no. 5 spring 2001 QUALITY NON-FICTION FROM HOLLAND FOUNDATION FOR THE PRODUCTION Special Issue: AND TRANSLATION OF DUTCH th LITERATURE 20 Century Classics

Singel 464 nl6-61017 aw2Amsterdam contained brief biographical sketches of more than 150 tel+631 206620662661 fifteenth and sixteenth-century Dutch and Flemish painters. Three quarters of a century later there fol- fax 6 6 6 6 + 31 20 620 71 79 lowed a most original book by Rembrandt’s pupil [email protected] Samuel van Hoogstraeten, the Inleyding tot de Hooge website www.nlpvf.nl Schoole der Schilderkonst (Introduction to the High School of Painting; 1678). Arnold Houbraken’s De groote schouwburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (The Great Theatre of Dutch Painters; 1718- 1721) was a sequel to Mander’s book, as entertaining as Which tradition can be said to lie at the root of the it was informative. With his account of nearly a thou- books we have been presenting as the best sand Dutch painters of both sexes he set the tone for non-fiction over the past four years? Everyone knows generations of art collectors. A modern classic in the the historian Johan Huizinga who achieved world history of Dutch art, finally, is Bob Haak’s Hollandse renown with his The Waning of the Middle Ages (1919), schilders in de Gouden Eeuw (Dutch Painters in the but even Huizinga had important predecessors. Golden Age; 1984), a lavishly illustrated book by a lead- From the end of the sixteenth century, Dutchmen could ing connoisseur. be found crossing the oceans. Their travel books con- Erasmus and Spinoza, the most important philosophers veyed a vivid picture of the life of seafarers, but above the Netherlands has produced, admittedly wrote in all they had a lasting influence on the European view of Latin, but left an indelible impression on Dutch litera- the outside world. One of the first best-sellers was ture. Erasmus served as a model of the humanist ideal Gerrit de Veer’s Waerachtighe Beschrijvinge van drie of tolerance, which played so important a role in Dutch seylagien (Faithful Accounts of Three Sea Voyages; 1598) history and of which Spinoza, for his part, was a pas- which was translated into Latin, German, English, sionate advocate. Hugo de Groot (Grotius), one of the French and Italian. In Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s intellectual fathers of modern natural law, exerted a Itinerario (1596), the maritime route to India was profound influence on international thinking about law described for the first time. Of great influence also were and war with his books (also written in Latin). Finally, Caspar Barlaeus’s Rerum in Brasilia gestorum historici De mechanisering van het wereldbeeld (The Mechanisa- (1647) and Joan Nieuhof’s Het gezantschap der Neêr- tion of the World View; 1950), a monumental study of lantsche Oost-Indische Compagnie aan den grooten Tar- the scientific revolution in the seventeenth century by tarischen Cham, den tegenwoordigen Keizer van China historian E.J. Dijksterhuis was well received in and out- (The Mission of the Dutch East India Company to the side the Netherlands. Great Tartar Cham, the Present Emperor of China; Most of these writers enjoyed renown abroad. However, 1665) which provided a detailed account of the Chinese many important books went unnoticed. And so we Empire. Thanks to French, German, English and Latin should like to draw attention to a number of classics translations, this book was to determine European written during the last century that have largely been views of China for a long time. forgotten. In this brochure you will find original contri- One of the most important source books on early butions to cultural history in the tradition of Huizinga, Netherlandish painting was Karel van Mander’s standard works in the field of art history, and essays of Schilderboek (Life of the Painters; 1604), which considerable literary merit. the editors 2

Johan Huizinga (1872-1945) was Professor of General and Dutch history in Groningen (1905-15) and Professor of General History at (1915-41). In addition, he was appointed editor of the literary journal De Gids and chairman of the Division of Letters of the Royal Dutch Academy of the Sciences. In 1942, he spent several months in the hostage camp Sint Michielsgestel, after which he was not allowed to return to Leiden. He died in exile in De Steeg on 1 February 1945.

Johan Huizinga HERFSTTIJ DER MIDDELEEUWEN The Waning of the Middle Ages

Johan Huizinga is the greatest of all him with grave concern. He wrote about excerpt Dutch cultural historians, whose fascina- this in his In de schaduwen van morgen (In To the world when it was half a tion with the past speaks from every page the Shadow of Tomorrow), a bestseller in thousand years younger, the of his work. He treats different areas and Dutch and in many other languages. From outlines of all things seemed periods with equal ease: France and the then on, he was also considered a cultural more clearly marked than to Low Countries in the late Middle Ages, critic. us. The contrast between suf- and France during the Renaissance, Huizinga gained further international fering and joy, between adver- the Dutch Republic during the Golden renown with his Homo ludens, in which he sity and happiness, appeared Age, the United States of America in the framed the bold hypothesis that culture more striking. All experience twentieth century. His approach was so has emerged in all the great civilisations in had yet to the minds of men the broad that he found it easy to combine the the form of a game. In particular, the con- directness and absoluteness of history of language and the visual arts with stitution, jurisprudence, warfare, culture the pleasure and pain of child- what he called ‘the forms of thought and in the narrower sense had their origin in life. Every event, every action, life’ characteristic any given period. serious games. This debatable but masterly was still embodied in expressive In 1924 he achieved international renown study helped to make his name as a cul- and solemn forms, which raised with Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen, in which tural philosopher. them to the dignity of a ritual. he presented a dazzling panorama of the His broad outlook and interdisciplinary For it was not merely the great cultural history of France and the Nether- approach, his concern with intellectual facts of birth, marriage and lands in the age of the Dukes of Burgundy. history and his evocative style made death which, by the sacredness That same year his critical biography of him6–6despite his expressly conservative of the sacrament, were raised the great humanist Erasmus appeared, in views6–6one of the most modern of Dutch to the rank of mysteries; inci- English as well as in Dutch. historians. The reason why his work was dents of less importance, like a During the 1930s, Huizinga grew increas- given new importance in the nineties is journey, a task, a visit, were ingly perturbed by the course of events undoubtedly connected with his study of equally attended by a thousand under Communism in the Soviet Union history for history’s sake: not the wish to formalities: benedictions, cere- and National-Socialism in Hitler’s Ger- alter the present but to gain wisdom monies, formulas. many. But he believed that he could detect through the study of the past. In a sense, disturbing developments even in his own this rendered him immune to changing west European cultural environment: the fashion and imbued his work with a time- political system, the run-away economy, less and fresh appeal. the daily press, radio and film, all filled publishing rights translations details Caroline van Gelderen Huizinga’s writings have appeared in numerous languages. Many of these Herfsttij der middeleeuwen Literary Agency translations, especially into Spanish, Portuguese and central and east (1919; revised and Bachlaan 34 European languages, are often based on the German, English or French illustrated edition by 1217 bx2Hilversum versions. New translations from the original Dutch text are urgently needed. The Waning of the Middle Ages was published in Arabic (1978), English (1924; Contact Publishers, 1997) tel +631 356624613636 1996), Finnish (1951), French (1932), German (1924, 1951), Hebrew (1977), fax +631 356623627640 Hungarian (1938), Italian (1940, 2000), Lithuanian (1996), Polish (1961), e-mail Portuguese (1978), Romanian (1971), Russian (1988), Serbo-Croat (1964, [email protected] 1974), Slovak (1990), Spanish (1930), Swedish (1927). 3

