Page 52 - Studio International - October 1972

on the interplay of proportioned spatial
distances between unequal parts. His sculptures
articulate space as Visser's articulate mass. The
structural crux of Maaskant's pieces therefore
does not lie in concrete, material connections
between parts but rather on a delicate and subtle
effect of separateness of parts. Of course parts
have to be joined, otherwise a sculpture would
fall apart; however, if parts are connected
Maaskant takes care to make the connections
almost `invisible'; they don't work in one's
experience of a sculpture. One reads them as a
discrete touching. As often as not, though, and
more often in his most recent work, the elements
remain apart.
In a small, bronze sculpture like the early Fish
and Bird (1963) something of Maaskant's early
dependence on Brancusi can be perceived, as
well as something of his departure from the
master's example. The type of abstracted form
used is like Brancusi, unlike him is the way they
Jan Maaskant Fish and Bird 1963, bronze, 25 x 35 cm. Coll: the artist are composed. They do not 'grow' out of each
other, they come, as it were, from different ends,
and the subject of the sculpture is precisely their
brought Visser into conflict with his aesthetic this is an achievement in itself. touching. This implies that the sculpture is built
conviction that tightness was essential for Jan Maaskant, born in 1938, is ten years with two distinctly different forms : the soft,
sculptural organization.) younger than Visser. He became a sculptor in rounded fish and, in opposition to it, the more
Double Form is a rather centred sculpture. It 1960-61, an autodidact. Maaskant also started spare bird. This unlikeness of parts did
has a strong inward pressure upon which most out under the influence of Brancusi, but one eventually become an important structural
of the sculpture's effect of tightness depends. If feels that, later on, abstractness came more feature of Maaskant's abstract art.
Visser was going to variate the organization of naturally to him than to Visser. The latter really By disguising the material connections
parts he might, at some point, have to open up had to discover or even conquer abstractness by between parts, and by using parts which are
the sculpture. Parts would then stretch out into slowly progressing towards sculptures like strikingly different in form, scale, or colour,
space instead of confront it; tightness that came Double Form; Maaskant could slip into the then Maaskant first of all establishes a strong
as an effect of a closed form would be lost. His existing tradition: in 196o abstractness was there individuality for each part. Parts do not rhyme
solution was at once simple and effective: he let as a complete artistic idiom. His starting out as a (as in a Brancusi or a Visser), they confront each
the welding-seams be clearly visible. In a sculptor ten years later than Carel Visser, and other as strangers. At the same time the
sculpture like Double Form the welding-seams after him, also means that Maaskant has a perfection and precision with which they are
were there too, but in a neutral way, less different concept of what is important for manufactured renders them materially neutral.
conspicuous, without a real function in the sculpture. In order to proclaim his independence They are not meant to exist as massive elements,
organization of the sculpture itself. (They were Visser strived for a completely independent heavy and bulky, but as optical signs, denoting
meant to signify the sculpture's material sculpture, independent from both painting and abstract properties like upward and downward
non-luxuriousness and its 'honesty', which is architecture. Sculpture had to be a pure art, not movement, horizontal extension, openness,
still part of their function.) The seams in the to be compromised with other arts. In the contraction, balancing, receding, and so on. A
later sculptures are positive signs of the parts situation of 1950, this position was necessary for Maaskant sculpture, functioning as a system of
being strongly joined into one whole; even in his Visser, he couldn't very well take any other optical signs, makes the space it affects into an
rather loose looking recent pieces, made of thin course. His art comes down to some kind of object. Sometimes the internal space is somehow
sheets of steel folded up into sagging boxes and manipulation of mass into an object which forced to a stand-still; it is locked up as it were.
the like, the connections between the sheets are stands separate from its surrounding space: the Or, to put it differently, their angular, tight
equally emphasized by using a different material, sculpture is that object only, not that space. In structure tends to tauten space. (This makes
leather. By employing the welding-seams as the sphere of monumental art at that time Visser Maaskant's sculpture profoundly different from
structural means, Visser soon found a new could only make a very large object. Such a Caro's, which move much more freely in space.
freedom in composition. While Double Form is a monument, however beautiful in itself, had to be Caro's pieces have a pictorial quality, in their
little stiff and orthodox, the later sculptures somewhat traditional with a statue-like quality. lightness and transparency, Maaskant's
move much more freely upward, creep over the But Maaskant, quite in tune with contemporary sculptures are architectural.)
floor, lift themselves slantingly upward from the style, conceives of sculpture as an art of space. For the artist himself this grouping of highly
ground, hang down. All these possibilities have This means he can approach architectural individual parts and fitting them into a joint
been realized with great originality. surroundings in a different way: they challenge space has a more general and philosophic
Carel Visser is the first major sculptor in him directly. While Visser sometimes ventured dimension. In a recent text he wrote: 'Making
Holland; I don't want to diminish the into monumental art as if by accident, for this kind of sculpture is to me a way of
importance of Voltes or Courjs, but he was the Maaskant it is part of his ambition as a sculptor. interpreting living data. Not working from a life
first, in Holland, who freed sculpture from Maaskant's relation to Brancusi is as real as model, nor from nature, but working upon the
architectural decoration and urban Visser's, though much more indirect. It has to principle according to which many things in
embellishment, and showed how sculpture was do also with that peculiar tightness and hardness society and in culture are shaped and organized:
completely independent of painting and just as of Brancusi I mentioned above. While Visser by grouping, by bringing together and trying to
exciting. In a country where the artistic stepped into the tradition of massive sculpture, combine independent structures and tendencies.
tradition has always been a tradition of painting Maaskant's tightness of organization depends My sculpture wants to be a model of this'. q
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