I will not bother you with all the beautiful places I went to in Italy, all the great friends I met, but two stories I want to share. Both of them took place in Venice...

Thanks to the friend I was with, I discovered the Mariano Fortuny museum. If you visit this museum you will not see great paintings, it is the museum itself that is the jewel. It is like Venice, just to wander around is the joy.

The founder (1871-1949) was a famous fashion designer, painter, sculptor and set designer amongst other (my friend is in the fashion business, that is why we went there).

Next to what Fortuny created, I saw traces of three people (two 'present' and one in the background) I want to mention.

Fortuny made the set design for ‘Parsifal’, one my of favourite operas by Wagner (the death mask of the composer next to the libretti).

There is a print with the image of Schopenhauer, my favourite philosopher. That there was no image of Nietzsche I understand, but why him?

And as last: Fortuny was a source of inspiration to Marcel Proust (one of my favourite writers). Was the dress Albertine wore here seen next to the image of Proust?

How could I have not known about Fortuny?

The museum in a way reminds me of the Teylers Museum in Haarlem (if ever you visit the Netherlands, go there!) or the Doria Pamphilj Gallery in Rome: half museum, half a more private environment, almost a house. Because of the surprise visit I was not really looking for a specific painting or sculpture. I didn't know what to expect; it was the whole collection and interior that overwhelmed me.

Here are some images of the interior,

two paintings and two a bit frightening dolls…

In the museum you find minor works of his father, the painter Marià Fortuny (1838–1874). But cherry on the cake is the Winter Garden!

And then there is LUCIANO BUGGIO. In the blog of 09-11-2017 I wrote about him (click on the date to go to the blog).

It was great reunion. Again I bought two souvenirs for my daughter, again we had a very interesting talk.

Venice is being destroyed by tourism (yes, I am guilty too: if ever I find a way to go live there, Venice here I come!!!). All the shops with glass trifle, masks and other garbage… it is a sad sight.

To meet Luciano is to find a pearl in the pigsty. If he ever closes his shop, Venice will loose a precious part of its charm. This is why again I make publicity for him.

GO THERE AND BUY ONE OF HIS LITTLE OBJECTS!

Don’t do like the tourists who passed by while we were talking: they glanced inside, took a photo and went on. I felt bad, very bad knowing these ignorant people bought a mask somewhere else, 50% off the price because ‘sales’ and of course made in China…

Here is Luciano’s address:

LUCIANO BUGGIO

S. POLO 2423

(??? I do not understand this address, on the map it shows another place??? Luciano is a mistery, maybe he lives there. I visited his site and could not make chocolate of it either).

tel: +3466377550

buggiol@libero.it

www.buggiol.wixsite.com/lucianobuggio

2432 Calle de L’ogio o del Cafetier is how you find the shop (and even that is not really true, the number should be 2423, but then google goes nuts)...

On Google maps: https://www.google.nl/maps/@45.438688,12.3263142,3a,75y,120.06h,84.34t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s6OmbphAsmSec89kv00GG1Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Only if you have bought one of his objects, tell him I sent you.

The video shows the life and works of Mariano Fortuny. Enjoy!

I am painting a double portrait.

The big question is always to have the best side of the portrayed come out. Is the magic of portraying a person well if one is able to give the shown image the right twist for both client and viewer? Apart from giving an illusion of a human being, to give it a subtle push in a certain direction?

FRANS HALS' PORTRAITS.

Not long ago I was in Brussels. I saw this little portrait made by Hals of Willem van Heythuyzen.

Special about this portrait is that Hals portrayed Van Heythuyzen (who was quite an authority) seated on his chair in an informal way. He portrayed him as a bon vivant. Maybe he was or maybe he wanted to be seen like that. Did they talk about it, did Van Heythuyzen demand from Hals this?

Another example of slight confusion.

Famous is his painting (portrait?) ‘THE MERRY DRINKER’.

I have never found this guy merry or happy... was this meant by Hals? I love it because of the duality.

This all gave me to think.

How do we want our portrayed to be seen? And this in connection with the portrayed or not.

MANIPULATION IN POLITICS

We may consider Putin seen as one of the most evil people in the Western world today. So I suspect that when we see a photo of him in the news now, it shows him playing this evil part. Or do we make this twist in our head?

Not long ago Putin wanted Russia to open up towards the West so he must have been portrayed as rather a sympathetic guy in those days.

THE SCIENTIFIC APPROACH.

