces reflect the work of three sculptors and art professors: two Dutchmen and an Italian who lived and worked in the Netherlands, mainly in the twentieth century. Unlike its rich painting tradition, the Netherlands does not have a centuries-old tradition to uphold when it comes to sculpture. In the Netherlands, Professor Bronner (1881–1972) at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam was the godfather of Dutch sculpture during the first half of the last century. They were made by three sculptors, professors of art as well: two Dutchmen and an Italian, who lived and worked in the Netherlands, mainly in the twentieth century. Unlike with painting, the Netherlands does not have a centuries-old tradition to uphold when it comes to sculpture. In the Netherlands, Professor Bronner (1881–1972) at the 'Rijksacademie' in Amsterdam was, during the first half of the last century, the Dutch godfather of sculpture.
In France, Auguste Rodin—who died in the early twentieth century—inspired an entire generation of subsequent sculptors. The Dutch sculptor Jan Bronner adored Rodin. Both shared the trait of rarely feeling their work was truly finished, believing there was always room for improvement. This is evident in Bronner's Hildebrand Monument and Rodin's Gates of Hell. Naturally, there was a considerable difference in stature between the two grandmasters: Rodin stands at a lonely height and radically influenced the sculptors who followed him. Bronner, in addition to being an avid fan of Rodin, was an excellent teacher who trained the crème de la crème of the Dutch sculpting avant-garde. However, several Dutch sculptors traveled to Paris to learn the trade from artists who had by then become household names, such as Aristide Maillol (1861–1944), Charles Despiau (1874–1946), and Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967). The promising Dutch sculptor Bertus Sondaar (1904–1984) left Bronner’s class to pursue an education in France. Han Wezelaar (1901–1984) stayed in France for an extended period, becoming the key intermediary between Dutch and French sculpture. Charlotte van Pallandt (1898–1997) was taught by Charles Malfray (1887–1940), among others. Ultimately, with or without French influence, the Netherlands established itself as a prominent sculpting nation in the twentieth century.
I am particularly fond of the work of Charlotte van Pallandt. The portrait she made of her colleague Fred Carasso is exceptionally expressive. For a time, Carasso and his wife were her neighbors in the studio apartments on the Zomerdijkstraat in Amsterdam. This portrait alone is enough to justify a sculptor’s entire career. Van Pallandt was still working on it when Carasso passed away, and she chose not to touch the head after that. What began as a tragic loss ultimately had a beautiful side effect, as the portrait is so powerful that it is impossible to imagine changing a single thing.
Oh yes, there are also living sculptors I admire. For example, Eja Siepman van den Berg (1943). It is probably not surprising that she has her roots in the tradition of some of the sculptors already mentioned. Piet Esser was one of her teachers. She won the “Prix de Rome” and the “Charlotte van Palland Prize”. She is a representative of the figurative abstraction. A quote on her site says: “I have always felt passionate about the age-old vocabulary of sculpture. But the true essence of my work lies in its abstract qualities, in a well-considered and subdued idiom.”
6b. Carvers and Adders
IIn addition to carving wood and stone, bronze is perhaps the material we most associate with sculpture. Many sculptures are first created in plaster, wax, or clay before the sculptor takes them to a bronze caster. Bronze is an alloy, usually consisting of copper with a smaller amount of tin. The tin lowers the melting point and makes the material more durable. Over time, bronze develops a beautiful green protective patina. Because it withstands the elements, it can safely be placed outdoors, making it highly suitable for public spaces. Furthermore, this process allows for multiple copies of a sculpture to be made. Sculptors usually limit the number of casts to keep the artwork exclusive. However, this is not always the case; Auguste Rodin’s sculpture 'The Bronze Age' (aptly named) has been cast in more than a hundred copies over the years
We first encounter bronze objects, as an alloy of copper and tin, in the Near East three thousand years before Christ. Before that time, copper was mixed with arsenic. The bronze and marble statues of the ancient Greeks must have been very beautiful. They were often abundantly and colorfully painted, but not much is left of it today. Times change, religions change, and then old statues are destroyed or melted down. We know of copies of those Greek statues made by the Romans, and they are beautiful—let alone the originals.
Despite bronze's reputation for sustainability, countless sculptures are destroyed and melted down. During the Second World War, for example, museums in Germany and occupied territories were forced to surrender so-called “degenerate art,” with the bronze statues repurposed as raw materials for the arms industry. Today, bronze statues are occasionally stolen from parks, meeting a sad end in a smelting furnace. Sustainability is, indeed, a relative concept.
At the moment, sculptors make sculptures from all kinds of materials. Bronze has actually been discarded a bit in modern sculpture. It is seen sometimes as an old-fashioned medium. Contemporary sculptors make works from textiles, wood, waste, plastic, aluminium, and combinations of these and other materials. Sometimes the images come from the 3D printer. Often the sculptures are not isolated expressions, but coherent installations. Very nice examples of that can be seen in the work of the German artist Rebecca Horn (1944 - 2024), for example her work: "Concerto dei Sospiri" from 1997. It consists of pallets, remains of demolished Venetian houses, pipes, of stones, textile remains. the work is sometimes brutal, at the same time often very poetic. You hear sounds of voices and music, different languages.
My sculptures are crafted from cardboard, built up layer by layer. I use a hot glue gun to melt adhesive ridges that harden into a rock-solid core upon cooling. Through this process of accumulation, I transform thin cardboard into a dense, substantial mass for my work. I frequently integrate other materials, such as stone, wood, or iron, resulting in a solid and heavy form.
Chipping, cutting, and sawing are essential parts of my process; carving is a fundamental method through which the work emerges. The final piece is often sealed with a layer of concrete and finished with an acrylic paint patina. The layered structure of the cardboard combined with the fluid lines of the glue creates a highly distinctive texture.
While I could cast the finished product in bronze, doing so would erase the rich color and raw expressiveness of the torn cardboard. Therefore, I choose the absolute uniqueness of the artwork over repeatability. Due to this specific technique, my work cannot be displayed outdoors; wind and weather would damage it. Indoors, however, it is highly durable. Unlike mass-produced bronze sculptures, each of my pieces is entirely unique—there is only ever one.
7a. The aesthetics of the imperfect
Art evokes the expectation that it must be beautiful and complicated to produce. “It is quite an art,” we say, or, if it has not succeeded so well or seems very easy: “There is no skill involved.” Art is about the human and superhuman, about abstract reality, about things that surround us, and about what our imagination yields. Art exalts the contemporary. You have to handle art carefully. Usually, a work of art is a one-off product, or reproduced in a relatively small edition. In museums, we are (mostly) expected to stay at a respectable distance from art and not to be too noisy. Art with a crack is still art, but it is unfortunately no longer worth as much as before.
Nowadays, there are many television programs where people can show treasures from their basement and attic to have them appraised. Usually, they have no value at all, but sometimes they are surprisingly special and precious—an old painting, a beautiful vase, or a bronze sculpture. The appraiser looks through a magnifying glass, while the owner looks expectantly, hoping that grandma's heirloom, the flea market acquisition, or the wedding gift will turn out to be an unforeseen gold mine. With a bit of luck, the appraiser says that it is a beautiful piece, well-made, and that there are not many others like it. But unfortunately, they might also add that it is regrettably no longer in very good condition—that there is a crack in it, that it is torn, or that it was once broken and then glued. Had that not been the case, well, then... Art should be complete. Not broken.
That is the way it is: art is beautiful and unbroken. Yet, there are artists who oppose that image. Umberto Eco (1932 – 2016), semiotician and novelist, wrote an entire book about the artistic history of ugliness. In my Dutch edition, published in 2007 by Bert Bakker in Amsterdam, so much ugliness is gathered together that you will no longer easily think that art is made solely for its beauty. Many artists do not create their art for aesthetic reasons. Often, art is a reaction, a warning, or an indictment. The artist wants to denounce something. Artists are very frequently socially and politically active; they are putting a finger on a sore spot.
The British graffiti artist Banksy is an example of a critical artist who sprays images in public places using stencils. His subjects are diverse. They cover refugees, environmental pollution, consumer behavior, interpersonal relationships, and much more. His art is fragile. It emerges outdoors, and it is sometimes painted over or otherwise damaged. Banksy has become very expensive in the meantime. He also makes fun of that financial aspect—for example, by activating a built-in shredder in the frame of a painting during an auction, which actually partially shredded the work. The message is: the idea is more important than the product. Nevertheless, even when broken, it yields even more value than it did in its previous state. This serves as a counterexample to the thesis that art must be undamaged to be appreciated. Banksy does not have my sympathy. I do not like graffiti on private or public property. I consider it a form of vandalism.
The French painter, sculptor, and actionist Marcel Duchamp was an artist who provided a major impetus for a new way of viewing and approaching art. Living from 1887 to 1968, Duchamp is considered the father of installation, conceptual, and minimalist art, and he revolutionized our perception of art. Duchamp came from a family of artists; he had two brothers and a sister who were also involved in the art world. As is often the case, his fame was preceded and sparked by controversy. His painting of a nude descending a staircase was rejected by the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, and the canvas later caused a major stir at the Armory Show in New York. A scandal is always an attractive kickoff for an artist's career—something the famous German painter Georg Baselitz also experienced with his provocative portraits. Marcel Duchamp was the artist who elevated objects to the status of art while barely laying a hand on them. He mounted a bicycle wheel onto a stool. When asked whether that was art, he replied that he declared it to be so. His core philosophy was that it is up to the artist to determine what is art. This 'ready-made' was an early precursor to Dadaism. Duchamp 'made' a few more of these objects, including a signed urinal, although doubts have since arisen as to whether the idea was truly his own or if it had been stolen from a fellow artist friend.
