231
absence of any shells, or life whatsoever in the sands, and “the superstitious terrors
of the ancients, who believed it [the North Sea] to be driven by eternal winds and
peopled by gigantic monsters.” And he continued, “The sky is almost always gray,
overcast with great clouds which throw dense changeable shadows on the waters;
in places these are as black as night, and bring to other parts the sky is lighted
up by patches and wavy streaks of bright light, which seem like motionless lightning or an illumination from mysterious stars.” And he concludes a passage that
could not describe any better van Goyen’s own dozens of paintings and sketches
of Scheveningen: “The ceaseless waves gnaw the shore in wild fury with a prolonged roar which seems like a cry of defiance or the wailing of an infinite crowd”
17
(Fig. 24.3).
To perceive amid oceanic hostility the comforts of home, a nation portrayed as
hardened, resolved, and loyal to the tumult, orderly stowaways on the churning
Continent, lends remarkable insight to the paradoxical Dutch. Living forever on the
cusp of the Great Flood, as if forever flirting with all those qualities which give to
the Biblical Noah such esteem in the mind of every sentient being who understands
the value of the Ark. While many of his contemporaries prodigiously turned out
commissions of sitters in their Sunday best, unthreatening vases adrift in flowering
profusions, still lifes of dead ducks and hanging venison, entire villages buttoned up
in woolies, communing happily on ice skates, or paradise scenes from the antediluvian, van Goyen had managed to make the menacing world of imposing towers over
troubled waters, darkening skies, and the unstoppable threat of watery chasms inexplicably amenable, their brilliant light focusing upon the inner strength of character
the Dutch were granted by their very landscapes.
17 See Holland, by Edmondo De Amicis, 13th edition, translated by Helen Zimmern, Porter &
Coates, Volume 1, 1895, Vol. 1, pp. 215–216.
24.3 A Philosophy of Vulnerability
absence of any shells, or life whatsoever in the sands, and “the superstitious terrors
of the ancients, who believed it [the North Sea] to be driven by eternal winds and
peopled by gigantic monsters.” And he continued, “The sky is almost always gray,
overcast with great clouds which throw dense changeable shadows on the waters;
in places these are as black as night, and bring to other parts the sky is lighted
up by patches and wavy streaks of bright light, which seem like motionless lightning or an illumination from mysterious stars.” And he concludes a passage that
could not describe any better van Goyen’s own dozens of paintings and sketches
of Scheveningen: “The ceaseless waves gnaw the shore in wild fury with a prolonged roar which seems like a cry of defiance or the wailing of an infinite crowd”
17
(Fig. 24.3).
To perceive amid oceanic hostility the comforts of home, a nation portrayed as
hardened, resolved, and loyal to the tumult, orderly stowaways on the churning
Continent, lends remarkable insight to the paradoxical Dutch. Living forever on the
cusp of the Great Flood, as if forever flirting with all those qualities which give to
the Biblical Noah such esteem in the mind of every sentient being who understands
the value of the Ark. While many of his contemporaries prodigiously turned out
commissions of sitters in their Sunday best, unthreatening vases adrift in flowering
profusions, still lifes of dead ducks and hanging venison, entire villages buttoned up
in woolies, communing happily on ice skates, or paradise scenes from the antediluvian, van Goyen had managed to make the menacing world of imposing towers over
troubled waters, darkening skies, and the unstoppable threat of watery chasms inexplicably amenable, their brilliant light focusing upon the inner strength of character
the Dutch were granted by their very landscapes.
17 See Holland, by Edmondo De Amicis, 13th edition, translated by Helen Zimmern, Porter &
Coates, Volume 1, 1895, Vol. 1, pp. 215–216.
24.3 A Philosophy of Vulnerability