I remember doctor Lombroso and the research in which he tried to define the looks of a criminal (very handy when you encounter a man in a dark alley around midnight you immediately know if your life is in danger or not)… Can you know what somebody is like by the way he or she looks?

Four examples of criminals according to the scientist.

What I noticed in the frontal photo of the dear scientist himself was the incredible asymmetric face he had… does this show he had a Jekyll and a Hide side?

As an experiment I chose photos of three gangsters from the old days: Lucky Luciano, Carlo Gambino and Vito Genovese where they are not necessarily portrayed as the evil guys they were and portray them in my sketchbooks as sympathetic men, give the sketches a slight twist towards ‘nice’. The easiest of the three is Carlo Gambino without a shadow of a doubt. He was a big help which makes him even more frightening.

To think they were responsible for thousands of murders apart from all their other criminal actions…

Here are all four, the three gangsters and the scientist. Who is who?

WE ALL HAVE OUR DARK SIDES IF WE LIKE THEM OR NOT

Here are some quotes of Jung.

‘The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.’

‘There's no coming to consciousness without pain.’

‘One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.’

One night in 1997 I made this sketch expressing my thoughts. I may have hit the bottle a bit hard that night...

`YOU CANNOT BUT LET THE MONSTER RIDE WITH YOU ON YOUR BACK, OTHERWISE IT WILL EAT YOU.`

SO HOW TO PORTRAY MYSELF...

In 2016 I painted this self-portrait called ‘Grey Me’. The artist as an arrogant pig?

I never sold it…

It was an exercise in painting in the wet. I think I painted it in two sessions.

Will a client like a portrait made in this way? With a similar pose?

NEW POSSIBLE COMMISSIONS.

I knew a painter who had to serve some time in prison. Financially it was a good period. He portrayed many heavy criminals and was paid well (black money?). Maybe I should enter this market. Maybe I should exercise.

When I talked about my ideas with a friend and mentioned Hitler, that I might try to portray him as a sympathetic guy his reaction was a violent: “NO!’

But I might just give it a try, you never know if I will have to serve some time in prison…

Or I might suggest a future client to portray him as a little devil… (the other way around is just as much fun).

One day Gala saw me clearly...

Below some inspiring music.

I visited ‘The EY Exhibition LATE TURNER - PAINTING SET FREE’ of 2014-2015 twice. For the announcement and some images click on the title in grey. Of all the beautiful works, one canvas struck me like lightning:

‘LAKE LUCERNE: THE BAY OF URI FROM BRUNNEN’ showed how much you can do with very little. So subtle. Incredible…

Things stay in my head, they simmer and then all is ready for the realization years later. 

Recently I made two paintings of volcanos. They have violent contrasts, they show the raw outbursts. The opposite of this painting of Turner.

As far as I know Turner never saw a working volcano. Poor guy! His fascination with clouds, fire, mist, light… Imagine what he would have made of it.

He traveled to Italy, he was close to so many places that would have inspired him. On his way to Pompeii he must have passed by the Solfatara near Naples.

                                         The Solfatara

                                         Click on the image to go to a video

I remember walking there and feeling the ground tremble. Did I know that it is not very safe… 

Some years later I went to the sulphur baths in Saturnia. That was a lot safer and good for my skin. It was a romantic night (spent with a woman from Rome), the moon was full.

                                      Saturnia.

And again, as far as I know Turner did not see or bath in Saturnia.

So strange that he did not go to Stromboli, the Vesuvius or the Etna…

To make up I painted a volcano for him with some sulphur clouds… I kept it in the realm of the painting that I admired in the Tate exhibition. Clouds, mist, subtle changes in the colours and tones.

Click on the image above to go to ‘VOLCANO 003, TURNERS DREAM’ on the site.

In music it reminds me of 'THE ISLAND OF THE DEAD' by Rachmaninov. Well, the start of this piece of music and then it moves more in the direction of the other two paintings...

Not long ago I was in Milan for a very sad reason. I was there for two days.

When I am there and find a few minutes, I visit the museum of 900. Click on the grey word to go to the site.

I love the paintings of Fausto Pirandello, there are nice ones of Morandi, Felice Casorati, Mario Sironi and even some of De Chirico make me happy.

In one painting of Sironi (see below) you see an Italian city from the thirties with a tram just like the ones that still go round in Milan. In another the ancient and modern are combined. Not Italy seen from its most beautuiful side, but top quality paintings.

Italy has a reputation to hold up. Next to all the ancient stuff modern design is still famous. There was the exhibition of design by Aldo Rossi...

