In the blog of June 10, 2015 I talked about what the essence of painting might be.

The question presented itself strongly, while painting mixed media sketches of Gala. Why is that…

Painting her means searching for an interpretation where all the many aspects of me towards her and painting find their place.

For some a totally black or white painted paper might work. Accompanied and explained by a philosophical deep underbuilt text. Something like, ‘…she is everything for me. No other color than black, or white can show the total importance of her existence, no brushstroke can compete with what I feel for her…’ and then some quote of Nietzsche or even better Wittgenstein (about the ladder and the uselessness of even trying to paint her)… Here it is again. It would not be a through paint realized emotion or/and idea, it would be an illustration of an idea with a text explaining all. As how the Dutch expression goes, ‘the child is thrown away with the water of the bathtub’.

I love and want to paint! The great thing about seeing the essence in an other way than going towards a monochrome canvas which is the end of painting, seeing it in this way, it is a continuous and never ending flow of challenges.

In every time period, there are many who think the end of times has arrived. Something fundamental has happened that ends all possibilities to go on. I don’t…

I often compare painting with swimming in a pool. Every once in a while, one touches a side, but that is not the essence of swimming. Touching a side makes you chose where to go to next, hanging on that side makes you stop swimming.

Can I swim? It must be quite an embarrassing sight, the way I move my arms and legs, but still, I prefer that to hanging on a side.

Here is the latest of my sketches of Gala: http://www.bertvanzelm.com/object?object=152

On June 25, 2015 a bull sketch was auctioned. Why do I paint so many bulls?

I became fascinated with bulls thanks to the bullfights in Spain. It made me see the symbolic role that bulls have played all through our civilization for many centuries. This role goes back to the Egyptians and almost all other cultures up to quite recent times. Why?

As I said in the interview with Nicole Millar for the television channel of El Punt/Avui (minute 6.07-8.44), lions are of no use to us, but bulls are.

In circuses there have been shows with lions, tigers, elephants, horses, but never bulls… The bull is unpredictable. Once his mind is set on killing, no one can stop him. This has turned him into the symbol of the divine, unpredictable strength of nature and virility. He is a force to be dealt with.

We forget many symbols that were used in our society for centuries. After the industrial revolution, no king or queen can be put on a horse for a sculpture anymore…

By painting bulls, I reach into that area by giving an image to the divine and mystical side of our live again. Too much is being reasoned away and/or hidden. We often call that civilization; I question that.

We all search for how to lead a meaningful life.

Yet another Bush wants to become president of the USA, cut down taxes, create jobs, maybe find water in California and who knows, start a war somewhere to free some people from some dictator.

My aim is a lot smaller, also because I am not so convinced that I have the solutions for all these problems. For me the meaning lays in bringing a happy daughter to school, turn her into a balanced and positive person and make some canvases dirty in such a way, that it makes me and others happy when we look at them. And all this without damaging to many others…

I really belief in beauty, also beauty created by men. It helps us get through the day, go forward. See that not all is sad.

When I paint I always listen to music. Here is a song that I love and a sketch made after a painting I admire (seen last year with my happy daughter; self-portrait by Carel Fabritius). Paintings like these make me want to paint…

Not long ago an article about Malevich and his black square painting was published in a Dutch newspaper. The writer declared that that painting was probably the most essential painting ever made.

This is a pitiful mistake that has been around for many years.

What is painting? Painting is making a surface dirty. One can do it with black, white or many different colors. Here we can still save poor Malevich.

But what is the essence of painting? This question can lead to finding out if the black square is still up for that honorable title.

Painting for the painter is not just making a surface dirty; essential is to translate an idea or image into a representation on a flat surface. That is one. Here Malevich’ black square can still be a contender.

But painting has to do with the act of painting too and with a spectator and what he makes out of not only the idea, but also what he makes out of the way it is painted (otherwise, you can describe it a lot better). Here seen from far and with the light out, Malevich’ black square might still be in the race. But seen in bright daylight, it falls of the throne.

Essential in painting is that through that painterly interpretation, the painter as well as the spectator see that idea or image through a ‘pair of uncommon glasses’. It shows the represented from a different perspective.

Here Malevich goes flat on his face. Painterly wise nothing is happening. See blog 18-5-2015 about illustrating an idea.

It is like talking about fire and matches. For a fire matches are of use, but matches are not the fire itself (and this is the problem with a lot of contemporary art).

Long live guys like Rembrandt, Velazquez, Goya, Bacon, Turner, Manet, Monet, Picasso, Pissarro, Matisse and all those others for having created fireworks and not talked to us about their matches!

In the last blog I talked about if there exist any mistakes in the arts. And I mentioned Van Gogh…

You learn from your mistakes, mistakes make you take routes you didn’t dream you would take. A couple of days ago, it happened again. I was working on a sketch and it all went out of control. Better, it became to dull.

