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16 Dirkie Uys Defends His Father (11 April 1838) A2/A3

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16 Dirkie Uys Defends His Father (11 April 1838) A2/A3 16 Dirkie Uys defends his father (11 April 1838) A2/A3 B2 C2 D N 16 Dirkie Uys 26 27 1 25 2 South wall, south-west projection, above door (panel 20/31) 24 3 h. 2.3 × 2.4 m 4 23 Restored fractures on the vertical edges Sculptor of the clay maquette: Laurika Postma 22 5 Stages of production 21 A1 W.H. Coetzer, pencil drawing, retained only in A2 (April–June 1937) 6 A2 Reproduction of A1 (June 1937) 20 A3 W.H. Coetzer, revised pencil drawing A1, h. 13.4 × w. 15.2 cm 7 (after September 1937) 19 Annotation: ‘Dirkie Uys’ 8 18 A4 W.H. Coetzer, Dirkie Uys; monochrome oil on board, h. 27 × w. 27 cm 17 9 (late 1937–38?) 16 10 B1 One-third-scale clay maquette, not extant but replicated in B2 (1942–43) 15 14 13 12 11 B2 One-third-scale plaster maquette, h. 78.5 × w. 85 × d. 8 cm (1942–43) C1 Full-scale wooden armature, not extant (1943–46) 0 5 10 m C2 Full-scale clay relief, not extant but photographed; replicated in C3 (1943–46) C3 Full-scale plaster relief (1943–46), not extant but copied in D (late 1947–49) D Marble as installed in the Monument (1949) Early records SVK minutes (4.9.1937) ― item 4m (see below, ‘Development of the design’) Voorstelle (5.12.1934?) ― item 14 ‘Vlugkommando keer verslae terug. Piet Uys gewond, sy seun Dirk sterf by hom: Donga aan die bokant waarvan perderuiters deurjaag, agtervolg deur vyand. Aan die anderkant (oorkant die sloot) Uys van sy perd, en sy seun oor hom gekniel, word met assegai gegooi’ (Flight commando turns back defeated. Piet Uys wounded, his son Dirk dies alongside him: donga at the top through which horseriders rush, followed by enemy. On the other side [across the ditch] Uys [fallen] from his horse, and his son kneeling over him, are showered with assegais) Panele (c. Dec 1934–36) ― item 9 ‘Indiwiduele heldedade (a) Dirkie Uys’ (Individual heroic deeds [a] Dirkie Uys) Wenke (c. 1934–36) ― item I. F.A. STEYTLER, g. ‘Dirkie Uys omsingel deur Soeloes word doodgesteek by die lyk van sy vader’ (Dirkie Uys surrounded by Zulu is stabbed to death next to the body of his father) Moerdyk Layout (5.10.1936–15.1.1937) ― scene 13 on panel 19/31, ‘Dirkie Uys’ Jansen Memorandum (19.1.1937) ― item 7.13 ‘Heroic death of Dirkie Uys’ Open Access. © 2020 Elizabeth Rankin and Rolf Michael Schneider, published by De Gruyter and African Minds. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110668797-021 348 16 Dirkie Uys Figure 16.1: D. Dirkie Uys. 1949. Marble, 2.3 × 2.4 m (courtesy of VTM; photo Russell Scott) Description 349 Description Although a group of three Zulu towers above him and fills the height of the panel, a young Voor- trekker is clearly the all-important protagonist here, picked out because he is isolated on the left, with ample space around him (fig. 16.1). It is Dirkie Uys who, undaunted by the heroically propor- tioned attackers with their raised assegais,788 kneels to aim his muzzleloader directly at the central figure. The Zulu on the far right has already been despatched and topples backwards with a dra- matically up-flung arm, while another is stretched out lifeless in front of the boy. In the foreground his father, Piet Uys, lies facing in the opposite direction to the dead Zulu, obscuring most of his body and shield, Uys’ limbs echoed by the corpse’s lifeless outstretched arm. Mortally wounded and with drooping head, Uys barely raises his upper body on his left elbow, while his right hand grasps the edge of the marble panel as though he tries to support himself. Yet he is staged frontally in a tranquil classical pose and, within the decorous frame provided by his arms, his dying face with half-closed eyes shows little sign of his suffering. He remains dignified and neatly dressed even in death, with only a loose lock of hair suggesting any loss of his calm control. Despite Dirkie’s valiant attempt to defend him, the boy’s isolation makes him appear vulnerable and a tragic end is inevitable. A riderless horse that gallops away in the left background, against a scene enclosed by flat-topped mountains, adds to the sense that the two Voortrekkers have been abandoned to their fate. 788 For Zulu dress and arms, see Bloukrans. 