But in the museum most of all the works of two sculptors make a visit more than worthwhile: Arturo Martini and Marino Marini.

Martini and in the back a painting by Pirandello

From Marino Marini especially the portraits are amazing: Igor Stravinsky, Henry Miller, Marc Chagall and Mies van der Rohe are amongst the victims.

I wrote about them in the blog of May 30, 2016. Click on the image to go to this blog.

I saw them for the first time in a little exhibition space next to the PAC (Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea). It must have been in the late eighties. 

A small collection exhibited in a refined shaped space (La Raccolta di Marina Marini). Not a contemporary design (made back in the seventies), but modern enough to show that they hadn’t lost good taste.

And then they moved the works to the museum of 900 next to the cathedral. If only we could turn back the time…

First exposed on the top floor, many with the light coming from behind or lit in a horrible way. I had problems to see them well.

They must have thought that the sculptures needed more attention so they gave them a new place and I must say, this new setting is even worse. Not only is the light impossible, you also have to manouvre carefully between the heads to get closer. The space is dominated by a moving staircase. Even in a shopping mall they would have paid more attention.

How to kill art… it must have taken a total idiot to come up with this setting…

The pedestals have the same shape as the packed bodies of the Fayum mummies. As if in the pedestals the bodies of the portrayed are hidden… quite macabre.

To think that I once had the idea to steal some with a sculptor friend of mine... These works need a better treatment.

And then I don’t even mention the little sculptures hidden under the moving staircase…

Can somebody help these Italians find the way back to beauty?

To top it off, see the video of Mink DeVille: ‘Italian shoes’… (click on the shoes)

I bought the same ones in Rome in the eighties and had a lot of success!

I am working on a daring new commission. Never before did I paint a city view. Buildings and water. Modern buildings…

I thought of many different approaches. Inevitably I came up with a ‘à la Delaunay’ kind of work.

They, Robert and Sonia, made these paintings glorifying the monument of modern architecture; the Eiffel tower painted in the new cubist style.

Robert and Sonia Delaunay

After some thought and sketches I got bored. More and more I feel that this way of painting, expressing oneself in a different than the more or less realistic way is not what I necessarily go for.

All is possible, all has been done, there is no terra incognita left. So the adventure of going off track has lost most of its excitement: if there is no real reason for it I see the more realistic way of presenting as adventurous as the rest. That way of painting is hard enough, often even harder than the distorting so called own truth.

What stupefies me is the beauty of what surrounds us. Honoring that beauty, light, colors and space is a big enough task… Whatever this may be…

Of course I looked for painters that could be of help. One of them:

JOHAN BARTHOLD JONGKIND

In 1977 I bought a book with watercolors by him.

How I stumbled on his work I do not remember. The name was new, I must have fallen for his work by seeing the reproductions.

He is considered one of the pre-impressionists.

I love this period in the arts. Because of the invention of photography painters were forced to find out what made their works worthwhile. Why paint when there is this machine that reproduces more accurately... In his case three things make his paintings beautiful: the accentuation of light, his characteristic color scheme and the swiftness of the brushstrokes.

This book with the watercolors has accompanied me through all my painting years. But never did I find a good catalogue of the oils. 

And then there was the exhibition in the museum of Dordrecht in 2017. Such luck!

Dordrecht was a famous place for painters in those pre-impressionist days. They came there to experience the 'Dutch Light'. With all the water around and the humidity in the air, the light was different.   

What a good move that the museum bought this view of their city.

Painting is about balanced distortion. For example one’s use of colors slightly different from what is in front of us.

Like the special taste of all the paintings of Corot or Chardin, you immediately know when a painting is made by Jongkind.

Chardin and Corot.

In the case of Jongkind: Naples Yellow, Old Holland Blue-Grey and Old Holland Cold Grey (Maybe some of these colors didn’t exist in his time) are prominent. This counts for his paintings made by day.

I hadn’t seen so many paintings by Jongkind in one exhibition before. A special treat were the many landscapes by night.

Here are three (the text continues underneath these).

He may not be considered an absolute genius like Picasso or Cézanne. They were the ones who went in search for the origin of what painting is cut loose from the obvious and gone in the direction of what we can express in a personal language. To me, living today, even if I recognize their greatness, it feels like the difference between admiring a square wheel or a round wheel with a twist.

Jongkind belongs more to those great but silent masters like Masaccio. To those who created a wheel with a twist. You get somewhere and on the way you are aware of the movement.

