Maryleen Schiltkamp and Art's Nobler Aspirations

All too often what is termed "Neo-Classicism" in contemporary art is a misnomer, a campy pop parody of classical themes couched in postmodernist irony. At its core it is as self-consciously cynical and opportunistically decadent as the "new-Expressionism" of the nineteen seventies, or the "Neo-Geo" of the eighties - enervated rehashings of once vital movements geared to a conceptual model and designed to promote art world careerism. There are artists, however, who take past movements as a starting point for innovative contemporary styles, such as Maryleen Schiltkamp, a well-known painter from the Netherlands, whose latest solo exhibition of oils on canvas, "Degrees of Freedom", was seen recently at Atelier International Art Group, 594 Broadway, Suite 305, New York City.

Schiltkamp is one contemporary artist who approaches time-honored themes with genuine commitment and unmatched passion. What sets her work apart from others who would endeavor to revive similar themes and motifs as a vital aesthetic endeavor is her ability to forge connections between the classical and the modern, the figurative and the abstract, and thus, as T.S. Eliot put it in his essay 'Tradition and the Individual Talent' to achieve 'objectivity in the continuity of tradition in art.

Schiltkamp acknowledges having been influenced by the ideas of the astrophysicist Piet Hut, whose manuscript in progress, "Degrees of Freedom" (the title of which she has respectfully appropriated for this exhibition) she admires for dealing with "how many independent choices you can make in a given situation, before the situation is fully determined." She is also inspired by Eliot's statement that "The past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past."

Certainly Schiltkamp is to be admired for her ability to put such ideas into practice in her work as well as for her intrepid willingness to depart from the legacy of stylistic simplification bequeathed to us by the Minimalists - the dictum that less is necessarily more and that all aesthetic innovation is predicated on formal "purity". If anything, Schiltkamp is a maximalist, determined to up the pictorial ante at every opportunity by introducing a wide variety of elements into the mix. Consequently, her paintings are "machines", in the very best sense of that now slightly archaic term: complex, often intricate constructions in which each part contributes to the overall dynamic of the composition and all of the elements of the picture are interdependent.

Surely this is not a complexity altogether foreign to modernism, as its foremost exponent, Cezanne, made clear through his subtle surface manipulations and shifting planes, which paved the way for Cubism. Indeed, subject matter aside, Maryleen Schiltkamp seems every bit as beholden to Cezanne as to the masters of the Renaissance in her methods of constructing a picture. It is her particular contribution, however, to imbue the multi-figure composition with an abstract superstructure that becomes as overt an element of its appeal as the figures themselves. In this way she achieves compositions that project a unique sense of energy and movement.

In Schiltkamp's most recent solo show, these kinetic qualities were especially evident in paintings such as "Daybreak," a dynamic large oil on canvas depicting a full frontal stampede of mythic steeds in angular, shard-like areas of red, blue and ocher hues shot through with areas of white. In this work, as well as in an exquisite study for it on tan paper, where the composition is pared down to its bare bones, the equine figures provide Schiltkamp with a vehicle for vigorous draftspersonship akin to that of the Futurists and the Vorticism of Wyndham Lewis.

By contrast the exhibition's centerpiece and namesake, 'Degrees of Freedom' demonstrates that the fragmented nature of modern reality can be restored to classical holism with a harmonious composition featuring several figures aswirl in a rhythmic ritual dance. Perhaps the titles signifies the artist's ability to take liberties with the art of the past without abusing the privilege, for this majestic large canvas, with its sweeping compositional rhythms, is remarkable for its exquisitely balanced combination of joyous freedom and formal restraint. The painting can be seen as the visual counterpoint of a well-known definition of poetry: 'emotion recollected in tranquility.'

Indeed, only by applying this principle diligently would it have been possible for Schiltkamp to have accomplished a powerful group of paintings and drawings provoked by the 9/11 tragedy. These include monochromatic studies of ghostly pedestrians moving somnambulantly through an urban nightmare of ash, twisted metal, and smoke in the shadow of the fallen towers. The figures huddle together or gesture stridently, the series culminating in a semi-abstract canvas entitled "NYC / Guernica", which juxtaposes symbolic images appropriated from Picasso's masterpiece with more naturalistic visions of contemporary people moving amid boldly expansive areas of strident color that, by their sheer gestural force, evoke the spirit of Abstract Expressionism. The latter tribute to the major American art movement also known as The New York School adds a sense of heroism to a subject whose emotional content could degenerate into mawkish histrionics in the hands of a lesser painter.

Maryleen Schiltkamp, however, skirts such tastelessness to achieve a somber grandeur wholly appropriate to that dark day, thus demonstrating that History Painting, once considered the noblest form of art, may yet be a possible option for the contemporary artist whose skill and passion is equal to the task.

Maurice Taplinger
"Gallery & Studio"
New York, September/October 2002