One of the most important Dutch writers to have emerged after the Second World War, (b. 1927) gained international recognition with his novel De aanslag (1982; The Assault, 1985) but above all with his most important work, De ontdekking van de hemel (1992; The Discovery of Heaven, 1996), which has been translated into many languages and has earned the author universal acclaim. Although Mulisch’s journalism and essays are wide-ranging and of great importance (not least to the understanding of his literary oeuvre), they have not yet been widely translated.

Harry Mulisch DE ZAAK 40/61 The Case 19406–61961

In her preface to Eichmann in : ment whose approach they viewed with excerpt A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963), alarm’. That new element was embodied Man is not an established fact Hannah Arendt tells us that the Dutch in Eichmann, whom Mulisch considers but a possibility6–6open to writer Harry Mulisch is one of the few to ‘the symbol of Progress’. Unlike the everything. That of course is have shared her views of the character of ‘mythical hero Hitler’ and his faithful dis- also his greatness, but this is , the organiser of the ciple Himmler, Eichmann may not even not our subject. Our subject is Holocaust. In 1961, Mulisch went to have been a convinced anti-Semite. He the reverse of man’s greatness. Jerusalem to report on the Eichmann trial simply carried out orders, regardless of the Eichmann is nothing very for a Dutch weekly. His articles were col- moral consequences; he was an anony- grand, no antichrist or Ghengis lected a year later and published as De mous technocrat, ‘not so much a criminal Khan, but the precise opposite zaak 40/61. as a man who stopped at nothing.’ of grandeur: pettiness. Eich- Mulisch modestly calls his book a report, Mulisch typifies him as ‘the smallest of mann as the smallest of but it is much more than that: a personal men’, behind whom modern technology men6–6with that portrayal we and most disturbing essay on the Nazi loomed; this is an idea that also plays a come closest to his likeness. mass murder of European Jewry as crucial role in Mulisch’s novels. The dan- And the reason why he could be brought out in the Eichmann trial. gers of modern technology, which at their so small was that technology Mulisch’s stake is high. He does not con- most banal were made manifest in the per- was so great: just think of the fine himself to the case alone, but takes a son of Eichmann, force us to examine and railways, the administration, leap into speculating on the destructive reflect upon ourselves. For Mulisch, Eich- the gas chambers, the cremato- drive in the contemporary art, which mann is not some inhuman devil, but the ria. found its unintended culmination in person we all see in our mirrors. The ques- ‘Auschwitz’. Not that Mulisch blames the tion of morality that this raises is what artists; he believes there is a deep and fun- Mulisch tries to answer with imagination damental gulf between art and reality. and sensitivity in De zaak 40/61. The essay The artist’s destructive imagination was has lost none of its topicality. more a form of resistance to the ‘new ele- publishing details rights rights sold De zaak 40/61: Een reportage (1962) 194 pp. (Tiamat, 1987 and P.O. Box 75184 Aufbau, 1995) nl6-61070 ad2Amsterdam tel +631 206306596810 fax +631 206306596824 e-mail [email protected] 4

Abel Herzberg was born in in 1893, the son of Russian emigrants, and died in 1989. He wrote plays and novels, many about Biblical characters (Saul, Herod, Jacob and Joseph), but is best known for his highly personal essays and memoirs of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp: Amor fati, which came out in 1946 and Tweestromenland (Mesopotamia, 1950). He also wrote Kroniek der Jodenvervolging (Chronicle of the Persecution of the Jews, 1950), dealing with the German occupation of the Netherlands. In the collection, Om een lepel soep (For a Spoonful of Soup, 1972), he presented a series of unforgettable glimpses of the human weaknesses he encountered in his life- long work as a lawyer. His work was distinguished with the Constantijn Huygens Prize (1964) and the P.C. Hooft Prize (1972), the highest award of Dutch letters.

