trijntje fop goes art

sorry to not have posted any more recently. there was a reason, pretty predictable: i'm writing on another blog called trijntje fop gaat op de schop. a crazy undertaking, to be honest. mostly silly rhymes, mostly in dutch, mostly about art, in a style called `trijntje fop'

trijntje fop is a nom de plume of the dutch poet kees stip (1913-2001). the name is currently used to describe light poetry with the following style characteristics :

1. light!


2. see 1.


3. about 1 or more animals (`on a ...' ) with typical human characteristics - as in de la fontaine's work.


4. abundance of spoonerisms.


5. 2 to ... lines, mostly 6 lines in aabbcc form.

the name trijntje fop itself was taken from multatuli (pseudonym of eduard douwes dekker), from his magistral ideas- when will these be translated in english? i'm flabbergasted to be unable to locate a translation. here a link to a commented, wonderful complete online edition of multatuli's ideas in dutch by philosopher maarten maartensz.

in one of the continuing stories (between ideas) master pennewip reads and comments on poems of his children. one of them is trijntje fop, with a short and very simple verse:

Tryntje Fop, op haar muts

Ik heet Tryntje Fop
En heb een muts op myn kop.

(Tryntje Fop, on her cap

I'm called Tryntje Fop
And have a cap on my head.)

pennewip's commentary is very memorable. multatuli was a great modernizer of language, i have tried to retain that spirit also.

in the next post i will give an example of my `trijntje fop goes art' in english. not the best and not all that accessible to a lay person, but it gives an inkling of what i've been working on in this past month of silence.

actually i'm revising the lot of around 160 poems, and this for me is a gargantuan task. although not as bad as writing them in the first place, which took two years.

fashion & art 2: vincent van gogh continued

ok. having posted the previous painting wheat field under thunderclouds i cannot leave out its famous sibling:



vincent van gogh, wheat field with crows (1890)

van gogh's works were not the fashion during his lifetime. he could not sell his paintings (i believe he sold just one painting during his life), but other artists recognized his genius. after his death, his paintings quickly gained reputation. vincent to me is probably the antinomy of fashion and contemporary fashion-like art.

theorem: (ralf kwaaknijd, 2008)

the fashionality in contemp art is largely due to the relativistic opportunism of postmodernism.

proof: we leave the proof as an exercise to the reader.

fashion & art 1: vincent van gogh

frequently i find myself being old-fashioned. i suppose it has to do with my distaste of fashion. distaste of fashion? yes, you read correctly.

it's not that i dislike nice clothes, or that i dislike contemporary creativity. i dislike the enormous marketing component, the money machine which drives our fashions. not only in clothing, but also very prominently in contemporary art.

with the communication speed of the modern world, new newer newest cannot go fast enough. to maintain the illusion of `important buzz', the marketeers in fashion (and art and any other field) have to convince us time and again that `new' equals `better'.

please don't misunderstand me with regard to (post)(post)modern art. personally i feel that a much larger art world has been opened up to us in the past century, for which i'm grateful. but on considering which art works from this period i find exceptionally moving, inspiring...it seems to me that these works breathe the same qualities as the exceptionally moving art works from earlier times.

there is something timeless about these works. they and `fashion' are definitely not in the same existence plane.



vincent van gogh, wheat field under thunderclouds (1890)

entombment series inspired by rembrandt 10, 11 (end)

entombment 10 (own work, 2006, 70 x 50 cm, inspired by a rembrandt drawing)




entombment 11 (own work, 2006, 70 x 50 cm, inspired by a rembrandt drawing)

above are the last two drawings in the series, no further comment on them. i hope to have brought readers some insight in how works develop over time, and how old masters inspire. now it's time for other subjects.

entombment series inspired by rembrandt 8, 9

entombment 8 (own work, 2006, inspired by a rembrandt drawing)

continuing from the previous post. from here on i feel the theme has reached the level that i'm looking for. detail below:



entombment 8 (detail, own work, 2006, inspired by a rembrandt drawing)

the next drawing really comes from the subconscious levels, i honestly have no idea how this type of drawing comes into existence, it just happens.



entombment 9 (own work, 2006, 50 x 35 cm, inspired by a rembrandt drawing)

and a detail:



entombment 9 (detail, own work, 2006, inspired by a rembrandt drawing)

entombment series inspired by rembrandt 5, 6, 7

entombment 5 (own work, 2006, inspired by a rembrandt drawing)

continuing from the previous post. it is probably more prudent from the marketing perspective to not show less-than-perfect studies, but so what. i thought it might be interesting to show a bit how themes develop, and in all my themes there are a fair percentage of works that don't `work' enough on the levels in which i'm interested.

from this point on the format in the series is no longer only a4 (21 x 30 cm).



entombment 6 (own work, 2006, 45 x 35 cm, inspired by a rembrandt drawing)



entombment 7 (own work, 2006, 40 x 50 cm, inspired by a rembrandt drawing)

entombment 2, 3 & 4

entombment 2 (own work, 2006, inspired by a rembrandt drawing)

the second drawing. somehow things are more charged, i feel. but it's hard to analyze for me. the third and fourth drawing:



entombment 3 (own work, 2006, inspired by a rembrandt drawing)



entombment 4 (own work, 2006, inspired by a rembrandt drawing)

to be honest, i considered and still consider these drawings as first steps. i seldom work consecutively on a theme fixed beforehand. somehow i had to get `into it'. for this i needed some spatiality, some light/dark, but also some real emotionality, the feeling of saying final goodbye. not an easy undertaking.