Herman Kruyder
De Hond
1934
oil on linen
110 x 122 cm
Despite the rather stylized way of painting it has a raw edge. This could of course be related to the psychological state of the painter. One year after making this painting the painter dies as a result of a previous suicide attempt. Of course, you do not need to know this as a viewer. I think it's a very exciting, dark painting, even without knowing this story. The colors, the bone, the dog with a rope around his neck and his genitals visible to the viewer take you back to the farmyard where Herman and his wife lived in isolation. Over the years I often have been looking at this painting in the Boijmans.
Of course my work is not a literal copy of this work, and as an artist I have many examples. Too much to list here. At the academy I wasn't occupied with figurative painting. In fact I was more interested in paint and its functioning. I still love that, I can sit in my studio for days muddling with paint without anything solid coming out. When I came up with a painting of a deer in a swamp of paint during my follow-up study, it was Emo Verkerk who pointed me to this work of Herman Kruyder. Spontaneously I changed the deer into a Rotweiller. I have the feeling that figurative painting is somewhat out of favour lately. One critic recently called it 'Deer Art'. However, using the subject-matter of the dog, I still think it's very exciting time and time again to seek this specific point where something unexpected happens, with the image, the technique and of course with the viewer.
Simon Schrikker 2013
Simon Schrikker
untitled
2010
oil on linen
210 x 250 cm
www.simonschrikker.com
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