Abel J. Herzberg BRIEVEN AAN MIJN KLEINZOON

Letters to my Grandson excerpt When my grandmother bought a chicken it was no simple mat- Who is Chaim Finkelstein from Bialy- The stories teem with unforgettable char- ter. Needless to say, she felt the stok? A nobody, because he is a refugee acters: Herzberg’s grandfather (who is the chicken front and back, exam- and an immigrant. And so he must first happiest of men when his grandson shares ined and weighed it, and become a somebody. He must learn to his table on a Friday night in his small knocked the price down. But look upon his new country as home and Russian home), his grandmother (who the chicken was meant for the realise that his origins have to become past performs the ancient Jewish purification Sabbath and on the Sabbath history. To remind his grandson of his ori- rites in a houseboat on the Amstel river), every Jew receives a special gins, Abel J. Herzberg writes how all this an aristocratic Jew from St. Petersburg soul. That soul is filled with has happened to his family. (who lives in shabby splendour) and heavenly bliss and has to have His parents were Jewish immigrants from countless Hasidic teachers who explain a suitable dwelling. Everything Russia who settled in Amsterdam. They God’s will in miraculous stories. connected with the Sabbath brought a world and a with them Brieven aan mijn kleinzoon is not only an was a preparation for the hard to reconcile with their new surround- encounter with a world long gone and an reception of that soul and for ings. Herzberg tells about his visit to his introduction to Jewish rituals and cus- fitting out its home. To that grandfather in a Jewish village in Lithua- toms; it also drives home the lesson that end you worked and lived the nia, about the prayer room that his father nothing in life is completely black or whole week long. The buying fitted out in the back of an Amsterdam white. Herzberg probes deep into everyday started on Thursday, the white house, and about the everyday life of Russ- emotions, which he describes with com- tablecloth was laid on Friday ian Jews in Amsterdam. He introduces his passion but also with mildly ironic detach- afternoon, and the candles lit grandson to the principles of Hasidism ment. This approach is what helped turn and blessed before nightfall. and explains what being a Jew really him into a moral authority in the Nether- Eating and drinking were part means6–6even for those, like himself, have lands. Nowhere in his work is his humane of it all and the chicken most stopped being religious. The writer con- outlook as concrete and at the same time particularly so. So let me tell jures up his world incisively and with an as universally identifiable as it is in Brieven you, when my grandmother immediacy that is larded with the mild aan mijn kleinzoon, still the best-loved of bought a chicken it was no humanism characteristic of all his writing. all his writings. laughing matter. publishing details rights rights sold Brieven aan mijn kleinzoon (1964) 127 pp. Querido Germany (Otto Müller, 1967) Singel 262 nl6-61016 ac2Amsterdam tel+631 206556116262 fax+631 206636916968 e-mail [email protected] 5

Dick Hillenius (1927-87), a biologist, poet and essayist, was an expert on the taxonomy of chameleons, frogs and toads, and was keenly interested in behavioural psychology. His playful, not to say light-hearted treatment of Darwinism (natural selection) and of ethological ideas (territory, aggression, hierarchy) was not always well received by serious scientists. Hillenius’s other publications include Tegen het vegetarisme (Against Vegetarianism), De vreemde eilandbewoner (The Strange Islander), Het romantisch mechaniek (The Mechanics of Romanticism) and Een klein apparaat tegen rechtlijnigheid (A Small Machine to Fight Consistency).

Dick Hillenius OEFENINGEN VOOR EEN DERDE OOG Exercises for a Third Eye

Dick Hillenius wrote on biological subjects with an infec- nervous system from which our own could eventually tious enthusiasm and single-mindedness that are rare in emerge.’ research scientists. He felt passionate about frogs, toads, In much of his work you can feel the fear of commitment, and chameleons, but wrote with equal facility about music, the fear of becoming part of the bureaucratic machinery, literature and the visual arts. It would not have taken the fear of adapting oneself to the prevailing approach. much for him to become a composer. He was a great scep- Hillenius disliked being patronised as much as he disliked tic, convinced that the whole of science is hypothetical and opinionated teachers who had long since stopped teaching that the truth keeps shifting. He conducted mental experi- anybody anything. To escape from their clutches was a ments, broached new themes in an original way and was matter of great importance to Hillenius, who would go on always keen to connect what was still unconnected. forays into virgin territory, a splendid way of tickling the Hillenius mustered his arguments in a fine literary style, senses with new stimuli. hard to achieve by critical scientists. Above all, you read ‘As far as human beings are concerned, their evolution is Hillenius for his originality and approach. ‘Let me tell you subject to two great mechanisms, Mendel’s laws and something about shrimps,’ he wrote on one occasion. He humane attitudes. I used to think that the reason why, continued with an amusing passage about the origins of a after the discovery of his famous laws, Mendel suddenly most primitive nervous system: ‘Sea-urchins, starfish and stopped making further experiments and spent the rest of sea cucumbers live a bleak existence, having crept over the his life pondering over sacred texts, was that he was afraid bottom of the sea or having burrowed in it for thousands of the consequences. Much as so many Catholics or Pla- of millions of years. Their larvae by contrast, equipped tonists like to harp on the fact that we can carry science with flapping and decorative fringe appendages, can move too far6–6just think of Duinkerken’s peeled onion, all the up right to the surface of the sea. It was probably from one layers have been stripped away and nothing remains but such larva, loath to grow into the grubby state of its par- tears.’ That was a view with which Hillenius most certainly ents, that the first sea squirts originated. Not the most bril- disagreed. He believed that we must try to get to know as liant solution. But this form contained the beginnings of a much as we can. publishing details rights Oefeningen voor een derde oog (1965) 144 pp. Hillenius Estate Published by De Arbeiderspers, currently out-of-print Falckstraat 12 nl6-61017 vw2Amsterdam tel +631 623660613 6

Jacques Presser (1899-1970) was Professor of History at the University of Amsterdam and was commissioned to write Ondergang by the Dutch government. He worked on his book for fifteen years. In 1957, he published the novella De nacht der Girondijnen (The Night of the Girondists), which became an international beststeller. Its leading character is an assimilated Jewish teacher in the Dutch transit camp of Westerbork, who helped the Germans to select Jews for transport to Auschwitz, until he realised that, being a Jew, he was bound to share the fate of those he had sent away.