HELPFUL PROBLEMS

Talking about great painters… it has been said that El Greco painted the way he did because he had a problem with his eyes…

In the same realm of why a painter paints the way he does is my silly thought about why Jongkind painted with these short swift brushstrokes.

He had a drinking problem; at least that is what one reads. This can have caused a vibration in the hand…

So can you say that alcohol sometimes helps?

Is that why he painted so much water?

Should I...

In 2019 a statue was placed in Maassluis in honour of the great master. Could they have put it a bit nearer to a bar?  

In the nineties I worked part time in a frame shop in Amsterdam. A nice collection of characters populated the shop. The youngest was Sebastiaan, quite a wild guy. His taste for music was a bit different from mine. I bought two rap cd’s on his advice:

Ice-T: ‘Return to the real’ and Snoop Dogg: ‘Doggystyle’ with the idea that you’re never too old to learn and appreciate something new.

Not all was rap. He told me he loved the second piano concert of Rachmaninov and one day we irritated everybody by singing ‘Rex’ of Mozart’s Requiem at the top of our voices. Things you do while you frame art of others…

click on the grey words to hear some music

At the end of that century I met a Spanish woman, we fell in love and I moved to Barcelona. I stayed there for twenty years. Amsterdam was far away. My life went in another direction. I was convinced to end my days in Spain.

In 2010 I saw the world soccer final between Spain and the Netherlands on a big screen in the Poble Espanyol.

The event was organized for a mainly Dutch public. ‘We’ lost.

I found it a boring game so I walked around and a guy greeted me. I didn’t recognize him. It was Sebastiaan, but I guess the unexpected place made me confused. He had put on some weight; he loves the good life…

We agreed to see each other in a bar on the beach the next day. He surprised me with his generosity; he paid all the drinks… thank you Sebastiaan!

I forgot about it, went on with my ‘Spanish’ life.

In 2019 I was on holidays with my daughter in the Netherlands. We stayed at Maurice’ and he took us together with his two daughters to a lake nearby Amsterdam to have them play with canoes.

I stayed on the beach, reading a book.

You guess it of course… on the nearby terrace was Sebastiaan with his family… again a total surprise.

He had opened his own frame shop.

click on the image to go to the site of Deurloo Lijsten

We told each other to stay in contact. But how… he lived in Amsterdam and I still lived in Barcelona. One could see it as a sign; meeting in these unexpected places?

He liked (and likes) my work, offered to frame some of my bull sketches and show them in his shop window. He sold.

And then I moved back to the Netherlands. Our contact intensified. One thing leads to the other. I came to collect the money of the sold stuff and we exchanged news. As said, he loves my work; he ordered a painting.

FLOWER 056 is on a wall in his house.

click on the image to see more details

P.S.: I had him read this blog first. Normally I don’t get this personal, but he told me he’d be happy to share the story of our renewed contact.

Life is good.

Below: music while you paint or frame?

Not long ago somebody asked me about my series of Fallen Angels. It brought back memories…

I started to paint Fallen Angels right after I had moved back from New York to Amsterdam. For the (poetic) story behind the series click on the image below.

I know, few will take the afford to read the story (these are modern times), but I want to keep this blog short enough for you to read at least this one.

Worth mentioning for this blog is that through Linkedin I came in contact with Joan Velardi again. She was my agent for a period and organized my exhibition in New York. She made me bring back my Angels to their birthplace! The exhibition was on Broadway, the gallery: Brenda Taylor.

Rufus helped me hang these hunted from paradise souls. It looked great… Below some photos of the exhibition.

In a seperate room I created a place where an Angel was falling. It was a dark space with a spotlight on a vertical black and white drawing of a Falling Angel and another on a circle of feathers on the floor. A loop played the sound of  a bird in flight. This image only lives in my and who knows who else's memory.

The series was a special chapter in my work. I painted many in different materials from 1995 till 2002. And then it sort of dried up. Below I show twelve in gouache and pencil on paper grouped in series of four. 

I realized them in different styles, some realistic, some more abstract, some surrealistic or futuristic. 

The way they were framed (floating in a glass box) also gave the idea of a pinned up butterfly.

I have a fascination for butterflies. They are alive fragments of wild colours refecting light, what more can a painter desire...

But at a certain moment all subjects run empty. Time to move on and look for new challenges...

In 2002 the Bulls took the place of the Angels. A new subject inspired by the culture of Spain. Life and death seen from a different perspective.

Occasionally a Fallen Angel will appear again. The last presented itself in 2017. This time dressed in oil on canvas. Click on ‘FALLEN ANGEL’ to go to it on the site.

