BOMMEN BEREND

His full name was Christoph Bernhard Freiherr von Galen.  He was born in Drensteinfurt, 12 oct 1606, and died in Ahaus, 19 sept 1678.   From 1650 he became "Fürstbischof von Münster". He could be polite an gentle but didn't liked opposition. This became worse in his later days.

 (Both pictures: Note 1)

Haus Bisping

 On the next image you see my painting of his "birthhouse" in Drensteinfurt.  It is called "Haus Bisping". (Note 2)    It was a cloudy rainy day when I took this image with an interesting gloomy, dark atmosphere around it. It is painted on an aluminium panel 18 x 24 inch (46 x 61 cm).
Why this painting?  About Bernhard von Galen  I learned in school and his nickname "Bommen Berend" stick to me. He attacked the Dutch Republic several times.  This nickname is given to him during the siege of Groningen where he used a lot of boms in trying to conquer the city.

The house belonged to his father  Dietrich von Galen zu Bisping. (Note 3) He was an Erbmarschall. During a Landtag in february 1607, an official meeting, he killed another Erbmarschall. He was arrested and for 12 years he was kept in detention at Burg Bevergen.   Bernhard was then only a couple of months old.  Bernhards mother joined Dietrich at Burg Bevergen and probably she took young Bernhard with them.  Probably there life on Burg Bevergen wasn't that bad because they were of "noble birth".  In 1616 Bernhard at an age of  around 10 years was placed under custody of his uncle, Heinrich von Galen,  for his education. (Note 4)  It might be that Bernhard only stayed those first months of his life in house Bisping.

Bernhard von Galen is born in 1606.  The house carries on its side the year 1651. What does this mean?  The house is clearly a mixture of different materials. The lower part is mainly sandstone whereas the upper part are bricks.  But the transition from sandstone to bricks is not a uniform line. It seems the big door in sandstone on the frontside, the old gate, was closed with bricks in later years. My thoughts are that the lower part is the original house and that around 1651 the house was partly destroyed. (a fire ?)  So they rebuild it with bricks using the remains of the old house as a basis.

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NOTES

Note 1:    Both pictures can be found on the Wikipedia site.

Note 2:   My main focus was this remarkable building which was only the gatehouse to the castel. In german language it is called a "Wasserschloss".   When the castel was destroyed and why I don't yet now.  It now is surrounded by a couple of other buildings old and new.    In the language of 1600 talking about  Haus Bisping might have ment an estate with a lot of farmland, farmers with their families and houses and other property.  On the next image you can see how it looks nowadays... It is now a private property

Image and info I found on     https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haus_Bisping

Note 3:  This can be found on  http://wiki-de.genealogy.net/Haus_Bisping.     Dietrich (old german language: Diderich)  von Galen zu Bisping got the house from his father also named Dietrich von Galen who was the grandfather of Bernhard. The grandfather got the house in 1564 from his brother Heinrich von Galen zu Veilinghausen  who got the house by his mariage with  Clara Frydag. The grandfather didn't got the ownership of the house. In 1571 28 april Clara Frydag made her Will and by this document the grandfather inherited Haus Bisping. (http://www.hammwiki.de/wiki/Urkunde_1571_April_28)   The grandfather of Bernhard was married to Bernharda Wulf a daughter of Clara Frydag.  Clara Frydag was married three times and survived all her husbands.   

Note 4:   This information I gathered on Wikipedia using the german and english version.
Some questions I still have.   Was Dietrich von Galen zu Bisping  immediately after the killing detained and put at Burg Bevergen?  Did he loose all his property, also Haus Bisping,  as part of the punishment?  And had Bernhard von Galen interest to reclaim or buy the house back as he became rich and powerful?

PORTRAIT OF CHRIS

During a holiday trip with with my friend to Hamburg we stayed at the place of a friend. For me it was the first big visit to Hamburg. In the past I had only crossed it by train going to Rostock in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. It was a nice  visit and being toured around by a real citizen of Hamburg (can I say "a real Hamburger"  ? Or is that  an insult?) we saw it from another side..  Like the drive over the Reeperbahn where a large motor event took place...On the left  and right side of the street it was full with black dressed bikers....  And like the walk through the tiny streets on the slope off Blankenese.