Returning to the theme of imperfection in modern art, a core work by Duchamp is his so-called 'Large Glass', officially titled 'The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even'. It is a freestanding work consisting of two glass panels, 277.5 cm high and 175.9 cm wide. Duchamp worked on it intermittently between 1915 and 1923. Prior to this, he had already conceptualized the piece, creating preparatory notes and preliminary studies. In the upper rectangle, we see a bride mechanically emerging. In the lower rectangle are nine bachelors who covet her. These bachelors represent various types, such as a priest, a pallbearer, an errand boy, and a lackey. It functions like a postmodern fairy tale: Snow White and the nine dwarfs pressing their noses against the glass coffin—a screen separating innocence from dirty thoughts. The entire piece was created using oil paint, varnish, lead foil, and wire. Even dust that accumulated over time was fixed in place by Duchamp, integrating it into the artwork. While it resembles a mechanical device, it is actually a collage-like construction on glass. Nevertheless, it marks the beginning of postmodern, installation-like constructions, making it a groundbreaking concept. Groundbreaking, indeed—and literally breaking too. In 1926, it was exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. On the return trip, the glass shattered. Duchamp preserved the fractures, securing them between two new sheets of glass. He considered these cracks a valuable addition to the artwork, famously terming it the 'aesthetics of chance'. The work, which he had constantly tinkered with, was now declared to be in a state of 'definitive unfinishedness'. It was not complete, but he no longer wished to work on it. Today, the masterpiece resides in the Philadelphia Museum of Art—a perfect example of imperfection.
Marcel Duchamp's The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) reminds me of Penelope, Odysseus' wife, who waited twenty years for her husband's return. During his absence, she was besieged at her court by suitors who, in addition to her hand in marriage, were after her money, goods, and political power. This is not a new perspective. Others have also explored the clear connection between Homer and Duchamp. In her 1991 study Penelope's Renown, the American researcher Marilyn Katz from Princeton University references Duchamp's Bride and her encrypted relationship with her suitors. Furthermore, art historian Megakles Rogakos obtained his PhD from the University of Essex in 2016 with a thesis entitled A Joycean Exegesis of the Large Glass: Homeric Traces in the Postmodernism of Marcel Duchamp. Rogakos investigates the extent to which Duchamp had Penelope and her suitors in mind while working on his Large Glass, and incorporates James Joyce's Ulysses into this inquiry. Rogakos concludes that Duchamp's work can be viewed as a moralizing narrative about archetypal themes—such as violence, drugs, and lust as components of male initiation—which Duchamp referred to as 'the beauty of indifference.' The researcher bases this conclusion on several cryptic references to Homer found within Duchamp's notes for this artwork.
Duchamp’s oeuvre has profoundly influenced contemporary artistic thought and expression. Widely regarded as a forerunner of modern art, he embodied a zeitgeist that radically challenged traditional perceptions of art. Duchamp defined his practice by the concept rather than the visual representation; the aesthetic form was entirely subordinate to the underlying idea. Though he still required a medium of expression, he abandoned traditional methods, embracing imperfection as a deliberate stylistic instrument.
7b. The aesthetics of the imperfect
A fine example of what I disrespectfully, but not without respect, call “doll’s-house-art”—referring to Duchamp's flat glass case—is described in the novel What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt. Hustvedt is an important Brooklyn-based writer of Norwegian descent, who was married to the equally successful author Paul Auster. Her novel tells the story of two artist couples living in New York's SoHo district. It explores the different courses of their lives, the dynamics between parents and children, and the sudden shattering of happiness.
Bill, one of the main characters, is an artist. Hustvedt describes how, after abandoning two-dimensional painting, he devotes himself to constructing sculpture cabinets. Unlike Duchamp's Large Glass, Bill’s work is entirely about physical spaces. Interestingly, Duchamp's final work, Étant donnés, is also a physical space that you look into through two peepholes. Duchamp chose to dictate exactly how the viewer sees his artwork by fixing the viewing direction. In Hustvedt’s novel, the character Bill contrasts two- and three-dimensional images. He mixes contrasting styles, including advertising, much like literary texts. These series of cabinets—including the hysteria cabinets, dream remnants from a marital crisis, and Hansel-and-Gretel cabinets—belong together and tell a sequential story. They are installations with doors that can be opened and closed. These artworks are truly the “children of Duchamp,” marked by thematic imperfections.
With really old art, it is often the case that a few things are broken. The 'Venus de Milo', for example, has no arms. Over the course of history, they broke off. We now know that image as an icon. It’s just the way it’s supposed to be. If that Venus suddenly got arms, it would look strange to us. It wouldn't fit into the frame of reference that we've built up."
Among the oldest known paintings are mummy portraits. Unlike frescoes painted directly onto walls, these were created as portable works of art, usually on wooden surfaces. In ancient Egypt, these portraits were placed with the deceased, often wrapped into the mummy bindings. The goal was to make the deceased easily recognizable to ensure their place in the afterlife. The gods could not afford to make a mistake; therefore, the more realistic the portrait, the better.
An interesting book about these portraits was written by Jean-Christophe Bailly, a French author of poems, plays, and essays. His informative book is poetically titled “L'apostrophe muette” (The Silent Apostrophe), subtitled “Essai sur les portraits du Fayoum” (Essay on the Fayum Portraits). It first appeared in 2000, published by Hazan in Paris. Most of these portraits were found in Fayum, Egypt, which is why they are commonly called the Fayum portraits. They are frontal images showing the head, often the shoulders, and a part of the chest. The background is usually a single tone. They were created using encaustic (wax painting) or tempera, and about 900 of them have been preserved. Most date back to Roman times. Although many findings were handled rather roughly, many are still in remarkably good condition. There were highly skilled, likely expensive painters, as well as well-meaning amateurs. The Egyptian gods must have had quite a task matching personal data to the various images. Nevertheless, that is their business—for me, the paintings themselves are what is interesting.
As mentioned, they were often painted on smooth, planed wooden planks pre-treated with plaster. That wood has suffered damage over time. Parts of the planks have split and disappeared, edges have broken off, and other damage has occurred. You routinely see paintings where quite a few parts of the surface are missing. Often, the paint layer itself is also damaged. In fact, I find them even more beautiful this way. They become a kind of fragmentary object. Time has added value to them. This fragmentary character leaves room for imagination, allowing you to think further, far beyond the edges.
What also strikes me about these fragmentary portraits are the eyes. They are portraits with big dark eyes, eyes that look at you, directly. A black pupil, brown eye color, a tightened lash line, heavy eyebrows. They all look like they are slightly larger than in real life. They remind me of Charley Toorop's self-portraits. The famous Dutch female painter Charley Toorop (1891 – 1955) usually painted herself with such a pressing look. She looks right through you, sternly. Big eyes too. Luckily, her portraits have stood the test of time, so far."
My artistic process is inherently physical and destructive. I intentionally tear up drawings, saw into sculptures, and slice canvases with knives. While this sounds aggressive, these actions are a deliberate method to redefine initial designs and reconfigure elements into entirely new compositions. For me, a first draft is often too rigid or simplistic. By deconstructing my work, I open up possibilities for unexpected visual relationships; I can shift, slide, and reorganize components before finalizing the piece. This approach adds a profound new dimension to my practice. The same principles apply to my sculptures. Although this methodology is highly labor-intensive, it yields far more compelling results. It allows me to realize outcomes I could never have planned or anticipated, constantly surprising me with unexpected juxtapositions. Naturally, embracing the aesthetics of imperfection comes with failure. Sometimes a composition succeeds, and often it does not—but that risk is vital to my work.
n my edition of the 'Van Dale' Dutch dictionary, 'imperfect' is defined as 'incomplete'. However, you can also look at it differently. In art history and art appreciation, the term 'non finito' is used to describe 'the imperfect'. An unfinished state could be used by artists as a conscious stylistic and expressive tool. The following quote refers to its application in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries:
"Yet artists began to insist through their sculpture and painting that they could veer away from a commitment to finish, and that through surface variation and roughness, as well as a lack of complete resolution in their compositions, they could reach other praiseworthy objectives, such as vivacity. It is essential to understand that artists who moved away from the ideal of "finish" had to expect both praise and criticism, often depending on the placement and context of their work. This was especially true in the sixteenth century but remained the subject of a great deal of discussion in the seventeenth century."
Andrea Bayer in: Renaissance views of the unfinished. In: Titian's hidden double portrait. Unveiled after 500 years. Hannibal Publishing, Italy, 2019
The French sculptor Rodin (1840–1917) is, besides the originally Italian sculptor Medardo Rosso (1858–1928), often considered the godfather of the unfinished statue. He used the omission of parts of figures as a conscious stylistic tool to increase the expressiveness of his work. An expressive image like "L'homme qui marche" from 1907, more than two meters high, consists of the torso of a man with two legs—no arms, no head. Rodin says that he has often been accused of not having a "head" in this image. His reply is: "Do you need a head to walk?" This lapidary reply essentially expresses a new conception within figurative sculpture: depicting a figure does not mean that it must be displayed in its entirety. Auguste Rodin, like Aristide Maillol (1861–1944) or Wilhelm Lehmbruck (1861–1919), found the strength of expression in a fragmentary approach to sculpture. Arms, legs, and a head can be distracting elements in the expression of the image. A well-made torso has great expressiveness. And of course, as I said before, we have become accustomed to statues without arms, legs, or a head because of the examples from Greek and Roman culture that we know from excavations and their display in museums.
What is remarkable in art history is that a consciously made torso was first created by Auguste Rodin. Rodin made torsos without a neck, head, arms, or legs as conscious works of art. He did not consider these sculptures incomplete; rather, he created them because he wanted to express the visual effect of a torso without disturbing or distracting elements. Rodin gave the torso its own distinct place in sculpture.
Before Rodin, the phenomenon of the torso was already very familiar in the visual arts due to sculptures found during excavations. Those sculptures were usually damaged; heads, arms, and legs were often missing. One of the most famous examples is the “Belvedere Torso” by the sculptor Apollonius of Athens, dating from the first century BC. Apollonius, however, did not intend for the image to be a torso; it simply deteriorated over time. Roman sculptors did make copies of Greek torsos. They saw the expressive power in the ancient examples and wanted to preserve them, or they wanted to practice Greek art techniques. I believe they thought it was a pity that they did not have the complete sculpture available as a reference.
