Well …
wow, what a picture.
First,
let’s look at what artist Carel Willink is
doing on the lower half of the canvas.
He streaks the ground with both rain puddles and shadows. These actively work to separate the human
figures from the world around them, by accentuating the distances between them
and creating shadows that clearly demark distance. In addition, the houses are largely bathed in
shadow; the house on the left seems to stare at the people in the street with a
particularly sinister cycloptian eye.
The two
(significantly) dead trees point upwards to the sky and the airship. Clearly the dirigible is the focus of
attention, but here Willink again plays his games of mood and atmosphere: the
sky, though bright, is still overcast.
The men in the street may be greeting the blimp, but Willink clearly
sees this technology as a mixed blessing.
That
this is the case is not at all surprising: airships wreaked havoc in Europe
during the Great War, creating more effective aerial bombardments than the
primitive planes of the time. For
Willink (1900 – 1983), who came to his maturity during the Great War, the 1930s
enthusiasm for airships must have been met with mistrust at best and downright
hostility at worst. The brand-new notion
of terror from the skies is one that would’ve made its mark.
Let’s
look at some other things in the picture – first, notice that the third-floor
windows of the house on the left have human-shaped columns. (Rather artful columns, at that.) The houses were built to an older, more human
scale – part of a recognizable European tradition. The hulking airship looms over this
landscape, its scale larger, its design clearly modern.
Also
interesting – any passers-by in front of one of the homes could tip his hat and
be recognized, and see who was within.
There is no such potential human interaction with the airship; it is
completely indifferent to the people waving below.
The
rain, too, is symbolic of both a passing storm, and of new beginnings. Though
ponderous, the airship is moving,
while the people below are not. One
cannot help but think that Willink thought that technology was moving forward,
regardless of its impact on human beings and the changes it would bring.
There is
about Willink’s pictures a feeling that all of its component parts are made of
different paintings. Look at the
buildings, the dirigible, the people – they are all made with very hard lines that
separate each component from every other component. It is this sense of isolation in a crowded
world that is, to my eye, the most interesting and individual characteristic of
Willink’s work. At times, it seems as if
he presents a world of wonders that is completely incapable of supporting a
human connection.
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