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Visual Narratives Portraits of Gerard Reve in His Study

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Visual Narratives Portraits of Gerard Reve in His Study Visual Narratives Portraits of Gerard Reve in his Study 1. E. Posthuma de Boer, Portret van Gerard Reve, met ganzeveren pen schrijvend op een vel papier, omringd door diverse voorwerpen, 1969, Collection Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. 81 Hinde Haest What is the best way in which to portray a blasphemous homosexual Dutch novelist? Haest deconstructs the staged portraits of Gerard Reve. Even without having read the work of Gerard and studios. Apart from Reve’s immense Reve, one of the most famous and controver- popularity at the time, Verkerke attributes sial Dutch writers of the twentieth century, the success of the photograph by Posthuma a single look at his 1968 portrait by photog- de Boer compared to the rest of the series rapher Eddy Posthuma de Boer instantly to its imaginative, story-telling character.2 reveals a myriad of stories around his person.1 Whereas other Dutch writers, such as Harry The writer looks at us from across his desk, Mulisch and Jan Wolkers, were photographed two fingers meditatively at his temple, quill close-up, with a focus on facial expression, in hand, as he writes ‘God is the Love’ on a Reve’s portrait zooms out and shows the rich sheet of paper. Besides the many bottles and and surreal interior of his living room in the wine glasses scattered across the desk, Reve remote Dutch village of Greonterp, Friesland, is surrounded by strange trivia such as a toy where Reve lived from 1964 to 1971. The im- skeleton, a plastic Christmas tree, a garden age thus combines portraiture, still life and gnome, a crucifix, a picture of a donkey, teddy documentary photography. The highly styl- bears, and other stuffed animals, one of them ized image simultaneously houses a ‘story’ of trapped in a birdcage. Besides stories, the staged symbolism, and a seemingly random seemingly random yet mysterious compila- and momentary still of the writer’s daily life in tion of objects evokes a plenitude of questions. his ‘natural habitat’. Who is this man? What is the collection of This inherent paradox of staged sponta- objects meant to tell us? neity renders the representational character of The image was taken as part of a poster the portrait problematic. It is not mere physi- series called ‘personality portraits’ sold by the cal likeness, nor a voyeuristic snapshot of the Dutch ‘king of posters’ Engel Verkerke from celebrity’s daily reality that makes the portrait the late 1960s onwards. The series depicted particularly characteristic of Reve’s persona, famous writers and artists in their homes but a carefully crafted allegory of his body of 82 Kunstlicht nr. 2 / 3 – 2012 thought. In collaboration with the photogra- by photographers such as Steye Raviez, Ronald pher, Reve actively constructs the image as a Sweering, Vincent Mentzel and Klaas Koppe. writer by tirelessly staging major character- The collection ranges from Annelies Romein’s istic ‘Revian’ motifs such as religion, death 1947 portraits of an ‘angry young man’, one and (homo)sexuality in the form of symbolic of which featured on the cover of Reve’s first objects surrounding his person. Such sym- bestseller De Avonden, to a 2004 portrait of bolic mythmaking is most exemplary, but not Reve as a demented elderly man by Rineke unique, to the image by Posthuma de Boer; Dijkstra. This set of photographs thus forms the objects reoccur in various other portraits a unique visual biography of some 57 years of of Reve, taken in the late 1960s by photogra- the writer’s life. They are particularly signifi- phers such as Vincent Mentzel and Ronald cant to an analysis of the narrative function of Sweering. the studio portrait, as the collection features The portraits by Posthuma de Boer and many portraits of the writer in his personal others thus allow us to think through the role space over the course of his literary career. of portrait photography as a form of narrative. This interest in the physical space where It takes the narrative quality of the photo- the famous sojourn lives and works, and the graphic portrait beyond physical likeness, objects associated with their person, is not facial expression, and truthful documenta- a new phenomenon. Already in 1855, André- tion of the artist in his studio. Instead, or in Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri, one of the pioneers addition, it constitutes a constructed symboli- of photography and patentee of the carte-de- cal story, blurring the categorization of the visite, claimed that the photographer ‘must do portrait as a photographic genre distinct from more than photograph, he must biographe’. 