Jacques Presser ONDERGANG Ashes in the Wind: The Destruction of Dutch Jewery

When Jacques Presser’s Ondergang became the historian of a period in which excerpt (translated into English as Ashes in the he and his people were turned into vic- This book tells the story of Wind) first appeared, twenty years after tims. Despite his personal involvement (as murder6–6of murder on a scale the end of WWII, the book hit Dutch soci- a Jew he had to go into hiding while his never known before, with mal- ety like a bomb. What people knew in wife was deported and gassed) he was able ice aforethought and in cold general but had forgotten, passed over in to preserve his historical distance. That blood. The murderers were silence or repressed during two decades, took a tremendous effort. He tells us that Germans, their victims was here described in every gruesome he had to choose between keeping silent Jews6–6in the Netherlands they detail: the systematic humiliation, isola- and writing. He saw no third possibility. mounted up to a hundred tion, despoliation, and extermination of He chose writing because he felt the call to thousand, less than two per Dutch Jewry. serve as ‘the spokesman of those doomed cent of those killed by the Nazis Of the 140,000 Jews who lived in the to eternal silence, and who, here and now, in the course of their final solu- Netherlands in May 1940, most of those just this once, could make themselves tion of the Jewish problem. In deported never returned alive. Ondergang heard again.’ this process, Dutch Jewry was is the harrowing chronicle of this history. It was only with Presser’s Ondergang that put outside the law, isolated, Within about thirty pages the reader is such a traumatic subject for Dutch society robbed of all its possessions, filled with a sense of oppression6–6so much began to be aired. The discussion of the deported and cut down with contempt and hatred has been crammed attitude of the Dutch people and Dutch near-scientific precision… into these early passages. Presser’s tone is authorities during the German occupation emphatic, his analysis systematic, his argu- is not yet closed and keeps stirring. The ments convincing. books that have been published about the In addition to being a historian, Presser fate of Dutch Jewry between 1940 and 1945 was also a poet and a writer. He gained are at most detailed additions or else they international recognition with his gripping add fine distinctions to Presser’s study. novella, De nacht van de girondijnen. The bitter core of Ondergang has not been Presser’s role was a very special one: he changed. publishing details rights rights sold Ondergang: De vervolging en verdelging van het Sdu Souvenir Press (UK 1968), Nederlandse jodendom 1940-1945 (1965) two P.O. Box 20025 Wayne State University Press volumes, 526 and 564 pp. nl6-62500 ea2The Hague (USA 1988), Symposium (English authorized edition: 556 pp.) tel +631 706376896740 (Russia 1998). fax +631 706376896706 e-mail [email protected] website ww.sdu.nl 7

Louis de Jong (b. 1914) is a historian who worked in London during the Second World War for Radio Orange, which broadcast regularly to the occupied Netherlands. In 1945, he was appointed director of the newly established Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation. Having gained national fame with his television series ‘The Occupation’ he published the first volume of his magnum opus, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog in 1969. The last and twelfth volume appeared in 1988, later complemented by two volumes of appendices and reactions to the work.

Lou de Jong HET KONINKRIJK DER NEDERLANDEN IN DE TWEEDE OORLOG The Kingdom of the Netherlands During the Second World War

No event shocked twentieth-century Dutch society so segregation, the economic crisis of 1929 and unemploy- deeply as the German invasion on 10 May 1940. It put a ment, the mutiny on the cruiser ‘The Seven Provinces’ sudden end to a long history of intransigent neutrality. which caused such great consternation in 19336–6all are The First World War had passed the Netherlands by, but included. the Second World War was something in which the coun- A large part of the book is devoted to an in-depth discus- try was deeply involved until the German capitulation on 5 sion of the protest by right-wing authoritarians against May 1945. The fate of the Kingdom of the Netherlands verzuiling and conservatism. The Netherlands, too, had its between 1940 and 1945 has been recorded by Lou de Jong, native variety of fascism in Anton Mussert’s nsb and a for many years director of the Netherlands State Institute number of smaller parties, with leaders who modelled for War Documentation, in a major work running to themselves on Mussolini or Hitler. The final chapters are twelve volumes, which became an unprecedented best- devoted to the tense relations with Germany, to the state of seller. the Dutch defences and to the frantic attempts by the Most of the volumes give a continuous account, virtually Dutch government to maintain the country’s traditional day-by-day, of how the Dutch people were affected by the neutrality in the face of the increasing threat of war. German occupation. Only the volumes dealing with pris- Despite his vast canvas, De Jong succeeds in keeping his oners and deportees, and the government-in-exile in Lon- story under strict control, without overlooking a host of don and the Dutch East Indies are independent parts. The colourful and characteristic details. In particular, his por- same is true of Volume I, Voorspel (Prelude), which pre- traits of the historical protagonists, big and small, are sents the antecedents of the occupation in a broad impressive. A case in point is his portrait of Martinus van panorama going back to the nineteenth century. der Lubbe, the Dutch worker who is alleged to have set fire Anyone wishing to learn more about twentieth-century to the Reichstag in 1933 as a protest against the Nazi Dutch history before it was changed radically by outside regime6–6Hitler’s excuse for settling scores with his Com- intervention can do no better than turn to De Jong. With munist opponents in parliament. For De Jong, historiogra- his compositional skill, his great narrative powers and phy is not about isolated structures and great outlines, but thorough knowledge of the historical sources, he brings always the story of the people who actually make history. the past vividly to life. The First World War and its conse- quences, the abortive 1918 attempt at revolution, the typi- cally Dutch phenomenon of verzuiling, denominational The State Institute for War Documentation has published a selection of five chapters from Het Koninkrijk der Neder- publishing details rights landen in de Tweede Wereldoorlog on the Japanese occupa- Het Koninkrijk der Sdu tion of the Dutch East Indies from 1942-1945. No subject Nederlanden in de Tweede P.O. Box 20025 covered by De Jong’s work has aroused so much contro- 6 6 2 Wereldoorlog. Deel 1: Voorspel nl - 2500 ea The Hague versy, both among general readers and also among histori- 6 6 6 6 (1969) 664 pp. tel + 31 70 37 89 740 ans. No reliable English studies of the fate of Dutch and fax +631 706376896706 East-Indian Dutch people during the Japanese occupation e-mail [email protected] have been published to date. website www.sdu.nl 8

Ever since his successful exhibition in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, entitled Tot lering en vermaak (For Instruction and Delight) in 1976, E. de Jongh has been an acclaimed expert on meaning in seventeenth- century art. This exhibition and the accompanying book fundamentally altered the scholarly as well as the popular approach to this branch of painting, but more recently it has unleashed a world- wide debate on the validity of attaching symbolic meanings to these domestic scenes. In 2000, E. de Jongh published his Dankzij de tiende muse (Thanks to the Tenth Muse).

