Sapere aude!

What is Enlightenment?

Enlightenment is the egress of man out of his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is the inability to make use of one’s reason without the guidance of others. This tutelage is self-incurred when it is not caused by lack of intellect, but by a lack of resolution and of courage, to make use of one’s reason without guidance by others. Sapere aude! Have the courage to use your reason – this is the motto of the Enlightenment. Laziness and cowardice are the causes why such a large number of people, after nature has long since absolved them from foreign guidance (naturaliter maiorennes – those who come of age by virtue of nature), nevertheless throughout life like to remain under tutelage; and why others find it so easy to set themselves up as their guardians. It is so comforting to be under tutelage. When I have a book that reasons for me, a pastor who has conscience for me, a doctor who judges my diet for me, etc., then I need not bother myself. As long as I can pay, I need not think; others will surely take up the irksome task for me. That the large majority of people (among them the entire fair sex) consider the step towards empowerment to be very dangerous – besides that it is burdensome -, that is what these guardians, who have most benignly taken up supervision, make sure of. After having rendered their domestic cattle dumb, and having made sure they do not dare to take a step without the tether of the harness, the guardians then point out the hazard that threatens them should they try to walk unguided. The danger, however, is not all that great, since after a number of falls they will surely learn to walk; only an example of this failure generally intimidates and unnerves all further attempts. Thus it is difficult for every man to break out of this tutelage which has almost become second nature. This tutelage is hard-earned, and for the time he is being truly unable to make use of his own reason, because he was never allowed to try. Rules and formulas, these mechanical tools for a reasonable use, or much rather misuse of his natural gifts, are the leg-irons of a perennial tutelage. Whoever sheds those, will merely leap hesitantly, even over the narrowest gap, since he is not familiar with such a free motion.

Immanuel Kant: 1724 - 1804, philosopher in Königsberg. The text first appeared under the title: »Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?« in: »Berlinische Monatsschrift«, DezemberHeft 1784, S. 481-494.

(my translation)

Museum 2.0: The Greatest Show on Earth

Vincent van Rijn,
raising an eyebrow
 at his visitors.

As is commonly known and latterly agreed upon, the causes of human overpopulation – the population overshoot - (if indeed such a thing there is), are to be looked for ‘at home’, and not in developing countries, as the West has done for decades.

Last weekend I believe I have succeeded in localizing a main hotbed of the phenomenon. It is Amsterdam. More specifically, the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum. 

The Van Gogh Museum was built to the size of a large international airport. Having survived the scuffles at the entrance, one can enter on condition of having bought a ticket online. A seemingly endless escalator transports the visitors downward, and straight into the first of four Van Gogh Hypermarkets (there is also a Van Gogh Boutique, for the less discerning affluent), selling more stuff than Amazon, and all more or less Van Gogh-themed: from Van Gogh Monopoly (the board game), over ‘Tears of Vincent’ Perfume, potato-shaped Van Gogh wristwatches, to exclusive Van Gogh leather wallets (190 EUR). From there to the cloakroom - somewhere to dump your "I Love Amsterdam"-woolly cap. I would strongly recommend booking an early slot, as the 26 queues directed toward the coat-check are each about 200 m long.

Another word of advice: try not to follow the crowd – it will suck you in like a sneaker wave, rhythmically rising and dumping you somewhere in the vicinity of an exhibit – i.e. the one which the audio guides have dictated the crowds to move toward - rising and dumping, and rising and dumping - and you will be totally unable to escape it until the very exit. If you are very lucky, between your very self and the paintings there will be only seven or eight rows of visitors, each one of them listening intently until the voice in their audio guides orders them on, and some of them shooting an occasional glance at the thingy on the wall – until the wave moves on again. Every now and then, across the throngs of the huddled masses, your eyes will meet an old familiar face, in a flash – the face of a beloved painting. Feel free to wave.

Visitors to both Van Gogh and the Rijksmuseum do not only rely on audio guides, they own smartphones with multiple camera lenses, and they show it. I reckon every painting is being photographed about 16 times per second – and this, despite the 11 billion catalogues (roughly) being sold every four hours in the museum hypermarket. A very heart-warming, democratic practice, rendering the act of looking at the painting quite superfluous. The impossibility of enjoying art, not only for the few, but for all and sundry.
Also, many enjoy the pleasure of taking selfies, while posing in front of a Vermeer, a Velasquez, or a Ruysdael. Whole families, at times.

