Blog

Book presentations by Gezien van de Riet. Everything! Everywhere! Beautiful story, beautiful pictures! Interviews with the authors Gezien v.d. Riet and Nicolien Mizee. Realism or fiction? Striking review by Jurjen v.d. Hoek.

Gezien van de Riet donates art to the Bolivian people.
The Bolivian Minister of Foreign Affairs hands it over to the Cultural Foundation of the Central Bank of Bolivia. It couldn't be better. The minister: Her art shows us ourselves through an European lens. With a friendly look, a warm feeling.

And: Exhibitions

For over 10 years I worked as a sociologist and illustrator in Bolivia with the Indian population and experienced wonderful adventures. I made about 500 drawings, watercolors and paintings.
The artworks now go to the collection of the Fundación Cultural of the Central Bank of Bolivia. It's a great home for my artwork, a great honor!
News: Museum Møhlmann, The Hand of the Master. Grandmasters of Fine Art, exhibition.

Looking over Rembrant’s shoulder while he painted, who would not have wanted that? To get so near to his painting practice? Ernst van de Wetering chanced it in his books Rembrandt. The Painter at Work and Rembrandt. The Painter Thinking.
Gombrich: “Among the countless books on Rembrandt, that by Ernst van de Wetering comes closest to conveying something of this experience"...

Portrait, where is the miracle?

Realistic portrait? Disgusting, said Hegel. Is it possible to paint feelings, the inner, in a portrait focussed on the outside? Hegel, influencer avant la lettre, didn’t see the miracle.
My hobbyhorse
The stubborn taboo on realism of an important national newspaper, De Volkskrant, is vanishing.
News
My work: in books, magazines, sites, exhibitions, art card, and as a finalist.

The making of… Tessa’s portrait
Adventures with Photoshop. From dissatisfaction to approval to enthusiasm to perseverance.
And:
Art History Complete. Complete? That would be a miracle. Where is contemporary realism...
Galería artelibre “20 years, in 20x20”, in collaboration with MEAM, international,
165 artists, travelling exhibit.
News:
Kunstzaal Van Heijningen, Art Gallery Clatia, Bolivia

Imitation and Imagination 4
Ivan Shishkin, “book-keeper of leaves”? Imitation? Far from it! He distorted things consciously, but as inconspicuously as possible. For the sake of the experience of beauty and reality. The greater the skill, the stronger that experience...
And:
Visit to Galería Artelibre. A great promotor of the new realism, collaboration with MEAM, exhibits, books, competitions, virtual art gallery...

Imitation and Imagination 3
Disclosure of the art theory of the Dutch Golden Age by Ernst van de Wetering.
Surprise: Dutch painters in discussion with Italians. Dutch realism banal?
Much imitation, little imagination? Karelvan Mander: “go from ornamentation towards truth!”

Imitation and Imagination 2
The Greeks were discussing realism... “Suddenly I jumped up. I read about the sculptor Lysippus, who wanted to convey what he saw in a naturalistic manner! “
And:
Galería Artelibre, site and ‘twenty years, in 20x20’
Art post cards, calender and agenda by Bekking&Blitz Art Editions

TRAC2018, a movement passes thru the world of art. Fascinating report by Lorena Kloosterboer... the exchange of ideas, the charging of spiritual and creative batteries, the forging of friendships, the exchange of ideas...
The Representational Art Conference 2018 was in the Netherlands
Ernst van de Wetering and I gave joint lectures. Van de Wetering about how to judge the quality of a work of art; he compared Rembrandt’s work with that of his pupils. Part of my lecture also covered Rembrandt’s times.

Modern realism, FACE and TRAC. 
A movement promoting on all fronts a contemporary variant of the classical tradition, valueing skills... is it a dream? I experienced it for the first time in 2014...
And:
Joke Frima: The Da Vinci Initiative: Changing the Culture of Art Education.
News:
TRAC2018 in the Netherlands, first country in Europe!

Imitation and Imagination 1
Facebook quote: “I can’t understand why an artist would work so hard to make a painting like this one, that looks so much like a photo. That’s what cameras are for...”
And:
Horses’ heaven.
Art post cards, calender and agenda by Bekking&Blitz Art Editions
News:
Competion.
FACE-TRAC: it’s moving!

At great pains
Museum Møhlmann: exhibition “Vee op Stapel” (“Cattle in stock”). Great! I have always wanted to paint the horses and cows of the Pyrenees…
And:
Galerie Petit is shutting down.
My hobby horse. Galerie Staphorsius got a lot of media coverage. The number of visitors is now around forty a day, and has been for the last six weeks... Training art journalists...

Art Renewal Center
Since today I am designated ARC Associate Living Master! I have an own page on the ARC-site!
And:
My hobby horse. In Europe it has probably been the Dutch realism that has progressed the furthest. But it is not anchored in important institutions, so...

Photo or painting? The beet-field: just like the real thing?
Will it look like a photo or still a painting? Is that important? For the past few days I had constantly been peering at those curly leaves of the beet-field. Now! Plein air! So many details? Don’t! But...
Exhibition Museum Møhlmann

In commemoration of Diederik Kraaijpoel
Diederik Kraaijpoel, champion and godfather of the new, contemporary realism in the Netherlands. His books, like the De Nieuwe Salon (The New Salon), made humorously and effectively a butt of the (post)modernist establishment…
And:
Exhibition in Kunstzaal van Heijningen, Diederik Kraaijpoel, Annet Hiltermann, Jan van Loon en Gezien van de Riet.

New realism in the US!
“It seems like we’re back in the time of the Impresssionists!” – a comment to be heard at The Representational Art Conference, TRAC2014, in March 2014, California. Historic! I participated in this heart warming and enriching event…
And:
Lecture TRAC
Finalist with White Abeles, ARC.

The particular in art
My ears pricked up when Huigen Leeflang recounted how painters in the Dutch Golden Age were supposed to depict trees. It was all about variation and differentiation. “Look ye, (…) thou shalt depict them each in its own character” …