E. de Jongh KWESTIES VAN BETEKENIS excerpt Questions of Meaning: A cow is a cow is a cow, Gertrude Stein might have Theme and Motif in Dutch Seventeenth-Century Painting said, and many painters must have thought like- wise down the centuries. This study is based on the firm belief that personality. From his erudite and often Except for Willem Maris, seventeenth-century Dutchmen liked their amusing essays on the hidden meaning of of course, to whom cows art to be enigmatic: apparently normal bird cages (A Bird’s-Eye View of Erotica), on were reflections of light, scenes of ladies spinning or dogs playing, or the true character of ladies wearing diminu- and for several seven- even a wealthy couple leaning on a tive globes on their heads (The Changing teenth-century artists who balustrade were thought to contain all sorts Face of a Lady’s World), or on seventeenth- associated cattle with fer- of hidden meanings. The leading sub-motif century opinions and beliefs about land- tility and the element of of all these interpretations, be it of brooms, scapes (Mountains in the Lowlands) there earth, or allegorised them birds, musical instruments or toppled vases, rises up not only a world of wonders in into an image of Holland’s is the erotic. According to E. de Jongh, this which nothing is what it seems to be, but prosperity. One of these tendency to point at male-female relations is also a writer’s personality, strong enough to more complex ruminants fully consistent with the seventeenth-century survive any professional backlash. The is the white cow in a sense of humour and morality, with constant remark ‘no pun intended’ should not be much-depicted tale from vigilance on the slippery road to virtue. taken at face value in De Jongh’s case. Ovid’s Metamorphoses. It is this complex of hidden meanings, now In the 1980s, De Jongh’s talent for tracing She turns out to be Io, a covered even more by the dust of ages, that meaningful subtleties and visual double princess who was led E. de Jongh set out to decipher. The success entendres began to be questioned. Since no astray by the incorrigibly of his account of seventeenth-century genre contemporary source gave a clear definition lecherous Jupiter and art is clear from the way that his interpreta- of the rules of the alleged game, why should transformed into a cow to tions are presented as household truths in his view be considered correct? Could a protect her from the fury museums and books all over the world. spinning lady not simply be just that? In of his wife Juno. A fif- Part of this success must surely lie in our Kwesties van betekenis, De Jongh deals with teenth-century French pleasure at being initiated into a world hid- such objections. And, no matter what the miniaturist interpreted den behind a veil of innocuous normality: truth of the matter may be, it is a rare plea- this sorcery by placing Io who would have thought that a woman sure, as instructive as it is delightful, to fol- inside the cow and then reading a letter could be anything but6–6a low the tracks he pursues to shore up his giving the viewer a glimpse woman reading a letter? Another consider- view that in the seventeenth century, art was of her. able part of his success lies in his style and first and foremost a play on meaning. publishing details rights translations Kwesties van betekenis. Thema en motief in de Primavera Pers An English-language edition of Nederlandse schilderkunst van de zeventiende Van ’t Hoffstraat 33 this book was published by eeuw (1970/1995) 296 pp. nl6-62313 sn2Leiden Primavera Press in 2000. tel +631 716514644682 fax +631 716514643672 e-mail [email protected] website www.primaverapress.nl 9

Willemijn Stokvis (b. 1937) is an art historian and taught history of modern art at the University of Leiden. Her thesis on the Cobra movement gained her the Carel van Mander Prize in 1975. Willemijn Stokvis has many publications on the Cobra movement to her credit, and works as an art critic for the Dutch weekly Vrij Nederland and the art journal Kunstbeeld.

Willemijn Stokvis COBRA, DE WEG NAAR SPONTANITEIT Cobra, the Road to Spontaneity

Soon after the end of the Second World In 1974, Willemijn Stokvis published a his- excerpt War, in 1948, a number of young artists tory of Cobra and to this day, her book is ‘In essence, our culture is combined forces in the Cobra movement to the standard work. Clearly and candidly she already dead. The remain- protest against attempts to restore prewar describes the development of the individual ing façades can be blown conditions. Cobra was a passionate ‘Cry of members of the movement and also the way away by atom bombs Freedom’ (the title of a painting by Karel in which their manifestos and actions, which tomorrow, but cannot Appel). From the outset, these artists were shocked the easygoing art world of their day, deceive us even now. We inspired by a longing for simplicity and orig- were received. She bases her story not only have been stripped of all inality and they searched for ‘first signs’, dug on a host of documents and art-historical our certainties and left up from the subconscious. sources, but also6–6and this is what makes her with nothing to believe in. Cobra6–6the name is compounded from the book so valuable6–6on extensive interviews All we can still count on is first letters of the cities of Copenhagen, with the artists, many of whom have since the fact that we are alive Brussels and Amsterdam6–6was a romantic died, and on countless eye-witness accounts. and that it is part of the movement and part of a wider manifestation Stokvis has completely revised her book in essence of life to manifest of expressionist art throughout the Western this recent edition and updated it in the light itself. This vital manifes- world, including, among other things, of contemporary opinion. Thus she tation contrasts with the American Abstract Expressionism and the describes the Danish Cobra movement as a shallow airs and graces of work of the French artist Jean Dubuffet. continuation of the movement round Helh- those for whom art is Cobra called itself a ‘group of Barbarians’ or esten which harked back to ancient, primi- something separate from ‘Vikings’, a northern alliance against the aes- tive Danish art. In the Netherlands, by con- their instincts […] We thetic and intellectual Parisian abstraction- trast, Cobra marked the first breakthrough work for tomorrow’s ists who dominated the world of art. Barbar- of modern art, and in Belgium, where the world. A new society will ians though they might have been, three movement did not attain true importance be ushered in and then members of the group provided the move- until 1956, it must be considered a special man will do naturally ment with a solid theoretical foundation. moment in the slow development of Belgian what nowadays costs him These three, the Belgian Christian surrealism. Willemijn Stokvis’s Cobra book, an enormous struggle: to Dotremont, the Dutchman Constant now enriched by a great many colour illus- exist as a living being.’ Nieuwenhuys and the Dane Asger Jorn, trations, is an exceptional work, providing a Constant Nieuwenhuys, could be considered Cobra’s heart though broad and at the same time detailed picture 1948 Asger Jorn has, in retrospect, turned out to of an important art movement. be Cobra’s most important representative. publishing details rights rights sold Cobra. De weg naar spontaniteit (2001) 472 pp. V + K Publishing bv Danmark (Sören Fogtdal P.O. Box 96 AS, 2001), France nl6-61260 ab2Blaricum (Gallimard, in tel +631 356533644655 +631 356533644633 preparation) e-mail [email protected] 10

