Piet Dirkx cigarbox 334
Piet Dirkx daily ..334
Piet Dirkx cigarbox 334
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Jan Sluyters (1911 and 1912)
Because i wrote yesterday a blog on Kirchner and studied for a short while the several paintings he executed between 1910 and 1920 and noticed some similarities between the paintings Jan Sluyters made in this period and the ones Kirchner made, I will now share these 2 paintings that i found . They are executed only 1 year apart from eachother.
The approach by Sluyters to his models is almost the same . The portraits are from the hips up, breasts bare and both wearing a flowered scarf and because of the strong colors they are 100% fauvism. I like both artists, but if ever i had to chose between both , i would certainly chose for Kirchner. His approach to his subjects and his painting is far more modern than Sluyters ever did. But unfortunately i will never have a choice except the museum i shall visit next time to see a Kirchner or a Sluyters. The Sluyters is in the collection of the Rijksmuseum Twenthe and belonged to the former collection of Nic Jonk. The Kirchner is one of the highlights in the collection of the Museum Ludwig. So make your personal choice and visit one of these two and let me know which one you prefer.
Books on Sluyters and Kirchner are available at www.ftn-books.com
Piet Dirkx daily ..333
Piet Dirkx cigarbox 333
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938)
If i could chose only one painting from the collections of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag….. It would be a hard choice between Egon Schiele’s / Edith or the Czardas Tänzerinnen by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. If i would go for the reseller value i surely would be stupid not to chose for the Schiele,
but for sheer painting pleasure, strength of the composition and outright beauty it must be the Czardas Tänzerinnen Kirchner.
A large painting and the first time you see it and study it, it does not look that special , but this one grows on you. You discover small details and every time you enter the room in the museum , where this painting is shown, it lights up his surroundings. For me this is one of the great paintings from the 20th century and one of the true portals to Modern Art as we know it in our time.
For more Kirchner publications please take a look at the inventory of www.ftn-books.com
Both paintings belong to the collection of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Stadhouderslaan 41 , 2517 HV . Den Haag.
Piet Dirkx daily ..332
Piet Dirkx cigarbox 332
Paul van Eerden (1954)
Best way to start a blog on van Eerden is this very informative video .
It explains what he sees and how he works. The result….highly original drawings and for this he has become for me personally one of the great contemporary artists in the Netherlands . Good and Slow observations are the fundaments for his drawings, which take a long time to finish with highly detailed parts which look simple but take a long time to execute and finish. The publications do justice to his drawings because they maybe even take longer to finish and some of them are available at www.ftn-books.com
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Piet Dirkx daily ..331
Piet Dirkx cigarbox 331
Ika Huber (1953)
Possibly because of the same age we both have there is an automatic liking i have for the works by Ika Huber. Influenced by many, but still a very personal signature in her compositions which makes them 100% Ika Huber. We must have grown up and liked both the same kind of art and artists, because i recognize within her works many elements of artists i admire, but the best way to describe a painting by Huber is the way the former director of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam , Rudi Fuchs did.
The paintings give the overall impression of fragments – meaning that they originate as fragments. At some point came the first touch of paint at a random spot on the canvas as an extension , in a way, of memories of landscapes, buildings, inner courtyards and windows, light as a feather – and so, as such, fragmentary; as fragmented and haphazard as memory itself.
Individual elements assume at times the completeness of a figure or the solidity of a column; straight lines are, however, meticulously avoided. Colours are mostly thin, but applied in delicate layers; the broad brushstrokes remain visible, creating a veiled effect but also one of restless vibration, like warm air over a horizon. In places, too, the paint is sometimes rubbed on dry and brittle, giving it the appearance of chalk. There is so much to see in these paintings if you examine them more carefully: hundreds of details make the picture glow like night.
Straight lines are avoided then, as these tend to trap colours and forms within their rigid framework. But the figments of memory which lead to fragmentary pictures should surely float if anything. This is what makes the drawing in these paintings so remarkable. The forms do indeed have contours but they are very hesitantly, almost unwillingly, suggested.
The forms are intertwined with each other with extraordinary care, as if Ika Huber was reluctant to say what the memory is. She leads the eye towards something else which must be seen, I think, in the same indescribable movement as that of Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine just over 500 years ago.
It is the mysterious and unfathomable that always confronts me in these pictures; in their composition, their details, the resonance and tone of their colours, and in their dreamlike mobility and “Sfumato”. There is a lot here then which does indeed complete the fragments in the pictures – but the question remains: to what extent.
Rudi Fuchs, Den Haag
There are 2 titles on Ika Huber available at www.ftn-books.com
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Piet Dirkx daily ..330
Piet Dirkx cigarbox 330
Gilbert & George/ Naked shit paintings
The blog of yesterday reminded me that Piero Manzoni was not the only artist who used faeces as a subject in their art. Gilbert & George is another example who used the subject in a far more explicit way than Manzoni did. With the canned Manzoni multiple it is still uncertain if the contents is the same as the label indicates , however with Gilbert & George it is no question at all, because the pictures show the subjects as they are.
Still the composition and execution are 100% recognizable Gilbert & George, but personally i like the more society and critical related subjects better and far more pleasing to look at, but just to show that many more artists used the subject it is nice to devote a blog on these 2 great artists.
Books on Gilbert & George are available at www.ftn-books.com
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