Before Rodin, however, no one had come up with the idea of making a sculpture of only a torso as an independent work of art. After Rodin, many sculptors ventured into creating torsos, and they still do today. We find torsos in both naturalistic styles and more or less abstracted forms. Take, for example, Antoine Bourdelle (1861–1929), who also worked as Rodin's assistant, or Aristide Maillol (1861–1944), Rodin's gifted antipode. The Italian Marino Marini (1901–1980) also made beautiful torsos, just like the Austrian Alfred Hrdlicka (1928–2009), to name just a few from that line of talented artists. In the Netherlands, we are familiar with the beautiful torsos of Eja Siepman van de Berg (1943) in this regard.
Sculpture is often beautiful, and often not beautiful at all—simply because it has no desire to be. It challenges, provokes, or amazes us. Sculpture evokes memories or keeps them alive. It expresses sadness and suffering, tenderness, love, hate, and every other emotion. It may defy all our expectations; the surprise lies in the unexpected outcome. The spectator must work, too. A sculpture is only imperfect if you fail to confront your own imagination with the artist's vision.
8. About steering coincidence
Much of art arises through coincidence or chance—at least parts of it. Art is not always preconceived or predetermined; much of it comes about by accident. Artistic action is driven by intuitive decisions. Karel Appel (1921–2006), the famous Dutch COBRA painter, said in a 1955 interview with the magazine Vrij Nederland: 'I'm just messing around. "Yes, certainly, but with a very precisely calculated form of coincidence. Controlling chance is difficult; very soon, it is no longer a coincidence, but actually a preconceived action."
The aleatoric process is important to many artists. They make intuitive decisions while their work is in progress. These accidental elements are either accepted or rejected by the artist. Often, we cannot observe these mutually influencing processes of action and reaction**, as** they arise in the privacy of an artist's studio. In some cases, however, such processes are recorded. A good example is the creation of a work by the German painter Gerhard Richter (born 1932). It concerns his painting “Rot” (“Red”) from 1994, oil on canvas, 200 by 320 cm.
The final result was preceded by 32 phases that were photographically documented.
The work, in the very first phase, begins with two red horizontal strokes, interrupted by vertical orange stripes and a blue-black spot to the left of the center. In the second phase, the empty space is filled and some colorful lines are set. With the fourth phase, large squeegee blades are used that are pulled over the wet paint. This deliberately chosen way of working partly leaves desired traces, partly it also creates accidental situations. The painter pulls new paint over the canvas with a spatula. Now from top to bottom instead of left to right. Effects arise, intentionally and unintentionally. Movements with the large spatulas bring their own dynamics. Finally, after many attempts, a situation has apparently arisen in which the artist is satisfied. The last version has – for the outsider - little to do with the first draft. I can imagine that many of you could say: well, phase 4, or phase 15, I find more appealing than the final version. It is the artist who ultimately decides. Of course, it could be that the painter regrets the repainting of an earlier phase. That has to be accepted. Different from photographers, there is no possibility of a reset in painting.
9. Exhibiting
I make art for myself first and foremost. I have an almost uncontrollable urge to make drawings, paintings, collages, and sculptures. I often work on several pieces at once. Sometimes that is for practical reasons—for example, some works need to dry in the meantime. Usually, while working, I notice something interesting for a new work and I have to capture that discovery or idea immediately. I leave the work in progress for a while and, for a moment, I throw myself into a new adventure.
Where that urge comes from—to go into my studio almost every day to make new work or to polish old work—I don't know exactly. Maybe that urge is so strong because I have spent a large part of my professional life doing other things. Maybe I have the feeling that I still have a lot of catching up to do in the art world. It could be, although artist biographies make clear that for many artists there is an unstoppable 'drive' to express themselves, again and again, incessantly, even if they have been doing so all their lives. Making art is an ongoing fascination.
I express myself as I think it should be: uncompromisingly. That's a luxury. I don't have to live off my art. My work piles up in the studio. On occasion, people come along who would like to see something, and I appreciate that attention. Response gives rise to reconsideration, and sometimes to doubt. I consider doubt to be a prerequisite for art. No matter how driven artists are when they lock themselves in the privacy of a studio, there is always a need to exhibit the work. Showing the work is a condition for selling it. The main reason, however, is, I think, the need for response and communication. With your work, you show a part of yourself and, of course, you hope for recognition: what I create matters! It can, however, also be quite threatening to present your work to others.
A striking example of an artist who struggled with the pressure to reveal his work to a wider audience is the painter Mark Rothko (1903–1970). Rothko was born in Latvia and emigrated to America with his parents at a young age. Slowly, his work began to receive widespread attention, which seemed to surprise him the most. He received a prestigious commission to create a series of large canvases for the "Four Seasons" restaurant in the Seagram Building in New York, which came with a multimillion-dollar advance. Rothko set to work passionately, but halfway through, during a dinner at the restaurant, he became disillusioned by the uninterested clientele he encountered there. Consequently, he returned both the commission and the advance. Later, he donated the completed series of works to the Tate Gallery in London. The paintings arrived there on the very day of his suicide.
Taking a work out of the protected context of a studio is, in a sense, abandoning it to others. You no longer have control over it. What is finished has lost its future. For many artists, that is a reality that is difficult to deal with. Many artists, especially those who were ahead of their time, have had to deal with misunderstanding. For many, appreciation never comes, or it arrives too late. That is why it is ironically said that a prerequisite for fame is being dead.
10. What you have made as an artist, that you would rather not have made, but that you could appreciate in retrospect, if it still existed
a lot of art is old, often very old. it stood the test of time and survived. often because it has been hidden in one way or another, for example in undiscovered caves, or a lot of sand has been blown over it over time. we still have many remains of different ancient cultures. they show us a wonderful cultural development, but they document also the inhumane slave labor to realize it. there is still a lot to be seen, much has also been lost over time.
People are creators of art, yet at the same time, its enemies. Throughout history, vast amounts of art have been deliberately destroyed. Art is deeply intertwined with human conceptions of existential ideas; when these views shift, the art representing the old concepts is often targeted for destruction. Iconoclasm is the grim consequence. Furthermore, much art is lost through acts of war. The First and Second World Wars are prominent examples of the deliberate destruction of cultural heritage. Another stark example is the destruction of Palmyra—one of the oldest preserved Roman cities in the Middle East—by ISIS. Today, alongside the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, we are witnessing the cultural destruction inflicted by Russia in its unjust war against Ukraine. To counter this, UNESCO has established in international treaties that the deliberate damage or destruction of cultural heritage constitutes a war crime, which must be prosecuted and punished as such.
What may be less obvious is that a lot of art is destroyed by the artists themselves. Artists develop their skills and perspectives over the course of their artistic careers. They look for the mode of expression that suits them best. During these stages of development, they sometimes view previously made work as unsuccessful. An example of an artist who destroyed a lot of his own work is the Irish-British painter Francis Bacon (1909–1992). Bacon destroyed much of his early work because he was dissatisfied with it. He also destroyed a lot of later work because it did not meet his high expectations. Even when there were interested buyers, he did not hesitate to destroy the work anyway.
Sometimes, destruction is an action that is considered art in itself. An iconic painting of a girl with a balloon by the still-unidentified street artist Banksy was auctioned at Sotheby's. After the bidding surpassed one million, the canvas automatically slid down and emerged from the bottom of the frame cut into shreds. A shredder had been built into the frame. Despite this, the buyer still wanted to keep the piece. The act of destruction became part of the artwork, giving it a completely new dimension and value.
Artists later regret it when they destroy parts of their work. The Lithuanian-born sculptor Jacques Lipchitz (1891–1973) destroyed some of his early work. In a letter to Willem Sandberg (1897–1984), printed in 1958 in the catalogue of the retrospective exhibition of Lipchitz's work at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, he wrote about this: 'Apparently I was very dissatisfied with it, hence the destruction of those images, which I now regret—an artist must never destroy his work, that serves nothing; one cannot flee oneself. But to understand that, I had to get older!'
I took this text from the catalogue accompanying the exhibition 'Jacques Lipchitz: The Collection of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem' at the Museum Beelden aan Zee, which ran from 30 January to 3 June 2012. Final editing was done by Feico Hoekstra, and it was published by WBOOKS, Zwolle, 2012.
Sometimes works are saved that the artist actually wanted to have destroyed. There is a very beautiful construction of wood and plaster by the sculptor Charlotte van Pallandt (1898 - 1997). It is a construction made in preparation for a self-portrait. Van Pallandt saw a head as an architectural structure. When the self-portrait was finished, Van Pallandt wanted to throw away the preparatory construction. She did not see it as a work of art. However, the artist Peter Struycken (1939) managed to save it. It is now part of the collection of the museum “Beelden aan Zee”. Source: catalogue accompanying the exhibition "Charlotte van Pallandt. Kunst als levensdoel” (“Art as a Purpose of Life”), Museum De Fundatie, M. Jager, 2019, Waanders, Zwolle.
I do understand them, those artists who discard work they no longer like. It has to do with development. Development does not mean that things will get better; it just means they will be different. You look at it with different eyes. I myself have destroyed a lot of older work. Yes, I regretted that afterwards. Moments of dissatisfaction can later turn into the opposite. Sometimes I wish I could go back to that first phase. That is not possible. Painters and sculptors do not have—like photographers—a reset button in their toolbox.