  The picture I made while we were on a ferry boot crossing the Elbe. The painting measures  50 cm x 100 cm.  Subtitle: Young man in distress.

YELLOW SKIN

SUNFLOWER

In my series about flowers I added  this sunflower.

A total of 7 flower paintings I have now ready.  They are painted on wooden panels. 30 cm x 40 cm.

WASTE-LAND 1

VARIATIONS ON A YOUNG MAN.

On the Internet I found an image of this young men. I don't know who made the picture and who the young man is but I liked the image and it seems other artists are doing that also.

The following image shows a painting made by a painter whose name I don't know either.

I recently started painting on aluminium plates for which this image seems perfectly fit. I could skip the background and only concentrate on the young man. The metallic part will give its own effect to the image.

VISIT TO NORDERNEY.

Recently I visited with my friend the island Norderney in the north of Germany.  An island which is quite loved by the inhabitans of Nordrheinwestfalen, a region near the dutch borderside. The connection with the train from the "Ruhrgebiet" is easy. You take the train in the direction to Emden and the train will stop at the ferryboat.  But we went by car....
  It had been a long time since I visited an island so I wanted to look around and take pictures with the idea of finding interesting topics to paint later at home. On the first day we went for a biketour around the island and stopped halfway where a big dune landscape starts. One can walk for 5 kilometers to the far right side of the island. We didn't went sofar.  I made a couple of pictures of the dunes and the coastline...   I like the emptyness of this space, the wide views and the reduced visual attractions of the whole setting...


So back home I started a serie of three paintings about the dunes. I used the aluminium plates for this.

The dunes are for itself interesting.

For the next painting, marram grass, I used a very limited pallet.

• Ultramarine Blue
• Cadmium red light
• Cadmium yellow light
• Titanium white
• Italian omber

 Ultramarine Blue, cad red light and cad yellow light are the primary colours.  And titanium white and italian omber to dempen the colours.    The idea for this pallet came from a painter on Youtube of whom I occasionally follow his steps. His channel is Draw Mix Pain. Working with a limited pallet is not new to me.  I do it often for a very practical reason. It asks extra labour to make my own colours. How to limit this labour is simple by using as little different colours as possible. With this kind of  limited pallet I can make almost any colour. The main colour in the painting is Ultramarine Blue. The sky, clouds, sand and marram grass are all variations on this blue.  Ultramarine Blue has its limits as you can see  in the image below.  The sky is complete different from the two above. Less sparkling...more subdued...
    

FEMME DE MILLIONS.

Amedeo Modigliani   "Reclining Nude"  or  "Nu couché" or "Femme de Millions"
Subtitle:  "200 Million Dollar"

On 10 November 2015 the news came out that a painting by Modigliani (Note 1) was sold by Christie's in New York for 170,4 million dollar.  The painting measures 60 by 90 centimeter.  It is sold to a chinese artcollector, Liu Yiqian, who tends to exhibit it in his museum in Shanghai.

(Image: Christie's  see note 2)
In an online article in the Guardian it is said that  "Amedeo Modigliani was high on hashish, wrecked by absinth, and desperately poor when he painted this hymne to lust in 1917-18." (note 3)  It was painted during World War I.

  This newsfact triggered something in me.  A kind of unbelieve about such a price for a work of art. And immediately I started to make my own "170,4 million of Artwork".  I used the image of Christie's as guide. A prepaired canvas large enough I had already standing ready.  I didn't took notice of the original size so I took a canvas of 85 x 115 centimeters. This canvas is a  little broader then the original so I decided to make the lower leg a tiny bit longer.

The colours I would used I had to do a little research for.  But understanding that Modigliani was poor  he might have been using only a few basic colours. (Like Picasso did in his Blue Period).

On internet I did a little research in other paintings by Modigliani and I could get an idea of how he painted.  I believe Modigliani painted it in a spontaneous moment  mainly in one flow.   The red blanket can be seen in other paintings as well.