The leading Dutch expert on De Stijl, Carel Blotkamp (b. 1945) was associate professor of the most recent history of art at the Free University of Amsterdam. His publications include Pyke Koch (1982) and Daubigny, Van Doesburg, Daniels en 88 andere hoogepunten uit de collectie moderne kunst van het Centraal Museum (Daubigny, Van Doesburg, Daniels and 88 Other Highlights of Modern Art in the Centraal Museum; 1987). Evert van Straaten was director of the State Fine Arts Department and is now director of the Kröller-Müller Museum. His publications include a monograph entitled Theo van Doesburg en het Bauhaus. De invloed van De Stijl in Duitsland en Midden Europa (Theo van Doesburg and the Bauhaus: The Influence of De Stijl in Germany and Central Europe; 2000). Els Hoek has a large number of publications on De Stijl to her credit, most recently, the catalogue of Theo van Doesberg’s oeuvre (2000).

Carel Blotkamp (ed.) Two modernist stories by Piet Mondrian have been combined and published as Twee verhalen (Two Stories) in 1987. A number of DE STIJL 19176–61932 selections from Theo van Doesburg’s essays on the history of art has appeared in print. The most important programmatic article from his De Stijl 19176–61932 early Stijl-period can be found in De nieuwe beweging in de schilderkunst (The New Movement in Painting, 1983). A more recent fundamental text is Grondbegrippen van de nieuwe beeldende kunst (Basic Concepts of the The black squares and coloured rectangles in New Visual Arts, 1983). Van Doesburg’s articles on architecture can be Mondrian’s paintings have been widely used found in De Stijl en de Europese architectuur (De Stijl and European for decades in advertising, fashion and design. architecture, 1983). The Dadaist writings Van Doesburg published under They were originally the expression of a philo- the pseudonym of I.K. Bonset have been collected under the title of Het sophical attitude and of an aesthetic approach, andere gezicht van I.K. Bonset (The Other Face of I.K. Bonset, 1983). rather than a ‘new look’ in painting, which was given concrete form in the art periodical De Stijl founded in 1917. The driving force behind De Stijl was with a central figure but nevertheless part of a solid whole. the artistic all-rounder Theo van Doesburg.. His collabora- The heated discussions in the periodical about the role of tors, apart from Mondrian, included the painters Bart van art and its social function run like a thread through the der Leck and Vilmos Huszar and the architects J.J.P. Oud work. The eventful history of the periodical moreover and (later) Gerrit Rietveld. opens up a unique perspective on artistic life in Europe, In De beginjaren van De Stijl, the art historian Carel especially after the First World War when De Stijl ventured Blotkamp, together with a select group of research work- on to international ground and became ‘more mod- ers, looks at how the movement developed out of nine- ernistic’. teenth-century views of art. With the help of documents This development is discussed in the second part of the and illustrations6–6some published for the first time in this diptych, De vervolgjaren van De Stijl. In the 1920s De Stijl book6–6they demonstrate how profoundly Van Doesburg made contact with such artistic trends abroad as the and particularly Mondrian were influenced by Hegelian- Bauhaus in Germany, constructivism and suprematism in ism, Platonism and theosophy. De Stijl set itself up not just Russia and L’Esprit Moderne and Cercle et Carré in France. as a current in art but as a movement determined to trans- To these6–6often conflict-ridden6–6relations De vervolgjaren form all aspects of existence. In their fascinating search for devotes a number of separate chapters. They not only the sources of De Stijl, Blotkamp and his team lay bare an throw fresh light on the early twentieth-century avant- intellectual world at odds with the accepted rationalist garde, but, thanks to the flamboyant character of Mon- view of the work of the artists concerned. drian and above all of Van Doesburg, also provide an De beginjaren van De Stijl is divided into chapters, each interesting chronique humaine of their personalities. publishing details rights mondrian and van doesburg in translation De beginjaren van De Stijl Uitgeverij L.J. Veen The essays, reviews and stories by Piet Mondrian have been translated 1917-1922 (1982) Postbus 13 into English under the title of The New Art6–6The New Life: The Published by Reflex, Utrecht 1000 AA Amsterdam Collected Writings of Piet Mondrian (Thames and Hudson, 1987). De vervolgjaren van De Stijl tel +631 206526496800 Other translations of Mondrian’s writings have appeared in Italy (Feltrinelli, 1975), in Argentina (Victor Lery, Buenos Aires, 1956) in 1922-1932 (1982) tel +631 206626766851 Spain (Arquilectura, 1983). Essays by Theo van Doesburg have Published by Veen, e-mail [email protected] appeared in Italy (Officina Edizioni, 1979) and in Spanish Amsterdam (Arquilectura, 1985). 11

Roelof van Gelder is a historian. In 1997 he published Het Oost-Indisch avontuur (The Dutch East Indies Adventure) on the role of Germans working for the Dutch East India Company. He was a contributor to the daily nrc Handelsblad and wrote countless articles on cultural history. Renée Kistemaker is a historian at the Amsterdam Historical Museum. She is particularly interested in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Dutch history, in which the city of Amsterdam often played a central role. In addition, she has specialised in the early modern history of collections and has been working for the past ten years on relations between the Netherlands and Russia around 1700.