11. Artistic trinity
Visual art is what people have shaped two- or three-dimensionally, or designed with artistic capacity and intention. It involves the visual expression of thoughts, feelings, concepts, or ideas. A more precise definition of visual art does it an injustice in advance, because defining is restrictive. Art loves to seek out boundaries in order to cross them—by means of a previously unthinkable thought, a step not taken before, or a choice for an unfamiliar and unknown direction. Defining quality is risky. Art is not always immediately understood during its period of origin and is mostly appreciated later. There is a pitfall here, because not everything that people shape in a visual sense is art. Recognizing and evaluating the value of expressions is often guided by observing a series of works by an artist, by continuity, by secondary information (for example, from the artist himself about intentions and work processes), and by the distance of time."
People give shape and meaning to their existence through visual means. Human visual expressions are diverse. These include images such as drawings, photographs, lithographs, or paintings. They can be incised images, such as woodcuts or etchings, or images like those we discover in ancient caves. They can be spatial works, sculptures, or installations. Visual work can also be monumental, architectural, or even digital.
I realize how privileged we are to be able to learn about the multitude of visual art with ease—through images in books, museum visits, and the internet, for example. Compared to previous generations, we have the opportunity to see and compare what has been produced over time since the dawn of mankind. For people before our time, this was much less obvious, or even impossible. We can look, compare, study, and learn.If I look at ancient Greek art, for example, I can observe the development from a geometric way of representation, to an archaic period, and finally a classical period. The geometric phase took place from 1000 to 700 BC. There are links with Egyptian art: human figures are represented with the upper body facing forward, while the head and legs are shown from the side. We know those figures from pottery. The subsequent archaic phase, from 700 to 500 BC, seems a bit stiff, certainly in comparison with the later classical period from 500 to 300 BC. In the classical period, the human figure is represented with the greatest possible perfection. It could hardly be more beautiful. You can just see and study these different periods side by side. In their founding days, this was not possible, or at least not easy. There is undeniably a development—a development that we can now interpret more easily than the Greeks themselves could have done during these periods.
We often connect development with the concepts of quality and quality improvement. In this context, you could say that artistic expression was initially inept, schematic, and approximate. It then improved, though remaining a bit stiff, before ultimately reaching unmatchable splendor. Yes, it did. However, with our current insights into art history—and our knowledge of Expressionism, for instance—I feel a strong sense of familiarity with the geometric representation of the human form. In fact, I sometimes find it almost more exciting to observe those abstracted representations from the early period than the perfect splendor of the classical era. That search for what is needed in design to create a symbol, finding those first solutions, and translating them directly into characters—it is beautiful and exciting. At the same time, the images from the classical period are, of course, magnificent, at least judging by what remains of them. Which is not much, and mostly consisting of Roman copies. An additional problem is that we are accustomed to viewing these statues in the splendor of white marble, whereas the Greeks themselves used to paint them in multiple colors. We also frequently see these images without arms, with a missing leg, or otherwise incomplete. Remarkably, we actually like that fragmentation. The Greeks would say: 'Get rid of it, it's broken.' Today, we look at those ancient statues as examples of high art. For the Greeks, however, they were primarily crucial symbols—symbols of human power and divine superiority. They were symbols that made the incomprehensible tangible: a link between the upper world and the underworld, rooted more in religion than in art.
Looking at visual art, there are three aspects that, within their context, form its very core. I call it a trinity, precisely because of that coherence: color, shape, and meaning. I realize these are umbrella concepts. Every work of art has a consciously chosen color, a color composition, a color combination, or a color effect. This is highly evident in painting, but color also plays a dominant role in spatial visual art. Even if a work does not have a consciously added color, it is never colorless. The chosen material possesses a color, or an abundance of color, and the passage of time also heavily influences color shades. Shape, the second element of my trinity, is equally defining. Art is the shaping of form. The design is closely linked to the chosen technique, the selected material, and how that material or those materials are processed and applied. In design, scale is also a major determining factor. The third element in my trinity is meaning. Every work of art is a carrier of meaning—a meaning either bestowed upon it by the artist or later attached to it by others.
Color is a complex interplay of applications, mostly highly conscious. Often, the chosen material determines the color of a work of art, while at other times, the material is intentionally recolored. For the record, light is the source of all color. Even with what we call natural materials, it is all about the reflection and absorption of light. Whether or not to alter the colors of materials is a conscious choice made by the artist. Much thought has been given to color, leading to the development of various color theories. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1782–1832), for instance, published a theory of color in 1810 based on directly observable phenomena. Goethe corresponded about his ideas with the early Romantic painter Philipp Otto Runge (1777–1818), who also made significant contributions to the theory of colors. There was extensive experimentation with ideas regarding the effects of color. The French Pointillists and Divisionists, for example, were late 19th-century painters who constructed their work using colored strokes or dots on canvas. The intention was for the viewer's retina and brain to mix the colors. Well-known representatives of this movement include Paul Signac (1863–1935) and Georges Seurat (1859–1891).
Johannes Itten (1888 – 1967) also revolutionized art education with his views on colors. Itten was a Swiss artist and teacher at the 'Bauhaus'. He developed a color theory with mixing systems based on the primary colors red, yellow, and blue. The secondary colors are orange, green, and violet. Then, there are tertiary colors, which arise from a mixture of a primary and a secondary color. Itten's color theory was a practical theory for painting. Digital photographers and printer designers do things differently. Their work is based on older scientific principles. In 1707, Isaac Newton (1643 – 1727) published the findings of his light studies in his work 'Opticks'. He observed that colored light is created by the refraction of white light in a prism. White light is created when you reassemble all those refracted colors. Newton named seven colors that he saw as primary colors because they cannot be broken down further with a prism. These are: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. When printing images from a computer, we use inks consisting of the primary colors cyan, magenta, and yellow, along with a black ink called key (CMYK) – a system of four-color printing.
People can distinguish a lot of colors, up to a million. A little order is added to that distinction by variations in hue, saturation, and brightness. When seeing colors, we use cones and rods (for shades of gray) in our retina. In the event of malfunctions, color blindness occurs, for example.
Form or design is the second container of my artistic trinity. I consider form, just like colour, to be an essential, defining, and distinctive concept in visual works of art. Form, like colour, is what you see when you look at a work of art. Design is traditionally determined by, and often a result of, technical progress. This technical development is not a linear process. From the very beginning of humanity to our time, there have been remarkable highlights and relapses in technical achievement. Even in very early periods of human development, there were extraordinary technical highlights.
Personally, I am impressed by the work of the Cycladic culture (4000 to 1100 BC), with its beautifully stylised sculpture. I really like the marble statue of a harp player—very stylised, very expressive. You could easily think of it as a contemporary work, thereby doing an injustice to the sculptor of this early time. We wish we could do it as beautifully as this sculptor. And of course, sculptures from Ancient Greece are unsurpassed. It took us an entire Renaissance to be able to imitate them even a little bit. The sculptures of the Greek sculptor Praxiteles, for example, are of such impressive technical mastery that you cannot imagine anyone will ever arise who surpasses them. Or the Nike unfastening her sandal, on display at the Acropolis Museum in Athens.
Compared to that, Rodin even seems a bit rude, and Bernini too pathetic. The Romans used Greek examples frequently and gladly, but as is often the case with copies, a lot is lost. How cautiously searching, and indeed somewhat awkward, are the later sculptures of early medieval art. At first glance, they seem rigid and immobile, until they once again display an incredible creative power and technical skill in the Late Gothic and Renaissance periods.
Technical skill fluctuates; it is learned with time and effort, but can also be lost quite quickly. Of course, technical awkwardness often possesses an expressive charm, but it was certainly not the maker's intention to be expressively inept. Technical competence cannot be directly linked to a powerful, natural representation. Technical competence is necessary, but in principle subordinate to the idea that the artist wants to realize. That idea is leading and gives meaning to a work of art. You must be technically capable of expressing what you want to express.
Meaning is the third container concept of my artistic trinity. Usually, you do not see meaning immediately. Often, you have to trace meaning in a work of art, investigate it, and learn to interpret it. However, meaning is an obvious, qualitative design element that defines the artwork. In many pieces, especially contemporary ones, meaning is the most dominant aspect—take installations, for example. Form and color become secondary to what the artist actually wants to express. The artist struggles with assigning meaning. Even if the meaning is ultimately clear to the artist, that does not mean it is equally clear to the viewer. This is what makes art difficult to grasp, and sometimes incomprehensible. Much of contemporary art is not created as an aesthetic phenomenon, and often not for eternity. These are exhibition installations, meant only for the duration of a show. After this period, the work is dismantled and cleared away. Photos are taken, or videos are made. The artwork lives on, but in digital form. The works of the packaging artist Christo are prime examples of such meaningful yet temporary artworks. Christo and his wife wrapped islands, or the Reichstag. The act itself is the art; the photos are the memories of it.
Attributing meaning is essentially an immaterial process; ideas, thoughts, and reflections are merely recorded on physical mediums. Consequently, the meaning intended by the artist is not always visible. While many artists attempt to explain their work and intentions, this approach is only occasionally successful. The visual presentation of ideas possesses a distinctly different quality than verbal explanation—a task that is often better accomplished by art critics or reviewers.
12. The connoisseur
“Visual arts” is not directly a domain in which large groups of people are or become involved. Although museums are often crowded, school classes can increasingly be found in museums, and schools regularly offer artistic content in the curriculum, it remains relatively quiet in the galleries. “Visual arts” has an elitist character, or at least the reputation for being so, and the idea of collecting or buying art for the home is not an ordinary thing for many people. Moreover, the idea that art is extremely expensive is fueled by reports of exorbitant returns at auctions. Sometimes there is a kind of understanding of high prices when it comes to 'beautiful' art—at least, that is to say, a “Van Gogh” for example, a “Da Vinci”, even a “Picasso”, or a newly discovered “Rembrandt”. However, if it concerns less directly accessible art—a “Twombly” for example, a “Pollock” perhaps, or a “De Kooning”—then the auction price is, for the general public, mainly a confirmation that the art world has left all reason behind. The relationship between product, price, and quality is lost. Art, at least part of it, has become a bitcoin, a football player, an investment, or, like tulip bulbs in the Dutch Golden Age, an object for speculators.