The lighting: as is their wont, the curators in their wisdom have chosen for artificial ambiant lighting, very much toned down. In the Van Gogh Museum, every pane of glass is blacked out with acres of black gauze. It is, as a matter of fact, just as dark and dusky as a 19th century bourgeois salon - quite in keeping with the (post-)impressionist Zeitgeist and esthetics. The paintings themselves, on the contrary, are cunningly lit up by means of batteries of floodlights. A happy example of this is the famous Neighbourhood Watch, bij Vincent van Rijn, in the Rijksmuseum. van Rijn, not having fully mastered the art of chiaroscuro, is taught a valuable lesson by the curator (scenographer? see infra), who has decided to aim an armful of floodlights at the critical (lighted) areas of the Watch, thereby making it into a true Masterpiece.
Generally speaking the spotlights cast informative shadows of the upper part of the picture frame onto the paintings, or reflect in the lower profile of the frame. This, in order to direct the viewer's attention to the often sumptuous frames.

During a short coffee break at Le Tambourin (eh oui!), my partner and I were startled by a strange noise. "What's that," I enquired, "...the gnashing of teeth?" - "No, that's the sound of a dead horse being flogged," said she.

A new development in museal and exhibitory science is the introduction, in the very museum halls, of high tech for the technical analysis of paintings. Microscopy, chemical analysis, x-rays, carbon dating, you name it – it is there, interactive and digitized. It provides a safe interface that contributes generously to the efforts of making the act of esthetic contemplation quite obsolete.

Luckily, the quality of the educational texts is maintained. In a room dedicated to Rembrandt van Goghs letter-writing, I read the following: “Letters used to be written on sheets of paper, in ink, with a pen - by hand. You would have to buy ink in a bottle. Often, a blotting paper was provided with the bottle of ink. Nifty, as this would prevent ink blotches when folding the letter.”

A modest proposal for the curators (or the scenographers, should the former have been replaced by the latter, as is common practice in Belgium): since 9.999 out of every 10.000 visitors are perfectly happy to spend their time listening to audio guides while taking snapshots, why not organize the museum 2.0 accordingly? Empty the museum halls, and furnish them with a few 100.000 chairs and tables, each provided with an audio guide, a camera stand and a catalogue on a chain. Thus, the one visitor out of every 10.000 could actually see the paintings – one-to-one – at some secret location, and enjoy the silent song of painting.

The Unimpeachables 3

Here we go again. This letter was the second to be refused by Knack magazine – my reaction to yet another eulogy to Luc Tuymans, by the ‘critic’ Jan Braet. Earlier, I had once already contacted the chief editor, protesting that unlike in the domains of music, literature, performing arts - in reviews of the 'plastic arts', in reviews of painting, there is never a trace of criticism to be found. I was courteously fobbed off.

After reading his last piece on Luc Tuymans (Knack nr. 34), I feel the urge to console and pacify Jan Braet. I wish he would not get so angry with the art of painting , that “penitent bitch,” as he calls her, twice, with her “vain display.” What has she actually ever done to him? Besides, Luc Tuymans has got her under control, hasn’t he? He stands “lucidly” in this “mediatized world,” a whip in one hand – in the other he wields a chair: his “possible” Photoshop program. And thus he tames the art of painting – the “bitch.” In the literature on Tuymans’ oeuvre, the same observations are made over and over again: his ‘images’ are “closed like an oyster” (Jan Braet); he paints “un-humanely – without temperament, without distinction, without judgement, without affect, […] he makes images from other images […], he copies images” (Dirk Lauwaert); “Tuymans wants to be as impersonal, unfocused, uninspired as possible” (Frank Van de Veire). “The anonymous gaze of Tuymans” (Bernard Dewulf).

The learned gentlemen critics note all of this in awe, full of admiration, as if it were an enigma and a virtue at the same time. The answer, however, is very simple, and is staring them in the face: Luc Tuymans copies photographs. I repeat, he copies photo’s, just as children used to trace Mickey Mouse: ‘un-humanely, without temperament, without distinction, without judgement, without affect, impersonally, uninspired, anonymously.’ Full stop.

