My visit to the Jopie Huisman Museum
Expressions, fallen flat
Recently I got to enjoy the beauty and charm of the Netherlands on a bike and barge trip with my family. We spent our nights sleeping on a boat, and our days cycling through beautiful villages and farmland. It seemed that every five minutes we were compelled to cry out, “Quaint!” “Pastoral!” “Idyllic!” These adjectives sprang to our lips over and over as we glided over cobblestone streets, passed gardens and canals, cycled along wildflower strewn dikes and narrow tree-lined avenues.
“Quaint!” “Pastoral!” “Idyllic!”
In trying to repeatedly wring out meaning from the words, they eventually became limp and lifeless from overuse. “How Nice” became our fall-back. “Cool.” “Neat.” “Wow.”
In the face of such a beautiful landscape, there are simply no one-word exclamations that can do justice. It becomes clear that a repeated “Wow! So pretty!” feels almost like an insult. It lacks the depth, attention, and time required to effectively express full appreciation for what the exclaimer is exclaiming about!
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, at least if you're Jopie Huisman
One of my favourite stops along our bike tour was an art museum in Friesland that housed the work of a beloved Dutch painter named Jopie Huisman. Jopie was a self-taught artist who lived from 1922 to 2000. He worked as a “rag man” throughout his life, doing art as time allowed. Many of his painting feature the discarded clothing and objects he encountered in his work. He also painted portraits and landscapes in addition to these carefully rendered still-lifes. All of his work revealed a special aspect of who he was as a man: his eyes, which were open and appreciative of the world around him. The way he saw things described how he loved them. He loved his town of Workum, he loved his parents, he even loved the rags that passed through his hands. And he was not content to express this love with a passing “How nice!” His attention to detail in his work revealed his dedication to visual fidelity: not merely to how something originally looked, but what it meant to him.
We entered the museum and were given audio-guides and detailed brochures to help us experience the artwork. The words of Jopie rang in our ears as he described each painting, telling us the stories behind them. He painted his grandmother’s first and last pair of shoes, which caused him to stand in awe of the breadth of her life. He painted a worn out pair of pants when his wife left him, describing a self-portrait of his soul: left behind and discarded. He painted his father when his mother died, swathed in grief. He painted the varied beauty of a single tree through the four seasons. He painted his feelings about the absurdity of war. He painted a friend of his “into heaven,” seated on a street bench, swathed in light and colour.
What Jopie taught me about success
I was deeply touched by Jopie's attitude towards his art. I often struggle with how to feel about my own art. Am I successful? What does it even look like to be successful as an artist? Should I be famous? Rich? Completely original? From what I gathered at the museum, Jopie seemed to have a different idea about success. He was content with his job as a rag man. Everything else was a bonus. His idea of success was to live in his town, talk with people, and appreciate it all as much as possible. He even went as far as to (seemingly) kibosh his own artistic career by refusing to sell any of his work. He felt that adding monetary value to his work belittled the point of it: it was not right for someone to look at his art and see a dollar symbol.
He donated his entire body of work to the museum on the condition that none of it would be sold. (Happily for tourists like me, prints were still available for sale!) He wanted any person to be able to encounter his work and be blessed by it. He didn’t want his art to be hidden behind walls of exclusive art collections, to be enjoyed only by those who could afford it. His art was about ordinary things, and was meant to be viewed by ordinary people.
Finding my artistic voice
Jopie’s collection really moved me, and made me think about my own artistic journey. Jopie’s “thing” was that he elevated the ordinary world around him by describing it with minute precision and care. He shone a light on the normal everyday world, and revealed it to be extraordinary. His mark of success was not fame or fortune, but contentment and carefully rendered appreciation. I stood there and thought, “well, then. What’s my thing?”
I suppose one’s “thing” isn’t something you can manufacture, but rather something that becomes revealed as the years go by. So far, my art has revealed to me that my “thing” is still being figured out. (Maybe instead of “thing,” it would be better to say my “voice” is still being developed.) I’ve spent most of my time as an artist illustrating Bible stories to different audiences. I use art to express my faith in God and to work out what I read in my Bible. I also use it to illuminate other people’s stories and ideas, too. But as I looked at Jopie’s work, it became clear to me that I have not found my voice yet. I’m still trying this, trying that. I’m still preoccupied with simply learning how to paint. I hope that at the end of my life my voice will be as clear and powerful as Jopie’s was, even if our styles and subject matter is completely different. I hope that my voice doesn’t flutter out a much-worn, wrung-out “how nice!” “pastoral!” “idyllic!” but that through the years my powers of communication and description have matured to a point where I can make visible the invisible and beautify the ordinary, just like Jopie did.
So, if you are ever in Friesland, take a trip to Workum and enjoy the Jopie Huisman museum. Maybe, like me, you will feel a veil lifted from your eyes. Or maybe you’ll come away saying, “I can’t believe he actually counted the threads in that shirt so he could paint it accurately. That’s crazy!”
Either way, it’s a step beyond, “how nice.” “cool.” “neat.” And that’s what makes it good art.
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