Art is a domain that does not interest most people. It is an area of expertise and understanding. To be able to enjoy art, you have to study it and learn how to experience it, much like a wine taster who only learns to distinguish and appreciate subtleties and nuances after a long time. Connoisseurship is a long-term process. Learning to appreciate art is also difficult because something labeled as art is not always art. Those who do not want to be taken for fools keep their cards close to their chest. That reminds me of a fairy tale.
In 1837, the fairy tale 'The Emperor’s New Clothes' was published by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875). The emperor is vain and highly focused on his appearance. He always wants to wear the most beautiful clothes. The more spoiled he gets, the more dissatisfied he becomes. Therefore, he is highly motivated when a group of swindlers arrives, claiming to have the finest and most beautiful fabric. They say it can only be seen by the smartest people, while fools see nothing. They lock themselves away for a few days to turn the fabric into the most beautiful clothes ever made for the emperor. At the presentation ceremony, the emperor sees nothing, but he does not want to admit it. He is knowingly ripped off and cheated, but to avoid being seen as stupid, the emperor and his entire court praise the excellent work of the crooks. The emperor puts on his new clothes and shows them off in a procession to his citizens. Everyone feels forced to cheer for fear of being judged, until a child shouts that the emperor is completely naked. After that, there is no stopping it. Everyone bursts out laughing, the crowd takes over the child's cry, and the emperor is exposed as the fool he has always been.
What does this fairytale have to do with art? Art has many functions. Art lives by illusions, even if it dies of disillusionment. Art exhibits, clarifies, changes, and despairs. Art makes visible, often before we can really see or understand it. Art history is a succession of misunderstood and mocked artists who were only rehabilitated later. Perhaps the most famous case is Vincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890); no one wanted his work. But there are more, equally heartbroken examples: the Impressionists, for example, the Fauvists, or the German Expressionists. A painter like Piet Mondrian (1872 – 1944) hardly had any money for a canvas to paint on. The young Picasso (1881 – 1973) lived a 'romantic' life in the studio building of the "Bateau-Lavoir" in Montmartre, but there was hardly any food. Instead, there were sweltering summers, freezing winters, a shared bed, and creditors breathing down his neck. Or Amedeo Modigliani (1884 – 1920): he wanted to be a sculptor, but stone was usually too expensive, forcing him to draw and paint on canvas and paper. Even William Turner (1775 – 1851), who was initially highly appreciated, had to deal with misunderstanding when he started making his beautiful pre-Impressionist canvases. Everyone thought he had lost his mind.
Art is often ahead of its time, which is a good thing. Understanding requires distance. Knowing this has made us—postmodernists—cautious. We often do not understand what drives the artist, but to avoid being seen as foolish, we do not dare to say that we do not understand or like it. This is especially true if there are enough people around us who seem convinced of the quality on display. It is particularly true if professionalism in art is viewed as a hindrance rather than a quality.
The German artist Joseph Beuys (1921–1986)—sculptor, draftsman, actionist, and professor—stated that everyone is an artist, arguing that there are no boundaries between artists and ordinary people. This Beuysian conception of art, craftsmanship, and political dimensions is closer to philosophy than to the fine arts. However, Beuys himself would certainly not wholeheartedly support this interpretation. He would likely view it as an example of a deplorable, divisive worldview. Furthermore, I am probably doing the field of philosophy an injustice, because the way Beuys philosophizes is reminiscent of how one explains paintings to a dead hare (referring here to one of his incomprehensible lectures). You get the idea: I don't like Beuys’ art, which is why I am on thin ice. Beuys is highly regarded by many, and all that junk lying in the Beuys Museum at Schloss Moyland, for example, is estimated by experts to be high-quality art. Yet, Beuys himself was often just as harsh toward fellow artists. When the artist Georg Baselitz exhibited a large wooden sculpture at a Venice Biennale, Beuys denigrated it, claiming it looked like the work of a first-semester art academy student—or probably not even that.
I am preoccupied with the acceptance of non-traditional art, as it holds two dangers: doing a work an injustice because we cannot yet comprehend it, and blindly accepting everything that labels itself as art.
Another example: I was once a member of the 'Lippische Gesellschaft für Kunst'. This is an association that deals with the presentation and critical examination of visual art in the broadest sense. That is to say: photography, sculpture, and architecture are also among their areas of interest. I like such a broad perspective. The main activity of the “Gesellschaft” is organizing regular exhibitions. They have access to a small but beautiful exhibition space: the former kitchen of a castle in Detmold in Lippe, Germany—a generous gesture by the noble family that still lives there. The “Lippische Gesellschaft” specializes in choosing good exhibitors. I remember a beautiful exhibition featuring the work of the German sculptor Laura Eckert. I want to talk about an exhibition that was not so successful, in my personal opinion of course. This serves as an illustration of the statement that you can have a hard time with the acceptance and appreciation of what is offered to you under the heading of art. My thesis is: it is not always art when it says it’s art.
In the summer of 2018, the relatively young German artist Stefan Vogel exhibited his work in the castle kitchen in Detmold. The young man has already built a solid reputation. He studied at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg and is a laureate of the renowned Villa Romana Prize in Florence. He has held numerous exhibitions in galleries and museums across Germany and Europe. He currently lives and works in Leipzig and Berlin, creating paintings, collages, and installations.
The invitation to the exhibition stated that Stefan Vogel is looking for the silent clash of representation and valuelessness, the friction between minimalism and abstraction, and other similar concepts. His material-based painting is an interpretation of cartography—a place of desire filled with fragments of memories from texts, photos, earth, and traces of labor. A high 'Beuysian content,' I would say. For this exhibition, the artist created an on-site installation inside the kitchen space. At the opening, Anka Ziefer, the director of the G2 Kunsthalle in Leipzig, gave the opening speech. She was full of praise, of course, which is typical when you are invited to deliver a laudation for an artist who is seemingly a friend. I can't remember her exact words, and I can't find them online either.
Vogel had completely occupied the space of the castle kitchen, which was his exhibition space. From piles of old pallets, he had built a wall and a floor. Using a lot of plastic wrap, he created a kind of window and an interior space. On the plastic wrap were texts, probably sprayed with a white sealant from a hardware store. In the room stood an open, old refrigerator; there was light here and there, and plaster-soaked, hardened cloths were scattered everywhere, seemingly carelessly thrown onto the pallets. The kitchen is not particularly large. Because of this installation, the space was so full that visitors had to squeeze past each other for a long time just to enter the installation. Fortunately, there were not very many visitors. You had to be careful where you walked. On the walls hung a few picture frames containing what appeared to be folded maps, showing only their backs.
After the opening, which was framed by music from the 'Ensemble Horizonte', the laudation by Mrs. Ziefer, and the invitation from the President of the “Lippische Gesellschaft” to view the exhibition, the at that time ninety-three-year-old Princess Dr. Traute zur Lippe—our charming hostess—stood up. Somewhat surprisingly for us visitors, she asked for a brief moment of our time. She warmly invited us for a drink and a snack, as was tradition, and also wanted to share an anecdote. A long time ago, she said, when she first moved into the castle with her late husband, the castle kitchen was completely cluttered, stuffed with rubbish from top to bottom. It took a while before they cleared the room and put it into a state where it could be used as an exhibition space. When she visited the kitchen during the artist's residency and saw his work, she experienced a sense of déjà vu. Nevertheless, the artist turned out to be a nice young man, she told us, who explained to her in detail that he was busy dropping plaster-soaked rags in such a way that it became art. The Princess told the story charmingly and with a hearty smile. I think several people in the audience sensed a slight tone of irony.
This is why I relate this in such detail: the visitors moved awkwardly—or so it seemed to me—through the densely crowded space, shuffling past one another. The beautiful castle kitchen had turned into a shambles of the highest order. Little was said. Pensively, some visitors stood, glass in hand, appearing a bit insecure as they stared around—perhaps still weighing the words of the princess, perhaps only now beginning to understand. The atmosphere was somewhat uncomfortable. Unspoken yet palpable in the kitchen was the question: what did this have to do with art? Were you supposed to look around with interest and pretend that this work offered entirely new perspectives on the "clashes of entities" heralded in the invitation? Were you supposed to view the installation with a connoisseur's eye, making occasional remarks to demonstrate your willingness to unlock the inaccessible? Or could you simply admit that this was an unbridled mess, with the spectators merely serving as the entourage for the "emperor's new clothes"? Yet, there was no child there to declare the emperor naked. Instead, it was a princess who assumed that role.
This consideration is not very nice of me, I realize. As an apology: I am not so much talking about the artists, but about the artistic concept. The reader can even blame me for being obsolete, or for not being open enough to new developments. Installations, for example, are contemporary art works; those who do not understand that belong – referring with a wink to the Dutch author Louis Couperus (1863 – 1923) – to "old people and the things that pass." Perhaps I am myself already caught in the trap of mindless misunderstandings, which I actually wanted to warn about. Indeed, I usually don't like installations. They are often too pretentious for me, too meaningless. Sometimes, however, I think they are mysterious, poetic, challenging and – though not necessarily – aesthetic. You see, it is rather personal.
The "Concerto dei Sospiri" (1997) by Rebecca Horn (1944–2024), the German sculptor, actionist, and filmmaker, is a collection of seemingly haphazardly thrown down copper tubes, funnels, rubble, metal, fabric, yes, also pallets, and more, that come from dilapidated Venetian houses. Sound and music accompany the whole. I think it's an exciting composition. It evokes the atmosphere of decay. The sighing and groaning are visible and audible. It is an inevitable concert. It evokes, perhaps, also the necessity of looking backward to be able to see forward
13. The artist's right not to be understood
Art is about giving meaning and understanding meaning. There are two parties involved: artists and observers of art. These two parties are interdependent, at least from the moment an artist shares their art. If the artist keeps everything to themselves, there is no external issue with understanding. As soon as the artist steps into a public space, they face the observer and are confronted—willingly or unintentionally—with reactions: benevolent, perhaps uncomprehending, or even hurtful at times. The latter is sometimes provoked by artists. A conscious riot has often been the start of a successful artistic career. It generates attention.