350 16 Dirkie Uys Figure 16.2: A2. W.H. Coetzer. Reproduction of first sketch for Dirkie Uys. June 1937 (courtesy of ARCA PV94 1/75/5/1; photo the authors) Figure 16.3: A3. W.H. Coetzer. ‘Dirkie Uys’. After September 1937. Pencil, 13.4 × 15.2 cm. Revised first sketch (photo courtesy of Museum Africa, no. 66/2194H) Developing the design 351 Developing the design Already the reproduction of Coetzer’s first drawing (fig. 16.2) shows a compositional divide of the Voortrekkers and their foes similar to the final marble. Six Zulu (one of them wounded) are approaching from the right with assegais and shields to attack the two Voortrekkers who occupy the lower left-hand side of the composition. Two people lie dead on the ground. One, at the lower right corner, partly beyond the frame, is a Zulu who lies on top of his shield and two abandoned assegais. The other, centrally positioned, is the body of Piet Uys in an oblique foreshortened view. He still clings to his rifle, but his head falls backwards towards the viewer, hat abandoned, shirt unbuttoned and legs curiously crossed. The awkward angle of his head is echoed in the wounded Zulu at the top. Next to his father, a bare-headed Dirkie with short tousled hair balances himself on one knee (the other oddly angled) to take aim with his gun, its weight partly supported on an outcrop of jagged rocks that affords him a little shelter. Behind him on the far left a horse without saddle looks back as it moves away. The Historiese Komitee requested the following alterations at its meeting on 4 September 1937: Death of Dirkie Uys. Italeni is level land with high grass. Show rolling hills; the fight takes place on the bank of a small stream; it must be a flintgun; show a horse that runs away.789 The final pencil sketch (fig. 16.3) shows traces of a different drawing underneath with a full face and left arm of the Zulu nearest to Dirkie; at some point they were for the most part covered by a shield. Following the committee’s instruction, Coetzer removed the rocks (faint signs are still detectable) and covered the ground with the requisite high grass. Without the rocky prop for his gun, Dirkie now has to support its full weight and his hands are enlarged as though to indicate this. The changes also meant that the lower part of some Zulu previously hidden by the rocks became visible amidst the grass, so that Coetzer had to supply them with legs, including some puzzlingly positioned buttocks and a bent leg in the middle of the group. The horse is similar, but its left rear leg is now lifted and the mane ruffled to suggest greater movement, and the addition of a saddle suggests that it has been abandoned by its rider. Apart from the more elevated position of Piet Uys and his inward gaze towards the Zulu attack, Coetzer’s monochrome oil (fig. 16.4) is close to his revised drawing (fig. 16.3), although the horse is without a saddle, and the grassland setting implies that it was made after the feedback from the Historiese Komitee. For the small plaster maquette (fig. 16.5), Laurika Postma changed Coetzer’s arrangement sig- nificantly, although she reintroduced rocks, showing her dependence on the earlier drawing. They form a natural stage, with more coherent flat layers, rather than a steep and rugged barrier. Again Zulu close in from the right, brandishing assegais and small shields. Two figures are more distant, while two are depicted prominently in the foreground, one forcefully attacking, the other dramati- cally collapsing, precariously balanced on the toes of his left foot on a rectangular rock. On the far left a much younger Dirkie Uys kneels on a rocky pedestal with his far knee raised in a calm and compact pose. He takes aim at the attacking Zulu in the foreground with his rifle, the barrel omi- nously overlapping the head of a dead Zulu staged prostrate on the rocks. It is not clear which of the Zulu is in the line of fire although the collapsing figure on the far right is presumably the victim. The foreground figure is again Piet Uys, now shown in a reversed pose parallel to the picture plane, with his far knee raised. The right arm crosses the body to rest over his rifle, the hand framed by the 789 ‘Dood van Dirkie Uys. Italeni is ’n gelyk wêreld met hoë gras. Wys rollende heuwels; die geveg vind op die wal van ’n klein spruitjie plaas; dit moet ’n vuursteengeweer wees; wys ’n perd wat weghardloop’ (Historiese Komitee 4.9.1937: 4m). 352 16 Dirkie Uys Figure 16.4: A4. W.H. Coetzer. Dirkie Uys. Late 1937–38? Monochrome oil on board, 27 × 27 cm (courtesy of DNMCH, OHG 902; photo the authors) strap of his gun, while the other arm is bent to cushion his head. The reclining posture and closed eyes are more suggestive of a sleeping figure than the suffering of a fallen man.
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