4 documentary, still life, or genre photography. Disderi’s celebrity portraits, fervently col- As a hybrid, it evokes significant questions lected during the ‘cartomania’ of the French with regard to the representational value of bourgeoisie, documented the life stories of the studio portrait. Voyeuristic and mysteri- famous writers, actors, and scientists of the ous as it may seem, what story can such a nineteenth-century Parisian social scene. The theatrically constructed studio portrait convey late nineteenth-century inclusion of photo- about Reve’s person? What do the biographi- graphy in the printed press gave rise to publi- cal objects in his portraits tell us about the cations such as the 1902 photographic series person behind the literature? of members of the Royal Academy of Arts, published by Frederic G. Hodsoll in the British Between fact and fiction newspaper The Tatler.5 Such series responded Last year, the portrait by Posthuma de Boer to the emerging lifestyle cult. became part of the Rijksmuseum collection, An early example of portraiture in which along with some 500 other portraits granted the artist is defined by his utensils is a tire- by Reve’s partner Joop Schafthuizen.3 Besides lessly reproduced series of sixteenth-century Posthuma de Boer’s personality portrait, the prints of Erasmus holding paper and quill, collection holds similar photographs, typical- stereotyping his status as a writer and think- ly made for magazine covers and interviews, er.6 In the seventeenth century, Dutch genre 1 E. Posthuma de Boer, Portret van Gerard Reve, met living room. The portrait was taken by F. G. Hodsoll and ganzeveren pen schrijvend op een vel papier, omringd door is now in the National Portrait Gallery, London (NPG diverse voorwerpen, 1969, Collection Rijksmuseum Ax25182). Hodsoll’s images of literary, theatrical and Amsterdam, collection reference number RP-F-2011-21- artistic celebrities were commissioned for Tatler and 40-3. other periodicals. 2 E. Verkerke in an interview with the author, May 30, 2012. 6 See for example the 1526 Albrecht Dürer prints in the 3 Collection reference number RPF-2011-21. Rijksmuseum collection (RP-P-OB-1281), which inspired 4 R.A. Sobieszek, Ghost in the Shell. Photography and the similar stereotypical images of Erasmus by Johann Human Soul, exh. cat. Los Angeles County Museum of Theodor de Bry (RP-P-1906-1462) and the famous 1535 Art, Cambridge, MA/London 2000, p. 19. painting by Quinten Massijs (I) (SK-A-166). 5 See for example the 1902 portrait of novelist Arthur Morrison surrounded by his personal belongings in his 83 Visual Narratives – Hinde Haest painting generated a large-scale tradition [Nearer to Thee] (1966). Photography provided of studio portraiture, the ambivalent repre- him with a self-reflexive tool to describe his sentational character of which has long been struggle with death, God, and sexuality, with- contested.7 The problematic biographical out the constraints of plot and chronology. status of the studio portrait is epitomised in Through anecdotal association displayed in the contested meaning of Johannes Vermeer’s his letters, Reve strived for the divine through The Art of Painting (c. 1666). Also known as The the material and the anecdotal. According to Allegory of Painting and The Artist’s Studio, the him, the need to return to futile past memo- painting has both been considered a veritable ries ‘must house the explanation that contains self-portrait of the artist, and a staged allegory the abhorrence of “this disastrous life”.’12 The symbolizing the art of painting as an abstract anecdotal quality of the peculiar combination concept. between staged genre photography, portrai- The autobiographical nature of the Reve ture, and symbolic still life therefore seems an portraits is similarly contested. In 2001 the appropriate way to portray a man like Reve, a Letterkundig Museum, the museum of Dutch fervent believer of the futile detail embodying literature in The Hague, published Steye Ra- the essence of meaning. viez’s portraits of Gerard Reve (which are also part of the Rijksmuseum collection) as part of Gerard Reve’s Biographical Objects their series Achter het boek [Behind the book].8 Posthuma de Boer’s portrait inspired the After Roland Barthes declared the death of paperback covers of Op weg naar het einde and the author in 1967, dichotomising the author Nader tot U, where Reve is portrayed hold- and his oeuvre as two separate phenomena ing a cat, paper, and quill, surrounded by that should be considered independently, this various (kitsch) objects. ‘Brief uit Greonterp’ series aimed to revive the importance of the [Letter from Greonterp] (1964), published in individual that supposedly hides behind the Nader tot U, narrates the objects in his study. literature.9 In the case of Reve, this distinc- A seemingly random sequence of anecdotes tion between art and author cannot easily be about the origin and current use of the objects drawn. Though his prose is said to be fiction- embody Reve’s explorations into God, Death, al, the anecdotes in both his letters and novels and Love. Apart from the elaborate religious are often clearly autobiographical. The cat- symbolism in the form of crucifixes, a golden egorization of fact and fiction is particularly lamb, and statues of the Virgin Mary, the dysfunctional in the case of Reve, who renders images also feature less obvious citations of the personal object allegorical, and seeks pivotal themes in Reve’s oeuvre.
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