the MEEGEREN website

SULTAN

Recently one of the friends of my site - www.meegeren.net - showed me this exotic figure. Is this a fairy-tale figure, a philosopher or a vaudeville player?
Please let me know what you think.

“Corn, Oil, Cotton” (Graan, olie, katoen)

Van Meegeren was fond of large dimensions, both for his oils and his drawings. Whoever else made drawings of 1 meter 30 by 2 meters (approximately 50 by 80 inch) like this one?

Apart from its large dimensions, this drawing has another gimmick:
Thousands of workers are seen here to pull a soap-bubble occupied by a board of capitalists. The gimmick is that Van Meegeren has depicted himself and his wife Jo in the row of the enslaved workers (see the lower right-hand corner).
He pokes fun of the situation: He of all people, who cheated capitalists out of their millions, toils in their service! A typical Van Meegeren joke.

(Click on the image to enlarge the picture and enjoy the details in this huge and elaborate work)

Erroneous Accusation of Anti-Semitism

see "Corn, oil, Cotton", lower right-hand corner

Recently Van Meegeren was accused of anti-Semitism. The key for this accusation was the above picture: the capitalists in the soap-bubble were said to be Jewish, and the little figure laying at the right of the bubble was seen as a devil laying on the Bible.
There are, however, no signs that these capitalists are meant to be Jewish (there are no Stars of David or other symbols). And the small figure lying on the book is just blowing up the soap-bubble, he does not represent the devil and there is no Bible as the accuser wanted us to believe.
Moreover, Van Meegeren’s joke, depicting his wife and himself (see J and H in the picture), had eluded the critics.

In short: the accusation lacks grounds and is, moreover, unfair to both Van Meegeren and his still living family in Holland.

Van Meegeren’s Eyesight (a new view on his work)

I recently acquired Van Meegeren’s eyeglasses which glasses brought me to a new view on his work.
To the modern eye, the frame of the eyeglasses looks quite heavy and dark, although it was quite fashionable in its time. One lens is partly broken.

The lenses are not strong and the eyeglasses were used for reading only. This ties in with the fact that in photographs Van Meegeren is never seen wearing eyeglasses. In addition his nephew Pim recollected that he never wore eyeglasses when he painted.

An optician measured these lenses for me with the following result:
Right + 0.50 cylindrical – 3.00 at 13 degrees,
Left + 1.50 cylindrical – 3.50 at 166 degrees,
they thus appear to be extremely cylindrical.

When I measured a small square as seen through these lenses, the image appeared to be stretched 9% in width and shortened 9% in height. This means that Van Meegeren perceived the outside world as being 18% leaner than it was in reality. This distortion was compensated by his eyeglasses when he was reading, but it was not compensated when he painted.

There existed already rumours that Van Meegeren’s eyesight had had a unique distortion and that this was why the faces in his paintings were so often oblong. The lenses of his eyeglasses explain this now. The faces in his “Emmaus” can be seen as a good example of his distorted view when he saw the outside world as being 18% taller and leaner than in reality.

This sounds logical, but there is a snag: although his eyes “saw” the world narrower than it actually was, he must have known from experience that its objects were broader in reality.
Or to put it in other words: When he made a drawing, the object on paper must be made of the same width as in reality, although to his eyes it was narrower. Otherwise there would have been a difference between reality and the drawing, and that is exactly what a good draughtsman seeks to prevent.
But how then did this process work when he drew from memory? How much of his memory appeared in his paintings? It is well probable that people and faces in that case became oblong.
Reactions on this theme are welcome.

F e e s t

A recent contribution by a visitor from the U.S.A.
I call it “Feest” which is Dutch for “Party”.
In this pastel Van Meegeren pokes fun at the stout gentleman in evening dress. Is this one of his friends (or foes?) in the Haagse Kunstkring (The Hague Art Circle)? Somebody who is fond of women, liquor, food and parties?
I’m afraid that his face is meant as a portrait so that his contemporaries would have recognized him. Van Meegeren is known to have made sketches like this in a few minutes, often as a contribution to an artist's party he attended.
Is there any Dutch visitor to this website who can shed some light to this most vivacious picture of our dear friend and rascal Van Meegeren?

Please double-click on the picture to enlarge it.

VROLIJK GEZELSCHAP (A Jolly Party)

In the very North of Holland a genuine Va Meegeren was discovered in the jocular style of Van Meegeren in the 1920's. See for instance his "Streetmusicians in Paris" from 1928 or his "Streetmusicians in Roquebrune" from the same time.
The year 1927 had been scratched in the lower left corner which agrees well with Van Megeeren's style in those years.
Oil painting on a wooden panel, 16 x 21 cm.

A Landscape

Van Meegeren lived in the 1920’s for some time in a castle by the name “Binckhorst” near The Hague. He paid his rent by means of this painting (as he often paid his rent and other bills in kind).
The receiver of the painting was not fully satisfied and removed the top of the painting; he found the sky in the upper part of the landscape “too dull”.
In this way the painting got its unusual, but attractive, longitudinal shape.
Had Van Meegeren known this, he certainly would have laughed about it. After all, he spoke of his production in those early years: “It was atrocious. Painting assembly-line pictures that were sold to my surprise… when I looked back at better times, I became sick of nostalgia.”
Nevertheless his early paintings show a straightforward and undemanding charm.

Een Zonnige Dag op het Strand

What is my favourite? I guess it his "Sunny Day on the Beach" creating this atmosphere with so few lines...
Double-click on the picture to see it in its full splendour.

A characteristic Head

Possibly one of those characters Van Meegeren met in France, a similar type as in his “Streetsingers”.
In his early days as a professional painter Van Meegeren was poor and often paid his debts with one of his paintings. The owner of this pastel inherited it from his grandfather who was an insurance-agent in The Hague when Van Meegeren lived there. Van Meegeren paid his insurance fee with this fine pastel. Not a bad barter in retrospect.

It is signed H.v.M which is quite rare: there are only 8 of such works known in his oeuvre list of more than 600 works under his own name. He normally used this signature for anecdotic topics.
The pastel is for sale.