Battlefields 1955
I don’t know who initiate my almost compulsive behavior to draw. It could be my paternal grandmother with whom I stayed often, till I was around three. She painted oil paintings of rocky landscapes.
On the other side, it could be because of my maternal grandmother, with whom I grew up since I was 3 years old. She used to give me lots of big sheets out of wall paper sample books. The plain backsides of these rough sheets were good enough to keep a 4 year old, calm and busy.
It was not at all my grandmother’s intention to make me an artist, because art and everything that came close to it, was the last thing that interested her. In our house, life looked to depend more on football, cycle racing and such sports.
I could get as many wall paper sheets as I wanted because it kept me busy, out of her way. I could draw for hours, sitting at the kitchen table or the antique Singer sewing machine, the top of which could be converted to a small table, when not in use.
I took the business of drawing very seriously. On top of that I had the ability to transform the fantasies, made up in my mind, into drawings on paper.
I remember that I absorbed all the stories told in my presence by these aged people, gathered in our house, almost every day. These oldies, who, one by one, had been in the First and Second World War, had lots to tell about their war adventures. Families and neighbors on the run from the Germans, horse driven wagons packed with goods and people leaving town for safer places, the bombardments, their lives in the trenches of the Yser in 1914 – 18 etc, etc.
Contrary to my brother Yves behavior, who took off as soon as the story telling sessions began, I squeezed myself between the oldies and sat there with my ears wide open, listening quietly. I enjoyed it enormously, when the old gang exchanged their experiences. I could listen to these tales for hours and my little brain absorbed it all to the fullest, like a sponge absorbed water. Later, I distilled my own stories out of it. Consequently, most of the topics in my pencil drawings were battlefields.
I don’t know who initiate my almost compulsive behavior to draw. It could be my paternal grandmother with whom I stayed often, till I was around three. She painted oil paintings of rocky landscapes.
On the other side, it could be because of my maternal grandmother, with whom I grew up since I was 3 years old. She used to give me lots of big sheets out of wall paper sample books. The plain backsides of these rough sheets were good enough to keep a 4 year old, calm and busy.
It was not at all my grandmother’s intention to make me an artist, because art and everything that came close to it, was the last thing that interested her. In our house, life looked to depend more on football, cycle racing and such sports.
I could get as many wall paper sheets as I wanted because it kept me busy, out of her way. I could draw for hours, sitting at the kitchen table or the antique Singer sewing machine, the top of which could be converted to a small table, when not in use.
I took the business of drawing very seriously. On top of that I had the ability to transform the fantasies, made up in my mind, into drawings on paper.
I remember that I absorbed all the stories told in my presence by these aged people, gathered in our house, almost every day. These oldies, who, one by one, had been in the First and Second World War, had lots to tell about their war adventures. Families and neighbors on the run from the Germans, horse driven wagons packed with goods and people leaving town for safer places, the bombardments, their lives in the trenches of the Yser in 1914 – 18 etc, etc.
Contrary to my brother Yves behavior, who took off as soon as the story telling sessions began, I squeezed myself between the oldies and sat there with my ears wide open, listening quietly. I enjoyed it enormously, when the old gang exchanged their experiences. I could listen to these tales for hours and my little brain absorbed it all to the fullest, like a sponge absorbed water. Later, I distilled my own stories out of it. Consequently, most of the topics in my pencil drawings were battlefields.
