A few words about myself ...

 

I am digitally illiterate (and hope to stay ...), so this website was not made ​​by me but by someone else. Through my cousin Bart Van den Broeck and I am very grateful for even long after my death I shall always remain grateful to him.

I was asked to do screed about myself to write.
I write about myself! Was difficult task for someone? Napoleon, perhaps, in Austerlits.But I will do my best. And may the holy Albertus Magnus mine.
Question is: How shall I proceed?
The story of my life tell? God, no! This would mean that I should have more than twenty-two thousand eight hundred and fifty days, and no two days are the same. Then I sit on myhundred and tenth even in this epistle to write. And in my old age I want peace andmuch Mozart and no scribble.
A curriculum vitae, perhaps? As if that's what a lot of work will come off.
What curriciculum told about? I was born? Obviously, here was nothing else to write. I went to school until my eighteenth? Millions of people are at school until their eighteenth, so such a statement no one will fall backwards. That at my eighteenth the painter-artist in me started to blossom, though not particularly sensational.
And since there is no question for me of a step ascending career, (I've worked, drawn, painted and lived and that's it ...) so there is not much else to curriculumen. CV to start,so.
A self-portrait perhaps? Thats has a point. "Know yourself" said the ancient Greeks, and that I do. I can tell some things about myself.



O.K. Here we go.
But no philosophizing: the big question: << Who am I? From where I come? Where do I go? >> I wish to pass. And about that other big question: "Mother, why do we live?" I do not bend, because that is beyond the scope of this epistle.
No. Just a breezy portrait of myself. More should not be.
Let me stabbing of shore.
Anyone who wishes to form a picture of me, think of a sixtythree-year-old who feels much younger. Not only a lot, but more than many! "Someone who is like ten, eleven years (or something like that) feels." This phenomenon is called 'Peter Pan' syndrome. It explains the presence in my living room of countless toys and plush animals. Bears have my preference. Lets call the 'sufferer' to the Peter Pan syndrome a 'Pannie'. I am a Pannie.
Nothing delays Pannies to search to view it in higher regions. Transcend the bears. The big meet: history, musicology, art history, botany and zoology, ... So I bend Pannie as many years on the topics: origins of Christianity, the meaning of Louis XIV, the French Revolution, Napoleon, Nazism, the collaboration in Flanders ... With an occasional sidestep to Charlemagne, Maria Theresa, Mme Blavatsky, etc. ..
On the field of art history has ALL my attention, to the floor mats of the Eskimos to. The Romanesque Illuminated Manuscript, the Russian Realists and 17th century Dutch art North enjoy my affection.
In terms of music I can be short: I am a walking music encyclopedia. But I do not wish to be brief because of my love for music but some things should be said and written.
First and foremost I am a Wagnerian, so much so that here the Bayreuth syndrome may be spoken. But I am also a Mozartiaan. And Lisztiaan. And Bachiaan ... Anyway, too much "Anen" to mention. Most gladly I also find refuge in music that, in an encyclopedia of classical music are not addressed. The werled of Charles Trenet, Mistinguett, Doui Day, Jo Leemans, Adiele Bloemendaal ... The older years in music, the more I love. The twenties, thirties and forties make me a wealth of songs and melodies that would like to whistle in the street, in the bath, the large cleaning or just ... I am a melomoon And that endless menomaner of the average melomoon Endless ...
There is a complete interaction between my music and my experience drawing and painting. Every, I repeat: every drawing, every painting is created with or through music. Music guides my hand, provides the inspiration and the joy of work. I have conducted the luck to have a nightclub of this size that I can start with quite a small shop. There is music for all times of the year, indeed for all times of day. And for all possible moods. Music = drawing / painting = music. Music or M = DP = M to give a formula.
Perhaps even give that musical works that are most often my hand and mind have led are: Das Lied von der Erde, Bruckner's 8 °, Götterdämmerung, Schubert's 8 ° and the Années Pèlerinage.
So far my melo mania, which perhaps one or other syndrome I will ponder. (Where literature comes to me sometimes the Jack the Ripper - syndrome. And if I suffer from heart disease Raynaud's syndrome. My brother even goes so far, for me to brag pansyndronisme. All I think any exaggeration to feel .. .).

Een portret van mijzelf is compleet onvolledig als mijn grote liefde voor dieren er niet in voorkomt. O ja: ik hou van dieren! Mijn God, wat hou ik van dieren. Alle dieren, ja zelfs die arme uitgestorven dinosaurussen. De dierenwereld is een wereld vol grote schoonheid en is het niet een groot wonder dat het tussen twee zo verschillende schepselen als mens en dier tot grote wederzijdse vriendschap kan komen? Beschouw mij, beste lezer, lieve lezeres, als een persoon die in vólle eerlijkheid kan zeggen; "ik doe geen vlieg kwaad!" Ik durf zelfs ternauwernood in het gras te lopen uit vrees bladluisjes of wormpjes te vertrappelen. En in het gras zitten doe ik al helemáál niet. Stel dat ik mijn kont neerbonk op enige vlijtige miertjes of een verdwaald lieveheersbeestje!
Spinnen mogen in mijn leefomgeving blijven wonen. En wanneer desgevallens een web is gesponnen waar het beter niet gesponnen ware geweest dan verhuis ik het spinnetje eruit naar een veiliger oord.
Misschien voor de aardigheid nog vermelden dat we hier thuis sinds een klein jaar een nieuwe huisvriend hebben. Zijn naam is Louis en hij is een katertje. West-Europa's geestigste en beminnelijkste katertje mag ik wel zeggen. Een onuitputtelijke bron van vreugde, dat beestje, doch ik dien het in het bestek van dit epistel niet over katten te hebben. Mijn eigen persoon, mijn eigen ikje dient hier centraal te staan.

