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Biografie Toon Kuijpers

Toon Kuijpers paintings demonstrate that a realist may also be a modernist. His art reveals great skill and sensitivity to the concerns and techniques, which are customarily associated with realism; but Kuijpers seeks a deeper, more permanent reality by investigating the essence of natural and cultural reality and eschews the doctrine of “art for art’s sake”. This places Kuijpers work firmly within the heroic tradition of modern art that originated with the achievements of Manet and the Impressionists. Furthermore the enduring lineage and relevance of this realist tradition includes Kuijpers own Dutch heritage. “Every old master has had his own modernity”. Kuijpers paintings are a part of a historical chain that stretches back through Van G…ogh, to the 17th century masters like Rembrandt and Vermeer, arriving ultimately at the birth of European realism in the first oil paintings of van Eyck. Kuijpers paintings represent a penetrating moment in a timeless terrain, where past and present brush up against each other. By using the “golden section” and different light sources in his compositions, we witness his search for the essence of the ultimate composition. This is not based on wishful thinking, but achieved by the imaginative power of creative painting to stir our awareness and vision of the on-going process of natural and historical change. By continually stimulating and setting the subject under different levels of perception, Kuijpers is continuing a long tradition of Dutch painting in a contemporary context.
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