Turmoil

Turmoil is a series of 32 paintings. The drawing with references shows its complex iconography. A short summing up; The escape of King Louis Philippe from the Tuileries Gardens in 1848. Ary Scheffers’ ‘Allegory of the Coup d’Etat of 1851, the Trump Coup d’Etat of Jan 6 2020, Refugies from Daumier, the Nakba of 1948, Alsace in 1814, Ukraine in 2022, the yellow vest and corona protests, the pension protests in februari 2023, Black Lives matter and the tearing down of Edward Colstons’ sculpture in Bristol. The Masha Amini protests in Iran, the ‘Black Pete’ riots in Staphorst, and flagwaving everywhere. ‘Allons!’ Ary Scheffers’ painting with volunteers following the Tricolore, inverted flags during Dutch farmers protests, Corsican flags and flags of the French Second Empire carried during French corona protests. The list of historical references is incomplete. And then you have the associative connnections that are developped in the series. To give just one example; while in Paris during a visit at the Louvre in 2021 I made a drawing after a painting by Horace Lesueur. And while reading Baudelaire’s ‘The Painter of Modern Life’ again in which he calls the figures drawn by Mr G. ( Constantin Guys) ‘tall, pale and straight like the figures of Lesueur’ I decided to incorporate both in the series. Another line is the Coup d’Etat and ‘l’Histoire d’une crime’( Victor Hugo). Underlying this all are the ‘Echoes’ paintings by Walter Sickert, his working method by incorporating the squared up sketches for enlarging in the finished canvases, the freedom of coloration, the wet-in-wet direct painting method. So there’s also a reference to Sickert’s favorite illustrator John Gilbert.

Turmoil will be shown as part of the exhibition ‘Liberté. Ary Scheffer en de Franse Romantiek’ at the Dordrechts Museum.