Art that is not understood can be incomprehensible. It can be enigmatic, encrypted, or inaccessible. However, this does not necessarily make it worthless to observers. Personally, I really like most of Cy Twombly's (1928 – 2011) work, even though I don't understand much of it. I deliberately use the word 'most here, as this excludes a part of his oeuvre. Often, Twombly feels too distant for me; I simply cannot get close enough to the work to form a bond with it. With certain parts of his work, I can truly understand why some people rigorously reject it. Yet, in other parts, I am completely overwhelmed by its poetic nature or fascinated by the diversity of cultural references.
Artists engage in creative processes. Creativity is characterized by uncovering unusual answers to questions and posing unconventional questions that demand answers; it undermines standard solutions and challenges—or at least questions—the obvious. Divergent thinking and behavior are hallmarks of many artists. This approach neither brings artists closer to their audience, nor does it automatically connect the audience with the work. Divergent thinking often involves non-systematic, experimental approaches to a theme, where logical inferences and practical objections are initially disregarded. Ultimately, it centers on invention—be it of concepts, ideas, or analytical frameworks for problem-solving.
Giving meaning presupposes the ability to reflect and look ahead. Pausing for a moment is necessary to be able to move forward. This is what artists do in their unconscious, reflective steps. Pausing for a moment is the condition for thinking ahead. For those who are not involved in the challenge of such a process of thinking and deliberation, its outcomes are unusual, often confusing, or, at least, unfamiliar. Art is about finding and creating new ways of expression, usually grafted onto the familiar, but unexpectedly different at the same time. The past nevertheless always influences what is still to come, if only in the way you want to oppose it. The Minoan culture, which originated about 3000 BC and is considered an influential cradle of Western European culture, was derived from highly developed ancient Egyptian art. On Greek tableware, with its red and black figures and representations, we can clearly see that Egyptian origin. The frontal representation of the body is interspersed with the profile design of legs, feet, and heads. There is a fixed canon in these artistic expressions. The Greeks adopted those rules. Only later did they do things a little differently, for example, by just drawing a foot seen from the front instead of the side. It seems like a detail. But it is a revolution.
In his famous book The Story of Art, published by Phaidon Press, the British art historian Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich describes this process of upheaval by analyzing two vases. On a black-figure vase signed by Exekias (around 540 BC), two Homeric heroes, Achilles and Ajax, are depicted playing a game of dice. While their faces are still tightly drawn in profile—much like the Egyptians would have done—their bodies are shown from the side, and their arms and legs no longer follow the rigid, formal scheme of Egyptian art. Gombrich suggests that the vase painter actually observed what such a scene would look like in reality. He calls this a moment of transition in art. Another vase, which depicts a warrior's farewell in the red-figure style and is signed by Euthymides (circa 500 BC), shows how this artistic expression developed further. Unlike his parents, to whom he is saying goodbye, the warrior is drawn from a frontal perspective. One of his feet is stepping forward, and it is depicted exactly that way. For the first time, foreshortening occurs in Greek vase art—a drawing technique that allowed artists to make scenes more realistic. We also see the warrior's shield from the side. It represents a groundbreaking new way of seeing and depicting the world.
In the following centuries, the depictions of people and animals became more plastic and realistic; yes, it took a long time, but then it also became very different. How beautifully the Greeks achieved this—the ideal expression of human beings. Unfortunately, not much of what they created has survived, but what remains speaks volumes. After subsequent turbulent centuries—the Persians, the Romans, and the rise of Christianity—the ability to portray figures as the Greeks once could was lost again. In the Western European Middle Ages, new attempts were made; at first somewhat rigid, but later painting and sculpture developed into magnificent new heights. A system of consensus emerged regarding how to depict subjects and what kind of symbolism belonged to them, leading to the development of a closed canon. The Renaissance made everything a bit freer for artists, although patrons continued to heavily influence art and its design.
Changes are usually not directly appreciated. Artists, however, embrace experimentation and development. Resistance to academic traditions often leads to secessionist movements. Yet, these movements eventually grow into academic traditions themselves, in turn blocking new developments. A well-known secessionist movement was the artists' resistance against the dominance of the Paris Salon. The Salon has a long history. Under the name 'L'Exposition', it was founded in 1648 by Cardinal Jules Mazarin, then minister of finance under King Louis XIV, primarily to give graduates of the École des Beaux-Arts the opportunity to exhibit their work. For two centuries, it remained the most important exhibition for French artists to gain public attention and sell their work. By the nineteenth century, however, the Salon had become an exhibition primarily for established artists.
Even if your work was accepted, it was questionable whether it would be placed somewhere visible. Innovation was not truly appreciated. Later, very famous artists were rejected by the Salon, such as Manet, Monet, Renoir, Sisley, and Cézanne. Works that were submitted but not accepted were stamped on the frame with an "R", standing for "Refusé" (rejected). This stamp made selling the artwork even more difficult. From 1863 onwards, exhibitions were held in Paris to display the artworks rejected by the official Salon. This became known as the "Salon des Refusés". Following this first event, exhibitions were also organized in 1874, 1875, and 1886. As is typical with new developments, a large part of the press ridiculed the artworks in the Salon of the Rejected. Soon, however, it would become clear who got the last laugh...
Another of the many secessionist movements took place in Germany—in Berlin, to be precise. In 1899, the "Berliner Secession", under the direction of the artist Max Liebermann, usually organized two exhibitions a year. It was a reaction to dissatisfaction with the selection criteria and choices of the annual "Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung". Many artists found the official exhibition too academic, too traditional, and too conservative. The secessionist movement of Liebermann and his associates flourished for about ten years and became quite influential, with many non-Berlin artists joining as well. However, criticism eventually arose. In 1909, Wassily Kandinsky wrote that the once-leading countermovement had become a pretty bourgeois club with a view that was mainly focused on commercial success. At the twentieth exhibition in 1910, criticism grew when many artists who had submitted work were refused. Under the leadership of Georg Tappert and Max Pechstein, a countermovement was organized. This was an initiative for a "Neue Secession". In 1910, the first exhibition took place in Berlin. Soon several artists joined—Nolde, for example, but also “Brücke” painters such as Otto Mueller. The movement did not last long because of various internal conflicts. The Berlin movement itself was inspired by an earlier secessionist movement in Munich. Paul Klee and Alexej von Jawlensky were among its founders. Later, artists such as Erich Heckel, Max Beckmann, Oskar Kokoschka, Emil Nolde, and Karl Hofer joined.
Artists have the right not to be understood. If they seek understanding, they run the risk of getting stuck in a familiar, yet trite pattern. Artists take considerable risks in doing so. An artist who creates work unlike anything done before does not make it easy for the public. It often takes time for a new approach to become somewhat familiar and to reveal itself as more accessible through comparisons with previous works. New approaches are experiments, and as is the case with experiments, they are not always successful. The artist's quest can lead to appreciation and to a new, successful approach. It can also turn out to be a fiasco, both for the artist and the public. Understanding is not something that can be assumed or expected in advance. Even for the artist, a situation can arise in which they do not—or do not yet—fully understand what the work is about. Art has rational sides, but not entirely. For many artists, recognition has come late, or too late to benefit from it themselves. There is sometimes, but usually not, a 'return on investment'.
The right to misunderstanding is not a license for 'everything is permitted'. In my previous contribution to the blog (no. 12), I talked about 'the Emperor's New Clothes'. I think many people do not dare to admit publicly that what is presented to them about art is sometimes truly nonsense. You run the risk of being branded as short-sighted. I would like to link the artist's right not to be understood with the right of the public not to accept everything that is presented. Mistakes are not excluded. There are consequences to judgment, as the reckless Trojan king's son, Paris, experienced firsthand when he thought he had the exclusive right to judge the quality of beauty.
14. What's in a name?
Works of art often have a title, though frequently they do not. Sometimes the name is descriptive, directly reflecting what the artwork represents. Other times, it is confusing or challenging—at first glance, there is no obvious link to what we see, forcing us to think. Only then do we truly see it, or perhaps finally 'get' it. A title aims to distinguish a piece from other creations, giving it a unique identity. It is just like people: we all have names. While many people share the same name, yours remains unique because it is bound to you. As the Dutch singer-songwriter Henk Westbroek sings about Julia: 'Even your name is beautiful, more beautiful than that of anyone else who shares it'.
In the case of painted portraits or sculpted heads of existing people, the name of the work is directly linked to the person depicted. The name of the person depicted is mentioned, along with the year of the work's creation. For painted cityscapes, landscapes, and buildings, usually the region or place is mentioned as the title of the artwork. Still lifes are sometimes referred to with the addition of some characteristic subjects in the painting, for example: 'Still Life with Flowers', or 'Still Life with Guitar'. For sculpted persons or heads that are not directly related to a real person, a number will do, combined with the year of origin: 'No. 1, 2025'. In sculptures of people, you can find an indication of the body posture: 'reclining', 'standing', or 'kneeling'.
Through explicit naming, the creator defines exactly what can be seen, leaving no room for misunderstanding the subject. It is a View of Delft, or it is The Burghers of Calais. The title directs the viewer's observation, adding a dimension to the painting or sculpture that gives meaning to the artwork. The artist plays a direct role in this, steering the spectator in a specific direction. Furthermore, the naming does not always relate to a concrete, observable situation; it can also represent an emotion or a concept.
