Friday 22 February 2019

Han Schuil / Rogier van der Weyden-Blinky Palermo



Rogier van der Weyden
The Descent from the Cross
ca. 1435-1440
oil on oak panel
220 x 262 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid



Blinky Palermo
Flipper
1965
oil on canvas
89 x 69,5 cm
Wittelsbacher Ausgleichsfonds, Sammlung Prinz Franz




To be honest, in my case and without doubt in many more cases, the earliest influence on my development as an visual artist (painter) is the Donald Duck magazine my family were subscribed to in my early youth.
The images in the magazine had a bewitching effect on me, I am talking about ‘old school’ Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse here. Later on in life that all changed of course but still these old cartoons, also the animated ones, have an enchanting reflex. So Mickey and Donald were the scoundrels that did the trick. Later on, in puberty, something like fourteen, fifteen years old, other artists and images became a fascination, artists such as Salvador Dali, Roy Lichtenstein and MC Escher. After that Francis Bacon became a great hero of mine and he still is.
Not only Bacon’s work was/is important to me but most certainly also the interviews David Sylvester held with him. We’re getting on more serious terrain here. During a visit to London for the exhibition “A New Spirit in Painting” in the Royal Academy I also visited the National Gallery in said city. That was an eye opener with enormous consequences for my ideas about art (painting). For te first time I saw the work of Piero della Francesca and was dumb struck. The National Gallery has a rich collection of fifteenth century art and of course I saw many more incredible and magical painting of this period. The Flemish Primitives and the Italian Quattrocento made a very long-lasting impression. How painting can, over the centuries, still fascinate and absorb is magical.

As I said I was in London primarily to see the “New Spirit in Painting” show, it was the early eighties of the last century and painting was back after a period of minimalism and conceptualism. Naturally this also had an effect on me. Neo-expressionism, Young Italians, Neue Wilde, Mühlheimer Freiheit etc. It was all very exciting. Two painters of that period, Markus Lüpertz and René Daniëls were my heroes and it took quite a while to paint them out of my system. I still love their work, but they don’t have the spell on me like they used to.

Later on I also started to appreciate minimal and conceptual art. There is something in the thinking that attracts me and thus also has an influence on me. But my big love, without a doubt, goes out to the Flemish Primitives and the Quattrocento and a pretty long list of individuals from all centuries and art movements. We live in eclectic times we painters, I can’t pick one painter who is te pinnacle of art. And I don’t want to, I can only give you a list of artists that moved me the most. It is a pity you asked me to write about dead artists only, because there are quite a few living artists I hold in high regard and whom I love very much.

I chose two painters to be depicted in this lemma of the blog, just to show my schizophrenic and eclectic outlook on art (call it postmodern if you wish).

Here is my list, which is not a (my) canon, these artists struck a note. Art is all too often a contest these days, it is not the hundred meters in athletics - where measuring is possible - quality in art is not measurable. 

Fra Angelico, Richard Artschwager, Francis Bacon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Balthus, James Lee Byars, Max Beckmann, Giovanni Bellini, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Donato Bramante, George Braque, Bronzino, Stanley Brouwn, Pieter Brueghel the elder, Hendrick ter Brugghen, Filippo Brunelleschi, Michelangelo Caravaggio, Vittore Carpaccio, Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin, Giorgio di Chirico, Giovanni Cimabue, John Constable, Petrus Christus, Gerard David, Edgar Degas, Eugene Delacroix, Albrecht Dürer, Ger van Elk, Jan van Eyck, The Master of Flémalle, Caspar David Friedrich, Jean Fouquet, Artemisia Gentileschi,  Domenico Ghirlandaio, Giorgone, Giotto, Hugo van der Goes,  Vincent van Gogh, Daan van Golden, Jan Gossaert, Benozzo Gozzoli, Matthias Grünewald, Philip Guston, Hans Holbein the Younger, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Donald Judd, Mike Kelly, Ellsworth Kelly, Martin Kippenberger, R.B. Kitaj, Yves Klein, Max Klinger, Oskar Kokoschka, Willem de Kooning, Stanley Kubrick, Wyndham Lewis, Sol LeWitt, Fra Filippo Lippi, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Lorenzo Lotto, H.A. Maaskant, Kasimir Malevich, Andrea Mantegna, Simone Martini, Masaccio, Henri Matisse, Hans Memling, Antonello Messina, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Eadward Muybridge, Bruce Nauman, Barnett Newman, Meret Oppenheim, J.J.P. Oud, Pablo Picasso, Blinky Palermo, Andrea Palladio, Parmigianino, Pinturicchio, Jacopo Pontormo, Man Ray, Jan Roeland, Peter Paul Rubens, Jacob van Ruisdael, Robert Ryman, Georges Seurat, Charles Sheeler, Luca Signorelli, Claus Sluter, Chaim Soutine, Veit Stoss, Giambattista Tiepolo, Titiaan, Georges de la Tour, Alan Uglow, Diego Velazquez, Bram Van Velde, Jan Vermeer, Leonardo da Vinci, Carel Visser, William Wegman, Rogier van der Weyden, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Frank Lloyd Wright, Francisco de Zurbaran.

Han Schuil, 2019



Han Schuil (NL)
HEAT XXVIII
2016
alkyd and spray paint on aluminium
270 x 135 x 4 cm



Saturday 9 February 2019

Maurice Braspenning / Edvard Munch



Edvard Munch
The Scream
1893
oil, tempera and pastel on cardboard
91 x 73,5 cm
The National Museum, Oslo, Norway



As a teenager, I have always been a big fan of Edvard Munch and many of the expressionists and the abstract expressionism. At the Rietveld Academy, where I studied, it was the time of conceptual art, and little or no paint. The entire painting department also got another name: autonoom (autonomous).
Anyway, during my education this passion for expressionism was pushed to the background a bit.
But in the last few years, my passion has returned in full force and I must and want to admit that. To be honest, it is the work that I can really relate to, it is part of me. You probably know it, as you grow older you can focus better and you target on those things that really matter to you.

Maurice Braspenning, 2019


Upcoming exhibition:
Maurice Braspenning  - 'Dreamland'
Jan van Hoof Galerie, 's-Hertogenbosch NL
February 17 - March 10 2019



Maurice Braspenning (NL)
Naked
2018
acrylic on panel
30 x 24 cm
www.mauricebraspenning.nl