I took a step back, reconsidered, worked on other sketches and attacked again without really knowing how to solve. Out of the clear blue sky came the solution (I splashed with a weak gouache white over some parts). Fundamental is to go for it without fear, to not care if you mess up.

So uncomfortable situations help.

This might be why artists have to ‘suffer’. All is more exiting, surprising when you really cannot reason. It may have lead to romanticizing this incapability of having all (and ourselves) nicely labeled in boxes. An example? Van Gogh! Here is a guy who ran after the devils fart with a blind and very stubborn conviction… On good days I like that way of living.

The sketch I talked about: http://www.bertvanzelm.com/object?object=143

On my search for happiness through painting, I make ‘mistakes’ in paintings. Do mistakes exist in the arts? Painting has to be an adventure, in order to be satisfying. If a painting is just an illustration of the initial idea, why still paint it? (I have always found the Magritte painting called ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’ boring) I am interested in painting; paintings are the result of that, not the aim.

I start paintings with an idea of where to go and halfway I decide to go elsewhere, because I think there the grass is greener.

So every once in a while, I end up with a canvas that looks ok in some parts, or even more than ok, but as a whole is not satisfying. I cannot turn it into a great story as a whole.

It has taken me some years and some bottles of wine, to get over the point of ‘gluing’ ok parts to great details. It just does not work. So I win some and I loose some. It makes life more exiting. What is life without scratches?

I loved the desire of that one Japanese owner of a painting by Vincent van Gogh, who wanted to be buried with the painting he owned. I love ruins; love to fantasize about how the buildings must have looked. I love the x-ray photos of paintings where people discover the ‘pentimenti’. My works are full of ‘pentimenti’.

Here is one. I had ‘Flower man’ holding his hand in his mouth, but found greener pastures elsewhere…

The grass is always greener on the other side of the hill.

Never we will be satisfied with what we have. For a while all can be good, but then the trouble starts again.

The luxury I have, is that I found out that painting is the thing I love to do. My search for satisfaction is really mine. My life is connected with painting, maybe it chose me; maybe I chose it. That is not of importance.

I fight something that is much bigger than me. There is no formula, no security. The perfect painting does not exist. I hop from island to island in this endless ocean of beauty.

I want to be happy.

Life is boring or it is suffering interrupted every now and then by a moment of happiness, said Schopenhauer. I like that thought, even if it puts all in an extreme perspective; that is what it is all about.

So where to find these moments of happiness? Here I follow Schopenhauer as well.

It is to be found in the arts (for Schopenhauer this is the real knowledge; I like that too, seen the fact that I like to paint). When painting works, I fall in between time and space. I feel like not existing anymore. Everything falls away. I am being led instead of me trying to force things.

These are big words, but I cannot find another way to explain it.

And I experienced some of these moments while making the painting of the last blog (made in a period when my mother was dying).

These moments have nothing to do with making progress (in painting). These moments occur and are moments of total happiness.

An other work? Subject and painting technique wise:

Le Sacre du Printemps

oil on canvas

100 x 90 cm

2012 

Not so long ago a friend of mine asked why I paint…

The question seems an easy one, but when I start to think of an answer…

I wrote some blogs about painting; what excites me in a specific work. But this is the BIG question. In a coming series (of short texts) I will make an attempt. This is nº 1:

Ok, what to do with the hours one spends in this body on earth… I have energy to spend, but on what?

Long ago I experienced that I like to paint.

In the beginning it was one of the many possible roads to take.

I graduated as a furniture maker. I thought about studying chemistry. But painting was more fun.

At an early age I realized that it doesn’t really matter what one chooses, what matters is that once chosen, the game is to dig deep and deeper.

After 35 years as a professional painter, I see I was right.

Looking back, it doesn’t mean that all my paintings made before last year are minor works.

To illustrate, I show a work made in 1990. It is in a private collection in New York.

‘The three brothers’

oil on canvas

This blog is about the ‘art hysteria sketches’.

Why did I start to make these sketches? It has to do with my appreciation for also the ‘old’ art’.  I have never really felt that I should rebel against the old masters, because the idea of old and new does not realty exist for me.

What is ‘good art’? Instead of seeing and judging from the creator’s point of view (or the view of the art historian, who wants to label in a time related way), for me a piece of art is ‘good’, if it gives a positive emotion to a now present spectator. 

So Rembrandt’s paintings are contemporary art, see the success of his latest shows…

To give this opinion a physical shape, I started to put images, made of paintings (and other) I admire or that fascinate me, in one work. The obvious example: Vincent van Gogh in the same work with Mona Lisa.

As an extra, I made these sketches in 3D.

Why? For the fun of it and to give food for thought.

See:  

http://www.bertvanzelm.com/home?page=2&collection=8