Last post of 2017: La souffrance

C'est souvent seulement par manque d'esprit créateur qu'on ne va pas assez loin dans la souffrance. Et la réalité la plus terrible donne en même temps que la souffrance la joie d'une belle découverte, parce qu'elle ne fait que donner une forme neuve et claire à ce que nous remâchions depuis longtemps sans nous en douter.

Marcel Proust, Sodome et Gomorrhe

No rain, no mist, not even for the last expedition of this summer. High tide, receding. Stiff breeze from SSW, bringing humidity (93%). Arrived around 5 o' clock, which was far too early, seens as the sun didn't rise until 6:45. Time to contemplate dark space. The first drawing was made in half darkness.

Last weekend, visited Kröller-Müller. De Hoge Veluwe is breath-taking. Nature in all stages of growth and decay. Not cleaned up. Could spend a life-time just studying the trees. Have never seen so much moss in one place.
The museum: after revelling in Van Gogh's evolution, it seemed that so many of even his contemporaries, and more so later painters, are mere derivatives, blowing up one single aspect of his work. Happily surprised though, to enjoy paintings from various periods and 'isms'. However, very few equal Van Gogh's sincerity.

A few moments ago, as I shut the front door behind me, I left my parasol and folding chair behind the door and realized that once again, it was for the last time this year. End of summer fills me with dread, and makes me feel damn melancholic. A metamorphosis from butterfly to caterpillar.

Next summer.

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Herostratus

Een groots schilderij betekent iets dat een rijke Amerikaan wil kopen omdat andere mensen het graag zouden willen kopen als ze konden. Zo worden schilderijen op één lijn gezet, niet met gedichten of romans, maar met de eerste uitgaven van sommige gedichten of romans. Het museum komt op één lijn te staan, niet met de bibliotheek, maar met de bibliotheek van de bibliofiel. De beoordeling van schilderkunst komt op één lijn te staan, niet met de beoordeling van literatuur, maar met de beoordeling van uitgaven. Kunstkritiek valt geleidelijk in de handen van antiquairs.

Fernando Pessoa, Herostratus, 1925 (?) (transl. August Willemsen)

Clear weather, but had the benefit of a very early start. Leisurely breakfast in the dark. During the first drawing, the light of the waning moon threw the shadow of my left hand on the paper.

There is a short moment, just before daybreak, when the world comes into being. Nothing is, as yet, everything is becoming.
I couldn't say why, but it seems to me that with the daylight increasing, the world becomes less visible, not more.

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Entre deux infinis négatifs

Le peintre doit se rappeler qu'il regarde aussi avec tout son corps, encore plus qu'avec l'oeil.

Jean Bazaine

Upon arrival, greeted by a setting full moon.
High tide, ebbing.
Wind unmistakably from north-northeast (ca. 20 kmph), yet high clouds veiling the setting moon heading towards me, i.e. in opposite direction. With darkness diminishing, clouds in a middle layer of the sky slide in from a third direction: the east.
With all this contradiction, was hoping for lots of drama, but all in all rather quiet.
Saw a seal.

At the end of the morning, a cattle truck backed up on the dike, on its way to pick up the lambs that have grazed on the dike all spring and summer.

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Nageur en détresse

Nous ne plongeons pas volontiers dans les flots et ceux

 qui s'y hasardent ne sont que des nageurs avertis,

 la peinture a besoin de nageurs en détresse.

Jean Bazaine

Calm, clear morning. Climbing the dike in the dark, it was so quiet that it felt like entering a room without switching the lights on.Westerly breeze. Promised cloud cover didn't come until I was ready to leave.
Saw at least five humans. One, a young mother jogging while pushing a pram with baby (only in Holland), spoke words at me as she passed behind me: "Heerlijk hè. Lekker aan het schilderen of tekenen?..."
Time to leave.

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Brilliant Ace

Balmy but very humid (94 %).
Wind from southeast, veering southwest, bringing light showers. Afterwards, the wind ceases altogether. Later, heavier showers. Multiple sources of light, perpetual movement.
As the name of a passing container ship suggests, a brilliant ace morning.

One becomes conscious of a faint sizzling, growing into a hiss: rain has reached the mud bank, approaching fast.

When the mind stops forming words, when the pen hovers over the first virgin sheet of paper, one realizes the total impossibility of the exercise: surrounded by this multitude of movements, densities, textures, sensory impulses, what on earth am I expecting from the drop of ink at the tip of my pen? Suppress fear.
At that very moment, immediate action is called for. No rules, no habits, no nothing. Fail better.

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'Une figuration libéréé'

La peinture est une chose qui ne peut se détruire,

qui doit se détruire,

pour se réinventer.

(Jean Fautrier, Parallèles sur l'informel, 1958)

Breeze from the north-east, whereas patches of alto cirrus imperceptibly moving in from opposite direction (why does one never hear of this phenomenon?).
Irritatingly rapid sunrise, little wind, low humidity. Dawn as if set in soft clear aspic.

Forgot my sponge so had to spit on the drawings in order to wipe away some of the more soluble parts, with kitchen paper.

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I gaze at my loved one in a corner of the sky. (Zen koan)

Arrived 5:00 (sunrise 5:39). Despite forecast, no rain, little cloud cover, but a clammy and chilling southwestern breeze, stiffening. Humidity 87%. 15°C felt more like 12.

Setting moon, the replendent loved one in a corner of the sky.

Smaller container ships making their way to sea, meekly making way for yet another Chinese Collossus Container Tower headed for the port of Antwerp, stacked 8 high with more cheap cargo for the European consumer's cargo cult.

Saw a documentary yesterday about the 14 year old Norfolk prodigal boy painter, Keiron Williamson, worth 2 million pounds. He is a rather timid, ingratiating boy. Whatever he paints gets snapped up immediately, at up to 55.000 ponds a pop. All over the world, art investors are on the hunt for his work. So busy is he, that his parents (i.e. managers) have decided to have their son home-schooled. Keiron Williams is called the 'mini Monet', and has often been likened to 'an Old Master'.

The poor boy.
What he paints is no more interesting than what millions of amateur painters produce all over the world, on sunday afternoons. It is dutifully directed by prescribed technique, painfully informed by market demand (landscapes painted sur le motif are made saleable in his studio, by adding birds in flight, a human figure or two..), and most often, copied off photographs. Sentimental shots of country life, old fishermen, romantic sunsets, shire horses in sunny meadows. It is illustration, what Americans call 'art work'.

I have no qualms against amateur painters. That would be wrong: I myself am, officially, an amateur.
What unsettles me is the revelation that this is Art Today. What was once tolerated as somewhat vulgar dilletantism is now accepted as the Rule, the current paradigm. The thousands that are enamoured with this kind of painting, do proclaim their love proudly: the conventional 'avant-garde' is baffling and/or boring and pedantic. Here, at last, the public sees a kind of painting they can recognize, that isn't challenging in any way, comforting like a blanket. And best of all, the fact that the painter is a child, legitimates the overt passion diplayed, and implicitly, the deep disdain for true painting.

Poor boy. His managers worry about the admirers losing interest once the child prodigy becomes an adult, but it could get much worse. Imagine him discovering, a few years from now, that it was all an illusion.

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