I have only
recently become aware of the art of Albert
Carel Willink (1900 – 1983), a Dutch artist who worked in a style that he
called imaginary realism. Not all of it is to my taste, to be sure, as
it has a decidedly surrealist bent.
However, the imagery is interesting and his technique remarkable.
Willink
was born in Amsterdam; his father was an amateur artist who indulged his son’s
artistic interests. The younger Willink
at first thought he would make a career in medicine, but in 1918-19 Willink
went to the Technische Hogeschool in
Delft to study architecture. He then
moved on to Germany, where he tried to get an academic training in a Düsseldorf
atelier, but was not admitted. Later he
studied for a short time at the Staatliche
Hochschule in Berlin.
It is a
tragedy that a painter of Willink’s talent was imprisoned by his particular
historical moment. For artists like Damien Hirst or Andy Warhol, it’s irrelevant that they are talentless, as Modernist
expectations are naturally low. But for
a man like Willink who could really paint, it’s depressing to watch him waste
his talent on such shallow gamesmanship.
Willink
initially marked time with expressionist and abstract painting, but by the mid-1920s
he created his own style, imaginary realism.
The best way of thinking about Willink is that he was an artist who
could really paint intent on making some of the most inventive dreamscapes of
the Twentieth Century – Dali,
without the nonsense, pretention and bombast.
He also seemed to be obsessed with beautiful, imposing buildings, and
how they scaled against the human form.
Willink
died in Amsterdam having lived through all of the significant artistic and
historical events of the last century.
Some of his canvases almost seem like an attic filled with mid-century
triumphs and anxieties.
Today’s
painting, View of the Town, painted
in 1934, is by any critical yardstick a masterpiece. It’s not simply that Willink beautifully
rendered the details of the building, the cobblestone street and the wall in
the distance, but also that he was able to create an entire mood through the
skill of his composition and the technique of his lighting.
The
broad expanse of street, with its looming shadows, creates a sense of anxiety
and unease. The absence of people adds
to the overall menacing aspect, as does the fact that nothing is visible inside
of any of these windows.
A sense
of expectation is also created by the approaching storm, which he painted not
just in the sky, but with his shades of gray upon the landscape itself. This muted palette, open composition and
feeling of dread anticipation all result in a picture that is beautiful,
ethereal and disquieting.
No comments:
Post a Comment