The main colour in this painting is red. I used two types of red: cadmium red dark en cadmium red light. All colours are handmade. 

And after the latest fine-tuning my reclining Nude is ready.  I did some very small corrections mainly in darktones of the skin, some highlights on the skin, the face and the hair. Also by using glacé's.  Although my workimage was very poor I could get still a lot of information out of it..

Now only to find someone who pays 170 million dollar (or more because it is bigger then the original) for it.  I mean this as a joke. I liked making the painting..... and I signed it with my own name. I call it "Femme de Millions".  The original painting costed 170.4 million dollar.  The painting got a worldwide attention because of this price... And quoting Mr. Liu ".......Now, a chinese museum has a globally recognized masterpiece, and my fellow countrymen no longer have to leave the country to see a Western masterpiece....." (Note 4)  Also millions of people...

Here is the painting with the italian frame.

Who is the woman on the painting?
Probably the woman on the painting is Jeanne Hébuterne.  She was nineteen when they met in February 1917 and  "..........whose sweetness and modesty were noticed in the fancy artistic milieu of Montparnasse.  Among the damned Amedeo and delicate Jeanne was born a strong and deep love, intended as in a serial novel, to last until the death of both."  (Note 5)

(Image: Jeanne Hébuterne, 1918:  Note 6)





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NOTES

Note 1: Modigliani. 1884-1920. I give some information about him in reference to the painting.  He lived in Paris where the painting was made. He worked quite fast and a painting could be ready in 1 or 2 sessions.   In the time this painting was made the general opinion was that it was a kind of pornografy.  (wikipedia)

Note 2: Image.  I used the image of Christie's as reference for my painting. Later I found an image on a different website: Modigliani-foundation.org. This website seems serious but it showed the following image.

Because of the highly yellow woman and the saturated colour red in the blanket and in general an overexposure of yellow  this doesn't seem to catch the realistic colours of the painting.  The image of Christie's is more realistic.

Note 3: Jonathan Jones, The Guardian 10 november 2015  14:11 GMT.

Note 4: Article on the   nytimes.com by  Amy Qin, nov. 17, 2015.

Note 5: On guggenheim.org I found some info about Modigliani. "In march 1917 Modigliani met Jeanne Hébuterne, who became his companion and model."  In barbarainwonderlart.com it is said that they met in february 1917. 
The quoted part is from barbarainwonderlart.com  ".....all'epoca diciannovenne, la cui dolcezza e ritrosia si facevano notare nello stravagante ambiente artistico di Montparnasse.  Tra il dannato Amedeo e la delicata Jeanne nacque un amore forte e profondo, destinato, come in un romanzo d'appendice, a durare fino alla morte di entrambi."

Note 6: Image from barbarainwonderlart.com 

First experiment with aluminium.

This morning I prepaired 4 colours. Titan white, cadmium yellow citron, cadmium red light and turkish blue.   It has been some months since the last time I did this.

It was a quick on the fly painting and I used one of my drawings which I made at the nude-classes in Münster.   The oil paint takes very well on the aluminium surface. They like each other.  It is easy to make corrections.

After some weeks I had some paint left over and I was in the mood to rework this painting.  So here is the final result....

    

Painting on Aluminium

From an Artstore in the Uk, JacksonsArt, I ordered 5 aluminium plates for painting after I had seen a video on Youtube about using them.  The packet arrived within a week and the plates were very well packed.
  It might be an interesting material.  No groundation is necessary and it seems to work very well with oil paint.  And as you know me I will use handmade oilpaints for it.

First start

For quite a few months I haven't done anything to painting.  My mind was elsewhere...  Lets see how it will go.

  I found in my studio these plastic paint holders with handmade paint in it.  A few are still usable.  The ones on the right side are.  Titanium white and the cadmium yellows.  The ones on the left have become hard.

During a few hot days in June an July  I have varnised  10 paintings. I like doing this during hot days because the warm weather will minimize the amount of humidity in the canvasses.