Utrecht, January 10, 2022.

Moments of bitter sweet.

self-portrait sketch

2015, private collection where?

Some time ago I saw the new version of the West Side Story with Gala and I cried a lot. This is no miracle. I know the musical from when the original version came out in the early sixties and can sing almost every song.

The musical has accompanied me for at least fifty years and is burnt in my soul.

The drama of Romeo and Juliette, the ultimate love story.

With the climbing of the years I have become more and more sentimental. Things touch me more now than when I was young.

I don’t suffer from it; I am not ashamed. This is me; take it or leave it.

The notion came back to me last night. I wanted to see a beautiful music video before going to sleep.

I searched on Youtube for a tear and chose ‘FRAGILE’, the version by Sting and Stevie Wonder. The effect was strong (as usual). Time to cuddle up under the blankets and dream away.

Apart from the beauty of the song and the beauty of this version it reminds me of a broken moment in Barcelona how many years ago? In those days I guided tourists through the center to make some extra money.

I had just heard that a dear friend and great actress Bea Meulman had passed away. She had suffered for quite some years from various illnesses, but always when I visited Amsterdam I saw her. She was a very generous friend. She gave me the Bible, the works of Schopenhauer, an amazing book about Jan van Eyck and many more presents.

Amongst the many paintings and sketches that she bought from me there is ‘CLOUDHAND’.

Cloudhand

1996, private collection Netherlands. 

When I passed with a group of Dutch people next to the cathedral I heard ‘Fragile’ played by some street musicians. I was bombarded by the memory of Bea. Why I connected the one to the other I cannot explain.

How I managed to keep on telling my so-called funny lies about the wonders of Barcelona without having them notice that my heart broke, I don’t know.

And now we live these crazy times. A visit to the theatre is again impossible. Let alone shed tears in the cinema when Maria and Tony sing ‘There’s a place for us’.

How much we need art to shed diamond tears, realize how precious life is.

Or dance and be happy… see the madness of this thing called life.

LIFE IS A CARNAVAL

2019.

Listen to 'FRAGILE' in the video below.

I am plowing my way through the biography ‘De Kooning, an American master’ by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan.

THE QUESTION OF 'AMERICAN ART' - 'EUROPEAN ART'

I am not a nationalist even though I think something of a 'Western Style' exists. This style is linked to our thoughts about life and the inventions made. I don’t admire Rembrandt especially because of him being Dutch or Goya Spanish. Their place of birth, their education is only partly important. The real weight of their art comes from something that overrules their national identity.

The United States are not very far away from Europe in the way people there look at life. So the hocus pocus needed to show the birth of the ‘new American style’ makes the book weak. The writers want to prove something a priori, look for facts that show instead of taking a step back and not care. I take that step back, it is from which side you want to approach the arts.

Besides, there is no American way of making art that is independent of the European or basicly different. It is just another interpretation of the same old stuff. As the European art was a slightly different interpretation of Egyptian and Middle Eastern art.

De Kooning leaned heavily on Picasso, Mirò and Cézanne (if not even on Europen masters much further back). He did so wisely. Art is communication and if you speak a totally new language no one can understand you.

American art, should that not find its roots in the arts of the real Americans, the Indians? I would have preferred if these painters would have found their inspiration there. No word about Indians in the book and I am half way… 

ART FOLLOWS THE MONEY

In the beginning of the Twentieth century rich Americans lived in Paris spending their money on exotic European artists. Then two wars broke out and they went back home. So in the fifties there were loads of money spent on art in New York. Of course, if you spend money, at a certain point you like to spend it on a compatriot more than on an arrogant stranger…

De Kooning was only a compatriot because he was married to Elaine. 

GOSSIP

The book amuses me because of the attempt to show the master in a more sympathetic light. It walks the thin line between facts and gossip. Famous names have to pop up to give all a bigger weight… but reading between the lines… and was he such a nice guy?

It leaves me cold. The best and most famous example is Caravaggio of course, a painter by me always named when this motive shows up (and let's not forget Ribera!). The idea that a genius has to be a good person is ridiculous. I would have changed pavement if I had seen Caravaggio walking towards me. De Kooning… oh well… 

EXCAVATION

I used to be a big admirer of De Kooning’s work. It has all faded a bit but still there are works that I am deeply fond of. One of them is ‘Excavation’. De Kooning painted it around 1950.

I love this painting. It has to do with the ultimate suggestion. You feel the presence of real life forms but they never become concrete.