The artist is not always unambiguous or consistent in naming his works. A good example of the fluctuating use of new names for the same work of art concerns the work of the sculptor Medardo Rosso (1858–1928). Rosso was an Italian artist who received French citizenship in 1902. He played a major role in the renewal of sculpture. In 2024–2025, the Mumok in Vienna dedicated a major exhibition to his work. In 1883, Rosso created the sculpture "Ruffiana", the head of a matchmaker. In the same year, he added a male counterpart, "Il Vecchio", and named the couple "Philemon and Baucis", after the story from Ovid's "Metamorphoses" about cordiality and hospitality despite poverty. Later, this couple was also given the name "Faust and Margherita", referring to the work of Goethe, or to Charles Gounod's opera from 1859, which was based on Goethe's work.
Naming things is complex, and it is something I am deeply involved with. Although I would prefer to leave the interpretation of my work to the viewer, I usually add a hint, or often very explicit titles, to guide their perception. I indicate exactly what I wanted to show. Even in my abstract work, I give directions. In fact, I strip my work of its abstraction. For example, I have given a series of works that cannot be directly linked to a recognizable observation the subtitle: 'Yesterday's Snow'. Because of this addition, the previously abstract work suddenly becomes a detail or a cutout of a piece of ground on which snow fell yesterday, but where pieces of the underlying earth have now become visible due to the thaw. Because of this, the painting has become a landscape.
In another series, I added 'Habitable Thoughts'. Although 'Habitable Thoughts' may not immediately evoke associations with concrete images, I have certainly made a concrete statement through this addition. It is a reflection of thoughts. These thoughts may be confused—at least, that is what it looks like in my paintings—nevertheless, it is not so much chaos that they are no longer habitable. At the same time, the title is a tribute to the Dutch poet and sailor Slauerhoff, who once wrote that he could only live in his thoughts, having found no shelter anywhere else.
The hardest part is the categorization of my sculptural heads. They are directly connected to figures from Greek mythology—usually protagonists from the Odyssey or Homer's Iliad. When I start with a 'head-line', I think: 'I'm just making a head now. For me, it's about the form, the volume, the interior space, and the outdoor space, as well as the connections between those spaces.'
That’s enough of a challenge, I think. But no, while working away, a person arises; a name arises. Actually, that name gets in my way, but at the same time, it shows me the way. When I start working, I don't know who it will be—I only see it more and more clearly along the way. Often, I don't even know if it will be a woman or a man. I am working on a head, that's it. It is meant to be a form, but no, it turns out to be a person.
My heads are not portraits. I don't use a model. There are no eyewitnesses. It is the same problem Homer faced: surviving stories—or rather, remnants of stories, passed down by singers, later written down from memory, fragments. That makes it easier for me. The heads do not have to look the way an actual person might have looked.
Working on a head in my studio, I can see, for instance, the head I made earlier of Laertes, the father of Odysseus. Old, wise, introverted, with a long and adventurous life behind him, now almost at the end. His daughter-in-law weaves his shroud. With every step, the new, still unfinished head in my hands transforms more and more into the head of his deceased wife, Antikleia. I work as if compelled to create a connection, to lift the old man's loneliness. The head becomes that of a woman, an old woman. She becomes the wife of Laertes; she becomes the mother of Odysseus. The texture between the two heads is the same, as is the tonality. I truly believe that this connection is visible.
The head of Andromache, another sculpture, is fragmentary. Andromache is the wife of the Trojan prince Hektor, the eldest son of King Priamos and Queen Hekabe. Andromache is depicted in deep suffering. She has said goodbye to her husband, who faces the enemy in the form of the invincible Achilles. In the head of Andromache, the interior spaces interact with the outdoor spaces; you can look from the inside out and vice versa. The posture of the head is strongly curved, almost forming an arabesque. She exudes the sadness of a medieval Madonna. She knows what is coming and what she cannot change. A few heads after that, there is no stopping it: out of the initial form in my hands arises, indistinguishably, the head of her husband Hektor, prince of Troy, intended heir to the throne, doomed to die in the battle against Achilles. Hektor is inevitable, brave, and humble, facing his fate.
The more heads that are created, the more connections there are between the figures, and the greater the pressure becomes with each new head. Each new head imposes itself as a new protagonist in the old story. As soon as a figure appears, its head also becomes clearer to me. I am, as it were, guided by the figure from which i can no longer escape. In the silence of my studio, I even start talking to the different figures. I see Telemachus; his mother, Penelope, is a bit further away. 'Try something on your own,' I hear myself saying, 'be independent and brave instead of radiating that learned helplessness.
I don't know the characters I make. Their appearance is strange to me, and that is liberating. I can go my own way; there is no single solution. I often create series, both in sculpture and in drawings and paintings. I call them 'possible faces.' For example, I have a series about Ktimene, the unknown sister of Odysseus. She was married off to the king of Same—the same king who, not much later, went to Troy as a helmsman on Odysseus's boat. On the way back, he crashed by the hand of the gods, provoked by his own stupidity. I try to imagine Ktimene: the young sister of a foreseen hero, growing up alongside another king's son, Eumaeus, who became a slave due to a sad fate. Ktimene is a sister, but she is also the wife of the king of a neighboring island. Then, she becomes the widow of a warrior who never returned from Troy. We know virtually nothing about her. I look for her (im)possible faces.
In the portrayal of ancient figures, it is my greatest ambition to keep the form sincere. The form should not succumb to the narrative; the heads should not become anecdotal. I constantly strive to maintain the sculptural power of the work and to find a balance between content and form. I prefer to display them under the heading 'Possible Faces'—drawings and sculptures without the binding factor of the story, although i will never be able to see them without their mythological context.
In the meantime, I have surrendered to the urge to make sculptures without interpretation or reference to a person. I actually call them Head 1, Head 2, Head 3, etc. I call the collection itself Head-lines. It is about the main form, about the main lines. It is formal work, in the sense that it is all about composition. There is no narrative context. Sometimes that is liberating, but sometimes it also feels like a limitation. I haven't made many Head-lines so far, but I'm not giving up.
15. Monsieur Jacques would have raised his eyebrows
In the twentieth century, the Netherlands had a whole series of good sculptors. hat is surprising, because my motherland did not have a real sculpting tradition. In the twentieth century, things changed rapidly. I will name a few: Charlotte van Pallandt (1898 - 1997), John Rädecker (1885 - 1956), Carel Kneulman (1915 - 2008), Jan Bronner (1881 - 1972), and Han Wezelaar (1901 - 1984), amongst many others. Most people do not know the names of any of these sculptors, but they probably recognize at least one of their works. Van Pallandt, for example, made the large statue of Queen Wilhelmina that can be seen in Rotterdam, among other places. Rädecker made the National Monument that was erected on Dam Square in Amsterdam. Carel Kneulman is known for “Het Lieverdje” (“Little Darling”), an iconic statue that gained prominence during the Provo period of the sixties in Amsterdam. It has been regularly damaged throughout its existence by activists who just can't keep their hands off art.
However, I want to talk about Oswald Wenckebach (1895 - 1962), a Dutch sculptor whose name does not immediately evoke an 'oh yes, that one!' for most people. However, many people do know a sculpture by him. If you go to the Kröller-Müller Museum, in the national park 'De Hoge Veluwe', you will find a life-size statue near the entrance to a somewhat corpulent man in a long coat, his head slightly up, his hands behind his back, holding his hat. That is 'Mr. Jacques', or 'Monsieur Jacques', by Oswald Wenckebach. I think the statue at the Kröller-Müller Museum is a beautiful sculpture. It has a strong expression, is really a solid thing, and features an exciting yet modest curve through the rather sturdy figure. The statue is nicely placed there, on the lawn near the museum. Wenckebach made a whole series of this fictional character: 'Jacques as a Tourist', 'Jacques in a Political Debate', or 'Jacques at a Funeral', just to name a few.
I think the most beautiful sculpture by Wenckebach is a portrait he made much earlier. It is a portrait of Retha Huizinga, about 40 cm high, in polychrome teak. Wenckebach made it in 1926. Retha is the daughter of the well-known historian Johan Huizinga and Lady Mary Vincentia Schorer. Huizinga (1872 - 1945) was a professor, and among others the author of the standard work "Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen" (“The Autumn of the Middle Ages"), a study of the Late Middle Ages in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in the Netherlands and in France. Huizinga was nominated several times for the Nobel Prize for Literature. A cultural family, those Huizinga's. Nevertheless, this family — who exactly is not known to me — managed at some point to strip away the polychrome paint layer from that wonderful sculpture of Retha. I refer to the information about this in part five of the series “Monographs” of the “Dutch Sculpture Institute” (2011) about Oswald Wenckebach. What the reason for the scraping was, I don't know. Perhaps taste changed over time, and it was felt that a beautiful teak statue looked better without paint. Maybe the paint was a bit damaged. Now there is only a photo left of the painted statue, the most beautiful sculpture ever made by Wenckebach, in my opinion.
Monsieur Jacques has probably frowned dubiously at this 'autumn time of Huizinga’s',
I assume, while looking a little worried at the crowds of visitors—some of them possibly with sticky fingers—passing by on their way to the museum. His patina is dear to him, and damaging art is of all times, driven by all kinds of questionable arguments, and unfortunately quite topical today. The Dutch poet Lucebert (1924–1994) wrote: 'Alles van waarde is weerloos' ('All things of value are defenseless') in the untitled poem that begins with: 'de zeer oude zingt' ('the very old one sings'). This defenselessness applies to so many vulnerable things, including nature and art. They deserve our protection, not our destruction.
16. Themes and topics
Painters and sketch artists create paintings, drawings, or etchings, though they also employ various other visual techniques. While the chosen medium is often obvious—such as an oil painting or a watercolor—the boundaries can sometimes be difficult to define, making it hard to tell whether a piece is a painting or a drawing. Beyond selecting a technique or a mix of mediums, a visual artist must also choose a mode of expression. A fundamental decision is whether the work will be abstract or figurative. Then, there is the matter of the subject. An artwork is an object that conveys meaning. Artists are often highly explicit about their intent, depicting a still life, a nude, a landscape, or a specific emotion. Alternatively, they may leave interpretation entirely to the viewer by withholding their intention; in such cases, the work remains untitled or is simply assigned a sequential number. Artists frequently explore specific themes across multiple pieces, and a single theme can encompass a significant portion of their oeuvre. These themes may be concluded, only to be revisited and picked up again later.