Tuymans, in this mediatized world, is merely the most humble subject of “Queen One-eye” (as W.F. Hermans used to call the camera – photography). At present, he is the most adulated of the ‘photocopyists’, albeit certainly not the first: cf. Xavier Mellery (1845-1921), and not the last either (Michaël Borremans, Rinus Van de Velde). They are all makers of ‘images’, which does not mean that they are painters. For painters are not “lucid.”

And as to “real painting” - it is not a “window to the world,” it has nothing to do with “oils on canvas,” as Jan Braet seems to think, and least of all does it involve copying pictures of ‘the’ reality (in casu images with a more or less sinister “background story”).

Dear Jan Braet, don’t worry: ‘the’ reality does not exist: it is an illusion – sometimes it is created by real painters. That is painting, and it is ever “forfeited,” or else it would cease to exist. And if she must be called a “bitch” – what then would you call uncritical criticism?

Na het lezen van zijn laatste stukje over Luc Tuymans (Knack nr. 34), overvalt mij de behoefte om Jan Braet te troosten, en een beetje te sussen. Ik wenste dat hij niet zo boos werd op de schilderkunst, de “boetvaardige teef,” zoals hij haar tot tweemaal toe noemt, met “haar ijdele vertoon.” Wat heeft ze hem eigenlijk misdaan? Luc Tuymans heeft haar immers onder controle, niet? Hij staat “lucide” in deze gemediatiseerde wereld, zweepje in de ene hand – de andere bedient een krukje: zijn (“mogelijke”) Photoshop-programma. En aldus temt hij de schilderkunst (“de teef”).

In de literatuur omtrent het werk van Luc Tuymans wordt steeds weer hetzelfde vastgesteld: zijn ‘beelden’ zijn “gesloten als een oester” (Jan Braet); hij schildert “on-menselijk – zonder temperament, zonder onderscheid, zonder oordeel, zonder affect,  […] hij maakt beeldjes van andere beeldjes […], hij schildert beelden na” (Dirk Lauwaert); “Tuymans wil zo onpersoonlijk, ongeconcentreerd, ongeïnspireerd mogelijk zijn” (Frank Van de Veire). “De anonieme kijk van Tuymans” (Bernard Dewulf).

De geleerde heren kunstcritici stellen zulks vast met ontzag, vol bewondering, alsof het een onoplosbaar raadsel en tegelijk een deugd betrof.

Het antwoord is nochtans eenvoudig en staart hen in het gezicht: Luc Tuymans schildert foto’s na. Ik herhaal: hij schildert foto’s na. Zoals kinderen (vroeger) Mickey Mouse calqueerden: ‘on-menselijk – zonder temperament, zonder onderscheid, zonder oordeel, zonder affect, onpersoonlijk, ongeïnspireerd, anoniem’. Punt. Tuymans is, in deze gemediatiseerde wereld, de nederigste onderdaan van ‘Koningin Eenoog’ (zoals W. F Hermans de camera – de fotografie – noemde). Hij is momenteel de meest bewierookte ‘fotokopieerder’, maar zeker niet de eerste: denk maar aan Xavier Mellery (1845-1921), en ook al niet de laatste (Michaël Borremans, Rinus Van de Velde). Zij zijn makers van ‘beelden’, maar daarom nog geen schilders. Schilders zijn namelijk niet lucide.

Wat “echte schilderkunst” aangaat: ze is geen “venster op de wereld,” ze heeft niets te zien met “olie op doek,” zoals Jan Braet lijkt te denken, en ze is al helemaal niet het naschilderen van plaatjes van ‘de’ realiteit (in casu, plaatjes met een min of meer sinister “achtergrondverhaal”).

Beste Jan Braet, wees gerust: ‘de’ werkelijkheid bestaat niet, ze is illusoir – soms wordt ze geschapen door echte schilders. Dat is schilderkunst, en die is altijd en immer “verbeurd verklaard.” Anders bestaat ze niet. En als de schilderkunst een “teef” is, hoe noem je kritiekloze kunstkritiek dan?