If ever I will try to paint abstract again, I will use this painting as inspiration, better, I will steal as much as possible.

(But I don’t belief in the contradiction abstract-figurative. In other texts I have talked about this. It is an argument over which maybe my grandfather would have broken his head. The ones who still do that now are old cows).

RIPOLL

At first ‘Excavation’ reminded me of the amazing Roman church façade of Ripoll, Spain. I wrote about this façade before but cannot find where. The magic of this sculpture is the perfect balance between volume and void, form and counter form. It dazzled me when I saw it.

But is there void in ‘Excavation’? The more I look at it, the more I feel claustrophobic. All is filled out. It represents the Manhattan way of life. Living there I lost myself in the constant vibration of the city. It ruled over me as this painting does.

BECKMANN

There are these black outlines. Beckmann comes to mind. And Beckmann referred to Roman and Gothic art (see blog by clicking on this grey Beckmann word) 

LIFE GOES ON

Where did De Kooning go from ‘Excavation’? In the biography the writers say that he didn’t want to stand still. What I see is the reintroduction of the Woman. And with that of course the form and counter form, volume and void.

I Wonder. In almost all the paintings of Women I know she is seen frontal and tits are huge. In many paintings you see an upside W, she has opened her legs… quite a statement.

What to do with your penis When you paint abstract?

THE BANAL, THE MACHO AND THE HIGH ART

What happens to me is that once I see these W’s and tits, I start seeing them everywhere. And if they are not there, I search for them. This refers to a wonderful tendency.

In Barcelona I had two cats. When I had put my shoes in an unfamiliar place, seeing them from the corner of my eyes my first thought always was that I thought seeing a cat there.

This is a characteristic painters should play with. Here it brings frontal nudity and high art together.

In this day and age, with METOO and the liberated woman it might be a bit risky, but in those days artists were still ‘tough guys’.

Naughty Willy, what an artist! See the video about LOVE beloW.

July 13, Utrecht.

After about forty years of professionally putting colors on canvasses here some reflections...

First of all, I seem to love to paint. Why? Who knows and looking for an answer is useless. It is a nice way to loose energy, to go through life in a joyful way. But the big question is how and what to paint?

In the visual arts all rules and regulations have vanished. We can look in any direction and say: 'this is great art!' It is a liberation, but there is a consequence. When all is allowed revolution is a pathetic gesture.

How could this happen? Apart from the philosophical breakthrough photography has helped. It freed us from the realistic image. It created many revolutions. This consequential explosion of movements started with the impressionists. Ever since the visual arts have more and more the characteristics of the tower of Babel. Now that all the dust has lied down, we are left with an endless horizon at our feet.

Quite hard to find one’s own language in this confusion.

In the text ‘IN SEARCH OF A STYLE’ I analyzed my trajectory through the visual arts (click on the grey text to go to the link).

I didn’t mention the trips into areas like action painting, conceptual art objects and other to me useless territories. I felt I had to try these too, but got bored quickly.

For me the essence of painting is the attempt to confront myself with reality and out of this create a new one. Probably I love to be occupied with something in between me and reality. I am happier in my own created one.

When a model confessed me that she was an exhibitionist, I answered that we were a good match. I am a voyeur.

In my young rascal years I held my sermons. Sermons about how one should make art, what was of value and what not. I felt I had a message to get across (go for a new useless revolution?).

In the last ten years I reached the point where most of the anger, the kicking against the ‘holy dogmas’, the desire to shock or convince has vanished.

What is left is to find out what makes this occupation worthwhile for me and me alone.

To strive for beauty I guess. This aim found is a liberation.

But how to paint beauty? What is beauty?

Plato didn’t have the answer and in the following ages many tried in vain to get it pinned down. Only the ignorant found the definitive answer. In this world we are left by ourselves, nobody to give a helping hand.

And to make things even worse: beauty is like a piece of soap. When you think you have it, it slips away…

Only by looking back, I have the feeling of having stepped on it here and there. Beauty presents itself as made not by me. It just popped up when I was looking in the other direction trying to find it. It doesn’t tell me where I should go to produce more.

The flower-paintings showed up in these last ten years. I don’t think this is a coincidence. I needed time to let go and accept beauty in an uncomplicated way. No need for cutting edge, avant-garde, difference for the sake of being different or to outsmart people by pulling their legs. Painting flowers is a good therapy.

It is hard enough to paint these flowers and to strive for beauty. It keeps me busy and that is nice. If I can create some windows that give a view of paradise, I think I should be grateful.

Utrecht, June 25 2021.