IN SEARCH OF THE LOST MEANING OF HIS ART

by Jan Hein Sassen (1985)

For the past three years, Nol de Koning has hardly done any pain­ting. Prior to that time, he in­ves­tigated the points of depar­tu­re for painting in a strongly rational and detached way, where­by painting itself became the subject of his pain­tings. After some time, this fundamental ap­proach to visual art ceased to satisfy him: "...in that whole stream of art works from the in­ternational, national and provin­ci­al sch­ools with which one is inundated, I lose sight of that which is a precondi­tion for art - that which Kandinsky called 'in­ner neces­sity'. I miss the ele­ment of art as exponent of a men­tal, or rather, a spiri­tual atti­tude. This makes me feel rather despon­dent, to say the least." (1980)
Initially, this position lead him to a point where he no longer sho­wed his work directly, but rather, with the publication of a number of "Studio Reports" (198­1), created a 'musée ima­ginaire'. He began to replace painting more and more often with words and reproductions. He eventual­ly stop­ped altogether with painting and went in search of the lost mea­ning of his art, or rather, a new spiritual positi­on.
To rediscover that which was lost, De Koning, faithful in fact to his fun­da­mental principles, went in search of the sources of Western pain­ting, in particular the Italian renaissan­ce. The ide­as of the 15th century Flo­renti­ne neo-plato­nists were a par­ticu­lar­ly great source of inspi­ra­tion. Huma­nists such as Massilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola at­temp­ted to create a new image of the world - an image which would mark the end of the Middle Ages and form the basis of our way of thi­nking. What struck him in those ideas was that these philos­ophers were also con­cer­ned with a pro­blem which is very relevant to­day: what is the relati­onship be­tween ratio­nality and fee­ling, between intel­lect and intuiti­on?
Dissatisfaction with fundamental art appea­red to be dissa­tisfacti­on with the deta­ched, the ratio­nal, with a lack of meaning and involve­ment. The neo-platonists pla­ce intuition (and creativity!) above logic and reflec­ti­ve reaso­ning, without detrac­ting from the latter in any way. De Koning re­cognised his own problems in this way of thinking and this stimula­ted him to take a new path.
This transformation in approach lead to the creation of the cycle which is inspired by a number of verses from the Inferno out of Dante's Divine Comedy. The works are not figurative, but initially came into being in the same way as the fundamental works of se­veral years ago. Although they have a certain severity in com­mon, there are still large diffe­rences. These are primarily the product of a diffe­rence in inten­tion. De Koning: "What I wanted was to bring the content, the evoca­tive tension of the work, to the surface, which the use of visual methods made possi­ble". In this con­text he felt: "...affini­ty for the Swiss artist H. Feder­le, who said of his work that he used the art of abs­tract pain­ting 'as a way of ex­pressing deep-sea­ted emotio­nal valu­es', and who re­ferred to his work as being religious - in the deeper sense of the word - me­lan­cho­lic, psy­cholo­gi­cal and radical." (Museum Jour­naal, 1985, nr. 4, pp. 272-273).

The nu­cleus of the Dante cycle is for­med by three paintings which re­present the seventh circle of hell from Dante's Inferno: a red­dish brown canvass depic­ting the river of
blood - a seething pur­ple, in which those who have com­mit­ted acts of violence agai­nst their fellow man undergo their punish­ment; a grey canvass re­pre­sents the scorched forest, where life is colourless and whe­re the suicides and squan­derers are punis­hed; the third canvass is the sandy desert, an arid sand flat and sea of fire where the blasphemers against God - or aga­inst ideas, as De Ko­ning sees it - under­go eternal damnati­on. These paintings are 'supplemen­ted', t­hereby strengthe­ning their evoca­tive ef­fect. They are all contained wit­hin a lead frame; beneath the first is a stre­am of clay and red earth; on the se­cond, scorched twigs and bene­ath it wit­hered lea­ves, sand and bla­cke­ned twigs; on the third can­vass is a glo­wing heating spiral and bene­ath lie ashes and cin­ders. It is only the pain­ting of the canvas­ses which now and then be­trays their funda­men­tal origin.
Besides the visual elements, the word plays an important role: the title of the work broadens the associative pos­si­bili­ties. Fur­ther­more, the visu­al means are not only exten­ded, but adap­ted in a much more intui­tive way than in earlier works, whilst the pain­tings flow over into the grea­ter whole of the environment - the dis­tance be­tween observer and art beco­mes smaller, the involvement between the artist, his art and the public becomes greater.

(from cat. 'Capricci', Amsterdam 1985)

Bulicame, the three central paintings River, Forest and Plain, studio shot, 1985

This article has been written before the video installation. The idea of the video installation arose during the Capricci exhibition in 1985. For productional reasons the project was executed not until 1987/88.