book

Gezien had an artistic talent and was attracted to art
since youth, but she started out on a professional career
– as a teacher, education expert and sociologist – which
eventually brought her to South America. Her work with
Bolivian indigenous people allowed her to combine her
different skills in the development of illustrated education
material. On one of her trips, as she describes, looking
out from a plane window (on which a fly was sitting) on
the harsh but stunning beauty of the Bolivian Andes,
she made a vow: she wanted to qualify seriously in free
pictorial art. She started following evening classes at the
La Paz School of Arts, where director Alberto Medina
recognized and stimulated her talent. Her first expositions
–and her first success– also took place in La Paz.

Once returned to the Netherlands, Gezien was confronted
with the still prevailing wintry climate of modernism, and for
a while she had the illusion that she was perhaps the only
figurative artist in the country. This was until she discovered the so-called Northern Figurative School centred on Groningen and the Minerva Academy. She came into contact with one of its exponents: the painter, teacher, and art theoretician Diederik Kraaijpoel. As he describes in his article, he signalled her ‘eagerly learning talent’ as he tried to convey in a quarter of an hour his knowledge gained in half a century. One of the things he taught Gezien was the effective use of colour in figurative art. He stresses the value of craftmanship and holds the view that a contemporary artist can and should also build on the tradition of its predecessors – which Gezien does, as he points out.

Another platform for figurative art in the Netherlands is Museum Møhlmann, the initiative of Rob and Laura Møhlmann, who organize the yearly Independent Realists’ Exhibition. In his article still life painter Rob Møhlmann relates Gezien’s drawings of the human being to her professional interest in people and notes how a single pencil stroke brings to life a sketchily drawn human figure. He describes how she later came to painting landscapes and trees.

Art historian Leo van Heijningen was one of the first to start an art gallery for figurative art in The Hague: Kunstzaal Van Heijningen. In his article he describes a walk in the woods near Gezien’s home in Castricum. “Look at the beauty of those beeches,” he hears her say. Leo van Heijningen thinks her use of the word ‘beauty’ refreshingly old-fashioned and is drawn into a historical-philosophical discussion with Gezien about its implications.

In her own article, Gezien van de Riet expands some more on the ongoing dispute between modernist and figurative art. Nineteenth-century American and Russian landscape painters were among those that inspired her. It is possible to follow ‘life’ or ‘nature’ to capture beauty, not by apish copying, but by studious interpretation through oil or crayon on canvas, wood or paper.

The book contains more than 150 illustrations, 66 of them in full colour, and offers great variety in techniques and subject matter. Preview

For sale at Museum De Buitenplaats. Order from recognized bookshops (ISBN 978-90-70655-66-2) or by money transfer of 28 euro including P&P, to bank account 4937719 of Gezien van de Riet, Castricum, Netherlands.

Is realism not banal? Film fragments of an interview:

Boekpresentatie in Kunstzaal van Heijningen, november 2008. Van links naar rechts: Etalage, Jeroen Strengers interviewt Gezien van de Riet, bezoekers met Marijke Cosse (derde van links), Leo van Heijningen.
Tweede rij foto's: uitreiking van het boek aan Rob Geurten, Diederik Kraaijpoel, Marga Hoijtink, Yolanda Kraaijpoel.

Lezing
Gezien geeft lezingen over realisme. De vragen van het boek: Imitatio et Inventio, imitatie en verbeelding, wat vertelt de kunstgeschiedenis daarover? De werkelijkheid is er al, wat voegt realisme toe? Met veel lichtbeelden, ook over het hedendaags realisme.