Isolation layer

I got from a friend some very fresh eggs. Very good to make a tempera. As color I choose oker.  I separeted the egg yolk and added a little lavendel essence against mold...  Also I added a spoon of linseed oil.  I mixed this carefully. 

This I mixed with the oker pigment adding a little demineralized water.  Later on I added more of this water. 

In total I did three large canvasses and a small one. Two of them got two layers of tempera. The other two only one.

Starting to stretch the linen on the frame

This afternoon I did the first 4 canvasses.  I have put a piece of plastic on the floor and layed the linen on it. To keep the linen clean but also because it is easier to work. I can rotate the frame easy on the plastic.

A couple of days later I did another 4 then 3 and now left are 3 canvasses.

And again a couple of days later all canvasses were ready.  The next step will be making the rabitglue and give each canvas a coat of thin glue...

Varnishing an older painting

The painting I made in 1999 in Rome in Italy.  A bowl of nectarines.  I am quite fond of this painting.  It wasn't varnished.  Recently I bought a picture frame for this canvas. Now it was time to finish it.
Recently I bought good quality damar  in Münster. With turpentine, I have made a syrupy varnish. This I used on this cloudless sunny day.   After I cleaned the painting I have put the canvas into the sun behind the glass to warm it up a little bit.  Heating the cloth has its advantages. Any moisture which might be present in the fabric, is reduced by this. As a result, the adhesion of the varnish on the oil layer is a much better and more durable.

After about an hour lying on the floor I could put the painting upright. In upright position I turned it after an hour upside down. Just to be save.  A remarkable thing is that the varnish didn't smelled turpentin.  Also with the doors closed there wasn't a smell of turpentine. 

Cutting the Linnen.

This morning I cut the linen for the 14 canvasses.  The linen is called  "Safari" and a friend gave this to me as a birthday present. Which was very nice.  The quality is very good and it is made in Belgium. The linen is very close woven.

I layed a piece of plastic on the carpet in my bedroom on which I put the linen. This way I avoid dust, hair and so come on the linen.  I marked all pieces of linen and also the wooden frame. This way I don't get the pieces of linen and frames mixed up. 

 The linen has a considerable overlap on the frames. This makes it easier to attach them with the staple gun  to the frames. This will be the next step. 

New Paintings to make.

I bought by Boesner  new frame's for another 13 paintings. 

I assembled them today.  Totally 14 frame's stands ready to get the linnen.

This week I will start with it...  It asks some times....

Extasi

The worktitle is Jumping Man.   The latest thing I did was to add some backlight effects.  I  have left the effect soft to not overdo it.   As I told before the image of the jumping man I found on the internet. The dark parts in the mans body are influenced by the underpainting.   The background is my  own invention.  As you can see I have also included goldleaf in the painting.

The underpainting is complete different. The man I painted in a earth-green like color. This is the classical  italian way of doing that. There it is called verdaccio  . I did used different colors then the suggested  black, yellow and white.  The french used more a greylike color.    
        I first put gold leaf on the canvas. Only then I started doing the underpainting.  This works very well and I get nice sharp divisions between the gold leaf and the paint.

The painting is 115 x 85 cm.  It is done on linen with handmade oil paint....

Fruits and Flesh

Roy Lichtenstein has ever stayed in my mind also. He is a representative of Pop Art.  A lot of his images are like comic drawings.  And I like reading comics. So why not start to paint my own comic paintings...  One can take anything and transform it into a comic style.

The painting is 75 x 65 cm.  Handmade oilpaint on linen.

After Van Gogh

My brother asked me to make a Van Gogh.  Did he mend a copy or in the style of Van Gogh. I choose the last.

I looked at the images of Van Gogh's work.  Particularly his flower paintings which he made in Saint-Remy around 1890. And I looked in my Foto-Archive if I had some usable flower images to transform into a Van Gogh. I found this one.

As you can see I left a lot away. 

The painting was done on a wooden panel with handmade colors. Measures  60,8 cm x 40 cm.

Here are the examples of Van Gogh. 1890 "Wild Roses".     It is not one of his best paintings.

And this one is  1890  "Still Life Pink Roses"