JAN TOOROP (British/Dutch/Javanese, 1858-1928)
Jan Toorop
was born in Purworedjo, Java to a British mother and
Dutch/Javanese father. At the age of five he moved to Banka, a small
island southeast of Sumatra, and then to the Leiden in 1869. He studied
as a teenager at the State Academy in Amsterdam, and then between 1882
and 1886 he lived in Brussels.
There, he became connected with an avant-garde group of artists connected to James Ensor. After experimenting with a number of modernist styles, he eventually developed a unique, personal symbolist style which often included Javanese elements...In 1905 Toorop converted to Catholicism, and took an interest in the mysteries of Rosicrucianism, an esoteric order.
There, he became connected with an avant-garde group of artists connected to James Ensor. After experimenting with a number of modernist styles, he eventually developed a unique, personal symbolist style which often included Javanese elements...In 1905 Toorop converted to Catholicism, and took an interest in the mysteries of Rosicrucianism, an esoteric order.
In the
later part of his career he created works inspired by the Pointillist
style of Georges Seurat and also Art Nouveau. From 1920 onward Toorop
was confined to a wheelchair, due to the paralysis of his left leg,
devoting himself to drawings and graphics with Catholic themes. He died
on March 3, 1928 in The Hague, Netherlands.
Love this guy's art, the fascist politics (he was a fan of Mussolini) not so much. But Kahlo was a fan of Stalin, and it'd be unfair to write off this work based on that.
where o Death is your victory?
Verily, spooky noochies.
ReplyDeleteAfter days of darkness I didn't understand
ReplyDeletea second of yellow sunlight
here and gone through a hole in clouds
as quickly as a flashbulb, an immense
memory of a moment of grace withdrawn.
It is said that we are here but seconds in cosmic
time, twelve and a half billion years,
but who is saying this and why?
In the Salt Lake City airport eight out of ten
were fiddling relentlessly with cell phones.
The world is too grand to reshape with babble.
Outside the hot sun beat down on clumsy metal
birds and an actual ten-million-year-old
crow flew by squawking in bemusement.
We're doubtless as old as our mothers, thousands
of generations waiting for the sunlight.
"Sunlight" by Jim Harrison
Kahlo was a Troskyist - which is little better to my taste, but seem a lot more acceptable those days ;-) Trotsky was actually assassinated in her and Diego de Riviera's house. I discovered Toorop in art class in high school and I am forever grateful to my teacher!
ReplyDelete