Roelof van Gelder and Renée Kistemaker AMSTERDAM IN DE GOUDEN EEUW Amsterdam in the Golden Age

‘A nyone approaching the city of Amster- to the unique aspects that turned Amster- excerpt dam from the Zuider Zee in the seventeenth dam into the famous city she was: the In the living rooms of the century, was faced by a forest of masts. Exchange Bank in which the modern well-to-do, wooden pan- Those, on the other hand, who approached exchange of capital originated, water man- elling rose to about two- from inland beheld a typical Dutch town agement which facilitated land reclamation thirds of the height of the skyline: embankments with windmills and and early sewerage work, the criminal law room. […] Many people behind them a multitude of church roofs and the charitable institutions in which a put up paintings or maps and slender spires. Once in the city one saw humanist wind began to blow. on their walls. The pale an astonishing variety of house, and ware- In the turbulent history of the Dutch Repub- green or yellowish glass of house fronts and, suddenly beside a canal, lic, Amsterdam always steered her own leaded windows admitted caught a glimpse of a church steeple.’ course. The tensions this caused and the highly tempered light, This is how the authors describe Amsterdam links between the history of Amsterdam and which was the more in its heyday. During the Golden Age, it was that of Europe are dealt with at length in this appealing when the lower the undisputed centre of Dutch culture and book. The city owed an important part of its part of the tall cruciform economic life. Its trade links extended from hegemony to technical skills, ranging from window was shuttered off. South America to Japan. The most promi- revolutionary ship-building techniques to Sometimes the light was nent artists worked there. Books were the ingenuity of her artists, craftsmen, engi- reflected in a copper chan- printed in every conceivable language, and neers and architects, who gave the city the delier, suspended from a science and technology presided over the look that still enchants the visitor. heavy oak beam, or in a city’s development. Its tolerant spirit created The book not only conveys a compelling peculiar dried fish or some a haven for such philosophers as Descartes picture of life in seventeenth-century Ams- other exotic object that and Locke. terdam, but also shows how the city was had been brought home Van Gelder and Kistemaker show us how organised and run politically and economi- from distant lands and Amsterdam grew from an unsightly thir- cally. It lays bare, soberly and convincingly, hung up in the room. teenth-century village into the third city of the miracle Amsterdam once was6–6and Europe, and how her brilliant star gradually partly continues to be. dimmed again. They pay particular attention publishing details rights Amsterdam 1275-1795. De ontwikkelingen van een Uitgeverij J.M. Meulenhoff handelsmetropool (1983) 278 pp. P.O. Box 100 nl6-61000 ac2Amsterdam tel+631 206556336500 fax+631 206626586511 e-mail [email protected] website www.meulenhoff.nl 12

Since the 1970s, Rudy Kousbroek has been writing essays for the Dutch newspaper nrc Handelsblad on subjects ranging from to bicycles, cars and the Dutch national character. These essays have been collected in various volumes under the collective name of ‘Anathemas’. Kousbroek’s other writings include De aaibaarheidsfactor (The Strokability Factor), a phenomenology of cats.

Rudy Kousbroek HET MEER DER HERINNERING The Lake of Remembrance

‘One serious drawback is the impossibility of becoming ered as experience rendered suitable for communication, a somebody else.’ That quotation is the most succinct sum- transformation needed to render hard facts accessible to mary of the theme Rudy Kousbroek broaches in Het meer the emotions, much as a microscopic preparation must be der herinnering. It is the basic melody, the basso continuo dyed before it can be interpreted.’ that links his contributions, namely melancholy wrapped How do we find our way to a house that no longer exists? in humour and analytical thought. The twenty-four essays Kousbroek knows the answer from experience: his parents’ in this book deal mainly with variations on the theme that house on the east coast of Sumatra where he spent his first there are limitations to human existence which can only be twelve years is as alive in Dutch literature as it has been crossed in the imagination. The realm of the imagination, razed to the ground in reality. For Kousbroek, Indonesia is this human reservoir of melancholy and desire, is the sub- paradise lost in all possible senses: lost to the Netherlands ject of this book. Accordingly, it deals with the impossibil- as an old, decried but no less beloved colonial culture; lost ity of becoming what you once were: a happy child, for to himself, as the paradise of his childhood, and also lost in instance, or an inhabitant of Paris when the streets were a more general or figurative sense, as a demonstration of still uncrowded and calm, and the impossibility of being the experiential fact that not only human beings are mor- who you would like to be: the lover of Madame de Kubly, tal, but worlds too. Kousbroek has written another book as for instance. well about this particular lost world, one that may be con- For Kousbroek the most universal themes6–6nostalgia, cru- sidered a classic of Dutch literature: Het Oostindisch kamp- elty, unrequited love, the longing for death, the secret and syndroom (The Dutch East Indies Camp Syndrome). meaning of tears, the pathology of fortune and Such worlds and above all memories of them carry their misfortune6–6are inseparably bound up with the most per- own complications and Kousbroek would not be Kous- sonal approach, which is not the same as saying that the broek if he did not lay that fact on the dissecting table. ‘It individual is a floating soul. In the Netherlands, Kousbroek is as if the brain believed that its task was to mould experi- is, in fact, known as a rationalist, an enemy of obscuran- ence into works of art, the better to preserve what is valu- tism. Hence he treats the most romantic and emotionally able in all we have seen, felt and thought.’ Het meer der charged subjects in his book as particular mixtures of per- herinnering is an ode to memory, that glorious but sonal musings and detached enquiry. ‘Art may be consid- untrustworthy lake.

