William Turner (Tate Britain): the painting set loose. I confess to have found him sometimes to
sugary, to sweet, bad on the teeth. Wrong! This man went on a very personal
trip. He took up where Constable left it, even if they were contemporaries. He
stepped over impressionism to a romantic own language (this is 'old fashioned':
painting the ‘real’ painting in the studio from sketches made on the spot. But then they are thrown so far away from reality, that the painting becames ‘post impressionist’). The
realistic image is transformed into dream or nightmare. For one reason or the
other, I kept having ‘Verklärte Nacht’ (Arnold Schoenberg) in my head. We are
at the end of the painting representing an image of the real world holding the
hand of that real tight. And this was before Cézanne! Instead of Cézanne’s cool analytic
approach, Turner went for a somewhat ‘Jungen Werther’ view, ‘Sturm und Drang’! In
the end, the human figure vanishes. This must have made me think of ‘Verklärte
Nacht’. Romanticism becomes ‘abstract’ (Oh, how I do not love that word).
Blog: John Constable in Victoria and Albert Museum.
In London I saw three amazing shows. There is no other word
for than amazing for all three shows.
John Constable in the Victoria and Albert museum.
Turner in the Tate Britain.
Rembrandt in the National Gallery.
One blog will not be enough… Let’s start with Constable: the
first impressionist painter. There were many sketches to be seen and it was such
a good idea to put two versions of the Hay Wain next to each other. They could be
seen from far and that gives a great perspective of the two
different approaches. It is painting in a suggestive way, the brush stroke is shown,
becomes a star on its own.
And he must have had a black and white dog… In one of the sketches for the Hay Wain, it 's just three brush strokes. See image below.
See here some of his works accompanied by music of Dvorjak.
November 2 is the date not to forget. The first auction! Here some footage of happy days in the studio: working on the paintings for the Gesù Redentore. And a detail of the painting that will be auctioned.
I have started two new big canvasses with the same flowers. I love these flowers, they grow next to railway tracks and are qu¡te a wild growing weed. In the painting on the easel I have painted the first two layers. The flower paintings I built up slowly.
So I had finished some paintings and then I thought.... no... Why not have more fun? A painting is only finished when I cannot touch it anymore... And today, after having worked on two, my daughter walked in... PINK!!! Who knows where this will end.
Horst Janssen is one of my favorite artists of the last century. I even went to Oldenburg to see his work. A bit of a desillusion, there was not much to see... Apart from his work, I also like the way he 'was'.
I made a sketch after one of his sketches, Nietzsche!
