Mathilde – Hekate
The third painting of Mathilde Willink is ready! The size is 100×50 cm, painted on Belgian linen with acrylic paint. Now I want to make a fourth in a large format.
Mathilde Willink
Mathilde and Hekate
Mathilde – Hekate is ready for the Mathilde Willink day 7-7-18 in Terneuzen. I painted her the way I liked her the most. Then, as far as we know, everything was still good. In addition, I put 2 faces on both sides from her later life, without her ex Carel Willink. While painting I had to think about Hekate, the goddess of intuition. Because she can look at three sides simultaneously, she sees the connection between past, present and future. Probably I was unconsciously inspired by a Hekate image that I saw during my visit to the Rijksmuseum voor Oudheden in Leiden a few weeks ago. I visited the exhibition about Nineveh there. Very special is that Lisette de Zoete, the author of the book Mathilde, apped me that in her book also the link is laid to Mathilde and Hekate. She also told me in which chapter and indeed, there it is on page 241. The link is made to the weeping willow, which is planted after Mathilde’s death, so that you can no longer look at the Ruysdaalkade 15, where her ex-husband, the painter Carel Willink, lived. The weeping willow is often associated with
Hekate
death and mourning, and is, like the moon, a symbol of Hekate. Hekate is also associated with triple junctions: crossroads to which dark energies are attracted and her arrival is announced by barking dogs. The landlady of Mathilde had barking dogs. And Mathilde once said that after the divorce of Willink she had the feeling of being in a triple junction. Crazy that without reading this in the book and without being aware of it, I also connected Mathilde with Hekate in my painting. Is that intuition or is that part of Einstein’s quantum theory? For an explanation, see: https://sites.google.com/site/hetnieuwedenken/kwantumelijkelijkheid
To paint Mathilde as well as possible I have read and watched a lot about her. The last one is the book “Mathilde, Muze, Mythe, Mysterie”, written by Lisette de Zoete. A very honest and thorough biography. Actually, you can also call it a reference work. She really interviewed everyone who really had to deal with Mathilde and literally reproduced the conversations. That’s how it comes to me. It is there, without judgment. There are also descriptions of herself. Mathilde really confiscated her. I found the interviews with her sisters very interesting, as well as the interview with performer Marjol Flore. That really moved me. Just like that beautiful song she made and sang on Mathilde, fantastic! The performance of Louis van Beek, “Mathilde, or how a Zeeland girl became a living work of art”, I would like to see once. I hope it will be put on stage again. It is clear, I am also mesmerised by Mathilde.
Zeeuw meisje
Zeeland girl
When I look at my painting of the Zeeland girl, and the costume as depicted in this painting, I also find the origins of the Zeeland Mathilde in it. Her extravagant robes and the typical Zeeland costume have something in common. And that while I painted it in 2010, I was not busy with Mathilde at all for a long time. Would Hekate, the goddess of intuition, also play a part in this, because she can look at three sides at once, so that she sees the connection between past, present and future?
A fourth Mathilde painting
Meanwhile I have an idea about the fourth painting that I’m going to make about Mathilde. It must be a large canvas, 150×100 cm. Bigger is a problem, because I can not transport that myself. I keep practically thinking. Now you can say, rent a bus or have it send, but in practice that does not work for me. To be continued…