publishing details rights translations Het meer der herinnering. Anathema’s 5 Uitgeverij J.M. Meulenhoff A Japanese edition of Het Oostindisch (1984) 174 pp. P.O. Box 100 kampsyndroom was published by Sosisha nl6-61000 ac2Amsterdam (1998). tel+631 206556336500 fax+631 206626586511 e-mail [email protected] website www.meulenhoff.nl 13

A.Th. van Deursen (b. 1931) was professor at the Free University of Amsterdam until 1996. He is unrivalled among Dutch historians in his grasp of seventeenth-century Dutch society. His familiarity with the primary sources has given him a keen insight into the prevailing social and political relations, and also, at the micro level, into everyday life. In 1991, he published his Mensen van klein vermogen (Plain Lives in a Golden Age) in which he examined the middle and lower strata of seventeenth-century Dutch society, the life of shopkeepers, artisans, peasants, sailors, beggars and prostitutes.

A.Th. van Deursen EEN DORP IN DE POLDER A Village in the Polder

Anyone familiar with the Dutch Golden of mutual dependence and their attitude excerpt Age knows something about senior civic to social differences. The people of Graft populating dignitaries: municipal regents, clergymen, We make the acquaintance of countless the pages of this book were stadtholders, army commanders and admi- inhabitants of Graft, among them Meyn- seventeenth-century folk. What rals. But what about the lives of ordinary dert Salm, who lost eight of his children they thought and believed, people not in the top echelons, not in within fourteen years, Maerten Jaspersz what they ate and drank, what charge of municipal government, not the schoolmaster who earned a little extra they hated and loved, what army commanders or authors of impor- by leading the singing in the church, her- they owned and lacked was all tant books? The answer to that question ring fishers and whalers, surgeons and enshrined in the communal has been given by the historian A.Th. van bakers and independent women such as experience of their age, and of Deursen in Een dorp in de polder. In this Neeltje Simons, who owned a small shop their age alone… Graft was a fascinating history of a village, he draws and was so self-willed that she dared to fairly prosperous village whose on an astonishing quantity of archive petition for a divorce. inhabitants lived largely from material to bring to life the people of The people of Graft were a strong commu- the sea. More of them were Graft, a village in the Dutch countryside nity of simple, hard-working fairly self- poor than rich, but the major- some twelve miles north of Amsterdam. contained men and women, united by the ity fell between these two In the seventeenth century 3,000 people Reformed religion and inclined to settle extremes. Almost everybody lived in Graft. Een dorp in de polder gives arguments by consultation rather than owned a small boat, almost us a picture of their everyday activities, violence. And yet their society was shaken nobody a coach-and-four. The births, schooling, church attendance, from time to time by lack of harmony, by village boasted half a dozen courtship, weddings, occupations, deaths flooding, fire, epidemics or by people who churches of three different and burials. We learn what they ate and did not keep to the rules: beggars and bur- denominations, and on Sun- drank, how they worked and how much glars, drunkards and knife fighters in the days all of them were packed. they earned, how they quarrelled, how tavern or at the fair. Een dorp in de polder A great many people learned to they spent their leisure time and how they is an exceptional book which shows a read, but very few used reading looked after their poor. Van Deursen also community typical of many other villages as a gateway to higher educa- examines their inner lives, their beliefs and in the Netherlands during the famous tion. superstitions, their views of contemporary Golden Age. life, their standards and values, their sense publishing details rights rights sold Een dorp in de polder: Uitgeverij Bert Bakker Germany (Steidl, 1997) Graft in de zeventiende eeuw (1994) 387 pp. Herengracht 406 nl6-61017 bx Amsterdam tel +631 206626416934 fax +631 206626256461 e-mail [email protected] Jaap Goedegebuure, Frits van Oostrom, Hanna Stouten (ed.) GESCHIEDENIS VAN DE NEDERLANDSE LITERATUUR History of Dutch Literature

What did the 17th century poet and diplomat Dutch and Flemish literature: innovations in Constantijn Huygens write about? What made poetry, drama, and the novel are carefully Multatuli, author of Max Havelaar, the best- outlined and placed in historical context. In known nineteenth-century Dutch writer? addition, the authors pay considerable atten- How great was the impact of the Second tion to the influence of European cultural World War on Dutch literature? To which lit- currents (from romanticism to naturalism, erary tradition do such well-known authors as from the Chanson de Geste to the realistic Hugo Claus, Hella S. Haasse, Harry Mulisch novel) on Dutch literature, making clear how and Cees Nooteboom belong? much a part of European letters it is. The answer to such questions has recently Anyone not (yet) acquainted with Dutch liter- been given in a comprehensive standard work, ature, will be struck by its breadth and versa- the History of Dutch Literature. This chrono- tility: from lyrical poetry to surrealism, from logical survey, written by literary experts, realistic to supernatural writing, from the sen- begins with Bernlef, a troubadour born in timental to the absurd. Satire, polemics, liter- Friesland in 750 A.D. and the first writer ary or socially committed essays6–6all have a recorded in Dutch history to extol the heroic place in this History, a valuable reference work feats of Friesian princes in verse, and ends for scholars and an accessible introduction for with recent developments in Dutch writing: all those curious about writing from the Mulisch’s The Discovery of Heaven and Van Netherlands and Flanders. If you would like der Heiden’s autobiographical cycles. to receive more information about this book, The reader will find a wealth of information which was first published in French by Fayard about the development of twelve centuries of in 1999, please contact us.

Quality Non-Fiction from Holland is published editors by the Foundation for the Production and Maarten Valken, Victor Schiferli Translation of Dutch Literature. The bulletin is distributed free of charge to foreign contributors publishers and editors. If you would like to Charo Crego, Margot Dijkgraaf, Roelof van Gelder, Tijs Goldschmidt, receive Quality Non-Fiction from Holland Ger Groot, Mariëtte Haveman, Arnold Heumakers, Anton van der Lem, please contact the editorial office. Maarten Valken, Janneke Wesseling

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