The Magic Realism of Carel Willink - Art Discovery Contest: Holland

             
            
If you want to go down as a great artist in history, talent helps. So does an interesting personal life. Suicide, addiction or an uncontrollable appetite for the opposite (or same) sex certainly prevents artists from getting erased from the collective consciousness. Picasso had his blue period, Frida had her Diego and Van Gogh cut off his own ear.

            
            Portrait of Mathilde by Carel Willink

Dutch painter Carel Willink (1900-1983) also had something other than his artwork he became known for: his eccentric wife, Mathilde. Mathilde was both admired and criticized for her extravagant lifestyle and in particular for buying numerous costly dresses from the popular Dutch fashion designer Fong Leng during her marriage to Willink.

              

              
              Mathilde in her Fong Leng dresses

Back, to Willink... In his early work Willink experiments with expressionism, abstract and figurative styles. He was inspired by many different artists such as Kandinsky, Picasso and van Gogh. He finally settles on realism and becomes fascinated with classical sculpture and architecture after taking a trip to Italy. During WWII Willink retreats to painting portraits in order to meet his financial needs. He finally arrives at his signature style he refers to as "imaginary realism".

         
         Some of Willink's work

Roughly 20 years later and after the death of his second wife, at age 60 Willink meets 21-year-old Mathilde. They start a love affair that ends in marriage several years later in 1969, making Mathilde his third wife. Willink and Mathilde became prominent members of Dutch society which helped raise the popularity of Willink's paintings which in return funded Mathilde's expensive wardrobe. She ended up acquiring 37 of Fong Leng's designs with prices ranging anywhere from what today would have the equivalent of €30.000-€60.000 per piece.

Artistic style wasn't the only thing Willink had trouble committing to. The marriage ended in 1977 after Mathilde found out he was having an affair and destroyed some of his paintings. The divorce itself though surprisingly was against Mathilde's will, as she confessed during a television programme that she still loved Willink and would always remain loving him. In the interview she also mentioned suicide as an option.

Willink's "Goodbye to Mathilde" (1975)

I'd like to end this post with a video of an interview with Mathilde, because let's be honest: she was the real star. Sure, Willink had technical skill and excelled in his realism but would we really mention him in one breath with other Dutch artists such as Vermeer, Mondriaan and Rembrandt? Not likely. Are we all still fascinated with the unusual personality and appearance of Mathilde Willink decades after her death? You bet we are!

Unfortunately, the interview is in Dutch without subtitles but for anyone totally unfamiliar with her, it will give a bit of an idea of the extraordinary demeanour of Mathilde.

In the video Mathilde is decadently spread out on a four-poster bed while wearing one of her beloved dresses, her face adorned with her signature "permanent" make-up (Willink made it especially for her from scratch to last for several days and she even slept in it). Her bedroom is near enough empty apart from her bed, a cupboard and her clothes as Mathilde can no longer afford to keep up her lifestyle after divorcing Willink. 

Five months after this interview in 1977 Mathilde was found dead with a bullet through her head on the same four-poster bed. Cause of death is concluded to be suicide, but homicide is never fully excluded as the conditions surrounding her death remain suspicious. Willink remarries again and dies in 1983.

This post is part of @awispa 's art-geographical challenge that is meant to introduce the community to not so widely known artists from our home countries.