"Ich wundre mich;
Denn alles, was man sieht,
Muss uns Verwundrung geben."
BWV 35
Very early on, I started to draw from nature. As other children practice the violin or do sports, I drew. I remember being driven by the desire to show my drawings to my parents and siblings: "Look, this is what I saw, this is how it was."
I felt useful and safe as a reporter the visual world. All my efforts went into exercise; refining the means of capture of the 'external' world. Thus, I would come to possess it, I thought, and I would show everyone that I possessed it.
Gradually, I came to understand that searching Truth entails some pitfalls: in order to be truthful or sincere, one has to avoid showing off (épater le bourgeois), avoid pleasing the viewer, avoid illustrating and avoid styling.
Only modesty and concentration lead to Truth: the union of form and content.
Perhaps that is why, during the Academy years, I persisted in working with the cheapest materials (to the annoyance of my teachers): walnut ink, scribbling pads.
However, during the final years at the Academy, I began to despair: in order to pass grades, some amount of showing off seemed indispensable. Yet it had never before felt so false.
I had begun to realize that talent may buy grades, some admiration, but that for the rest, it does not mean a thing.
Kandinsky contends that the possession of talent brings with it the responsability of exploiting it to the fullest. Personally, I believe you have to dump it. Work as hard as you can to shake it off, forget it. In drawing and painting, talent is a dangerous childhood disease.
In 1991 I rode my bicycle to a spot along the coast in Zeeland, and for 3 days, drew with pen and ink.
I guess it was there that I began to understand that a drawing has to convey an equivalent to the empirical reality. That drawing is not capturing a given reality.
That nothing is given, nothing is certain and only dissatisfaction is reliable.
From that point onward, I could never again claim: "I can draw."
The world became a far more dangerous place, but I was (re)gaining freedom.