And now i'm talking about myself again, do I need to talk for where my great love for flowers, plants and trees in the interest market. As much I like music and animals, so many I love plants. Many I know by name. The world of wild plants has no secrets for me. Incidentally, my heart goes out to the "peeflower(translated from dutch)" as much as the rose. Spring is a wonderful season, then it swarming in the nature of cute baby plants and fragile, transparent flower and shrub browse gently.
But my favorite season is autumn! Fireworks of colors! Wonder Ones sunsets! And the glorious absence of summer heat. Summer Heat hates me. Millions of times I prefer the winter. And this reference to the winter elicits from me the confession that my favorite month is the month of December.
December! A whole year (minus a month) I look forward to it.
Santa Claus! Christmas! Then enter my Tannenbaumsyndroom forward. Then there are all joy, lights, Christmas trees and glittering. And then my mind fills with the most exalted vision and thoughts flow through the wonderful feelings I am. Then I'm on my kindst. I am the most perfect way myself. Then take my animism its highest flight. And get all cuddly teddy bears and Christmas and New Year's kiss kiss and kiss lightly. In those days there is no place for Wittgenstein or Goethe or Aristophanes or Descartes. then all history and all the wisdom literature in the closet. And then my soul in the strangest of all strange present: the presence of the Christmas tree!
O blessed time! O blessed time!

I have now with all this a good portrait of myself delivered. Maybe, maybe not. I would actually still be talking about my boundless craving for happiness (actually I'm a bit crazy person ...). But I would also be talking about my alcohol problem.
This last one should remember that I was not constantly drunk staggering through life. The problem extends at times on the head. But it can also be absent for years. The bouts of alcohol abuse will also be some sort of syndrome. For example, the Jupiler Syndrome. It has given me everything together many, many days of great depression yielded. The final major gusts occurred over the past two years. It brought something very fine with it, a series of weeks stay in the rehabilitation center, The Pilgrim. What I'm one of the best summers of my life I lived. That's as good as a year ago, but I still have nostalgia for that time. It calls for the excellence of this highly enjoyable Oosterzeelse clinic. All there!

Thus writing and writing, I would damn near a few very interesting things forgotten.
For example, the fact that I've had a very happy childhood. This is important: It is partly created by his DNA, partly through his childhood. So I see it. And I have both elements ensured that I never become a crook, a scoundrel, a criminal, a scourge of mankind. Yes, the people. I'm good (maybe too good for this world) but in addition to the DNA insertion therein has everything to do with the beautiful childhood that I could do. I thank on my knees all who have contributed. Many of them are already in heaven, which they richly deserved. If all children in the world but a wonderful time as I was when ... To bad, to bad...
And there's also a strange phenomenon that I briefly explain.
As the son of the bartender 't Keetje in my life have masses of people reuve passed. Endless many who are now among the ranks of celebrities , endlessly many who have gone into anonymity. Countless students. The whole clique of newspaper Forward.Taxofficals, postmen, working people, professors, ... Oh who is actually not ...They filled my days, they took me in their pub life. Comrades, friends, good friends, I had them galore. Whole lists I could hook up with names of people who are dear to me have been in existence from time 't Keetje.
But now comes the strange phenomenon: nothing of all this is even the slightest reflection in my drawing and painting! Nothing! Drawing and painting I always have a completely different world depicted. Escapism? I find it so strange that I sometimes think of the evening there half houre about it, but musings make me any insight into the phenomenon.And then I comfort me with some Schubert or Mozart what ...
Another very important thing: the luck has always been laughing to me and still does. Here, the good fairies, who have bent over my cradle, certainly have had a hand. Family is my life a little Corsican, La Famiglia! One for all and all for one!
It may therefore not been reflected in my work. It forms the backbone of it there. And it does make me wander contraceptives on touch, a heme-free life, wandering through life continued to shuffle ...
I'm not married. Thank God. My life is so full been a mate who knows a triad twins and triplets is really no place could have.

And then I need to tell u this.
In my teens I've got the greatest gift in my life. A course in grammar, Latin-Greek section. In that school is for me the door to the world culture and humanism put wide open. Wide open!
I am a grammar school product and it has given me life filled with joy. Even today conjures up the thought of my grammar school time debeaatst possible smile on my face.
The last four years of grammar school time I spent in Ostend. Boarding school. A wonderful time. Hope friends and comrades. The Atheneum years before I lived in "t Old Kot" tightening the Ghent Ottogracht. A lovely building, Anton Pieck worthy. A building with history. The delightful school of former atheneums. Pure romance! ntill now, the facade, make with the heroic bronze statue (of someone who is doing something heroic), for me the best and dearest of all Ghent cityscapes (the Lady St Peter's after ...).


I think I now have the key to my readers have released.
Well, there is still much to tell about myself but all things are in no relation to my painting and drawing production. A human has often talked about his "second I" but I have a hundred I's. I wish the nerves of my readers not to pult grinding through each side of that hundred I's exposure.
It's been well, I think.

Here I conclude my writing but not without finally the poem to quote that for me the most valuable of all poems. It is Franz von Schober (1796-1882) and each music lover knows what a wonderful melody we all Franz Schubert has passed.

After my death my body will go to science, the donation is settled, there will be no funeral or memorial ceremonies.
But if someone would like to posthumous attention to me.

Then I suggest: read this poem on a moonlite winter night .
I will hear it...