The Italian painter Morandi (1890–1964) painted flowers and landscapes, but especially bottles, vases, and jars. He is best known for his still lifes of dusty arrangements of these objects. He lived in a house with his three sisters, and his bedroom also served as his studio. While his sisters took care of the food, washing, and cleaning of the house, they had to stay away from his pots and vases, as Morandi cherished the dust that settled on them.
The French painter Cézanne (1839–1906) often painted a mountain, the Montagne Sainte-Victoire, as well as apples, pears, and portraits. He also created a few paintings of skulls, a severed leg of a lamb, and a murderer in action—strange outliers in an otherwise consistent theme.
The German painter Baselitz (1938) painted men with excessively large genitals at the beginning of his career. This led to a scandal that brought grist to his mill. Later, he also painted his subjects upside down. It seems he accidentally hung the paintings in reverse at first, and the public's lack of understanding provided another boost to his success.
Topics are often hidden as well; a first glance is not enough. In a flower still life, insects eat leaves and a worm crawls in a hidden corner. The message is: beware, life may seem beautiful, but it is finite. Paintings of saints are full of hidden symbolism indicating, for example, potential suffering, preserved virginity, or a specific theme connected to the saint. Social inequality, the oppression of certain groups, moralistic subjects, and the flaunting of pageantry—everything conceivable or unthinkable in society is also reflected in art, sometimes explicitly, often in a more or less hidden way. We must therefore learn to read the painting. Iconography describes what we read. The more complicated a society becomes, the more complex the ways in which artists express it. Art has many functions, not all of which are immediately recognizable. Art is often judged by the superficial viewer based on only one of its possible functions. It often takes a long time before one understands the artist and can appreciate the work through this understanding. Often, those artists no longer experience this appreciation themselves. Vincent van gogh (1853–1890) could certainly have spoken to that, but he is not the only one.
17. Art and allocation
We traditionally divide art history into epochs, periods, and categories to create structural clarity. This helps us understand which movements belong together, their chronological order, and how they influenced one another. This categorization is relatively effective for long historical spans characterized by distinct stylistic features. I use the word 'relatively' because global art history covers a vast spectrum, featuring countless distinct periods, regional variations, and diverse cultures of origin. Even when narrowing our focus to Western Europe from the Early Middle Ages to the nineteenth century, we encounter a richly varied landscape. We can trace a clear succession from Medieval art to the Renaissance and the Baroque. Within these major eras, finer classifications emerge, such as Carolingian, Merovingian, Gothic, Mannerist, Classicist, or Rococo art. However, from the nineteenth century onward, this linear framework becomes significantly more complex.
Perhaps generations to come will merge parts of those distinctions into larger wholes. For the time being, we are talking about Art Nouveau, Arts and Crafts, Pre-Raphaelites, Empire, Impressionism, Materialism, Naturalism, Orientalism, Pointillism, Realism, Romanticism, Symbolism, Modernism, Constructivism, Expressionism, Futurism, Surrealism, Art Deco, Cubism, Pop Art, Land Art, and graffiti—also here to name a few. A lot of “isms,” by the way. Several of these art movements also have a "post" variant, still practiced by artists with the misfortune of being born a little later than when the movement was at its peak, nevertheless still attracted to the already ended or merely completed style.
Arranging art into styles and movements is something for contemplative, analytical, and descriptive art historians; artists are more concerned with creating art, in which conflicts between movements can often play a significant role. A striking example is the rise of abstract art at the beginning of the twentieth century. Figurative and abstract artists competed with each other in a fanatic way, reminiscent of religious movements. Years of friendships were destroyed.
The distinction between conceptual art and traditional painting also leads to massive controversies within the artistic profession: is the work of art autonomous, meaning it is all about the tangible and designed result, or is the artist's idea leading, making the visual design secondary? My work is mainly figurative, but my mythologically oriented work, in particular, actually depicts ancient concepts in a contemporary narrative context. The figurative output is essential and matters to me. Nevertheless, there is a leading idea or concept that underlies the design. In that sense, I also see my work as conceptual art. But when I'm working on it, who the hell cares?
18. The relevance of art as educational content
This blog focuses on educational content and art. I limit myself to basic education: primary education and the lower stage of secondary education. My frame of reference is the Dutch education system, but the text applies to most Western European education systems. In my youth, some time ago, artistic subjects were sometimes referred to as 'subjects below the line'. In report cards sent to parents, the core subjects were listed above a line, followed by the 'less relevant' areas. Although that physical line may have disappeared today, the implicit stigma still remains.
What strikes me is that in education, we almost always talk about 'subjects' when it comes to content and quality. In international comparisons, such as the PISA surveys, results in 'subject areas' are measured and compared to determine educational quality. Subjects dictate the structure of the school day. A curriculum seems to be a kind of 'bookcase of disciplines' and teachers are, to put it irreverently, 'shelf stackers'. However, students are rarely enthusiastic about a 'discipline'. What motivates them are the exciting questions they ask themselves, or those offered to them by their teachers within a narrative context. Subject content certainly plays a significant role in answering these questions, but it should not be the structure that determines and divides a school day.
In my professional life, I have been involved in the development of core educational objectives. Over time, I have become convinced that the most important core goal for education is to maintain children's curiosity and expand their imagination. Curiosity and imagination are the foundation for all development, not only in science but also in educational matters. It is crucial for teachers to possess knowledge of the essential content from various disciplines that society deems desirable to offer to pupils. While this knowledge is important for teachers to ensure we do not lose sight of relevant content, it does not necessarily dictate the organizational form used to engage pupils with that content.
When determining educational content, there are different perspectives, principles, and questions to consider:
- The legal perspective, which determines the core content that must be addressed in education.
- The feasibility principle, which determines whether our goals can realistically be achieved within the available time. While society may expect a lot from education, the curriculum must remain feasible.
- The question of which skills, knowledge elements, and socio-cultural content we, as a society, currently consider fundamental for students. While some positions remain relatively fixed, there are also fluctuations and shifts in emphasis over time—driven, for example, by increasing complexity, digitalization, and internationalization.
- Perhaps most guiding are the answers to the question regarding personal, ethical, moral, cultural, and social qualities, as well as the values and norms society wishes to convey to all students. This touches upon the political and philosophical question: what kind of people do we want to be? This question keeps education and society in motion, driving a process of continuous exchange between the two.
IIt is remarkable that when determining the quality of education, the focus is usually on instrumental skills. "They can hardly read anymore!" or "Mental arithmetic has deteriorated rapidly!" In my vision of contemporary primary education, there is no subject-structured curriculum and no system in which we compare children with each other. In my opinion, education is about a child's development based on his or her potential, not measured or compared against other children. Development is my parameter, within the possibilities of each individual child. In my vision of a school, children do not develop because of deficiencies or advantages over each other, but because they are curious and because there are teachers who know how to stimulate that curiosity. Development is not the same for every child; children are not equal. They are birds that fly—some high, far, and fast, others with a lot of effort and over shorter distances. The most important thing: they fly!
My school is a challenging community. Questions are the conditions for further development—real questions, not those to which teachers already know the answer. Differentiated didactics are a prerequisite for this. My school does not have classes, subjects, or fixed hours for this or that. Children, like birds, do not like to be locked up. My school is a space for groups of different compositions who are looking for answers to their own exciting questions. Teachers guide and facilitate that process. Yes, there are courses too, especially for learning instrumental skills. They are necessary, but not the most important. What matters is content that challenges the curiosity of children on their way to a better world in which everyone feels involved. Artistic content is not 'below the line', but highly ranked. It deals with imagination, the most important prerequisite for development.
The supreme god Zeus was annoyed when the titan Prometheus stole the fire of imagination from the gods. Prometheus thus deprived the gods of their most important quality. Imagination turns 'creatures' into 'creators.' This is what gives art such a high status in education and makes it a necessity for a world we want to be part of.
19. "AI": Artistic Intelligence
Intelligence is the ability to act purposefully and effectively, to think rationally and emotionally, to think abstractly, and to apply skills such as problem-solving or communication through language. Intelligence is mainly about understanding. It is an ability of living beings, such as plants, animals, and humans, and is largely decisive for their existence. The study of intelligent behavior of plants and animals is relatively young. However, it turns out that plants – just like animals – can learn, communicate, remember**,** and solve problems. The quality of intelligence is not the same in every living being.
Nowadays, we often talk about 'artificial intelligence.' It is said to enrich us, threaten us, help us move forward, or even take us over. In the case of 'artificial intelligence,' processes such as planning, controlling, combining, and coordinating are carried out very quickly by computer technology and the use of algorithms. That is an enrichment. However, the factor of 'understanding' is reserved for living beings. The term 'artificial intelligence' suggests a high level of understanding, which, however, a machine or a program simply does not possess. 'AI' has become a kind of biblical golden calf: we worship it, we fear it, it seems to take on a life of its own, we tend to submit to it, and it is expensive too. Those who set aside their own basic human qualities leave themselves at the mercy of the fables of others.
You need to understand: I don't like the term 'AI'. That is only partly true, though. The programmers are certainly extremely intelligent, and their programs are high-quality, efficient, and super-fast. Nevertheless, the programs themselves are not intelligent. Let that be reserved for humans.
With regard to art, I highly respect 'AI', but for me, the 'A' does not stand for 'artificial', but for 'artistic'. Artistic intelligence is what I wish for every artist, but also for every art lover. It is the ability to act purposefully and effectively, to think rationally and emotionally, to think abstractly, to apply skills like problem-solving, and to communicate through artistic means. Intelligence is mainly about understanding what is often difficult to comprehend. This is where intelligence and art meet.